[Osmf-talk] Board response: Disputed Area Policy (Crimea request)

[Mikel Maron]

I understand what Christoph is trying to say. I disagree with that interpretation of the Board statement. Also recognize that while I am a Board member and support the statement we put out, when I am writing here on the mailing list, I am sharing my own views.

In my opinion, the concern about balance of voices in member discussion are credible and valid and worthy of exploration. This concern is distinctly different and unaffected by an encouraging, non binding and general paragraph within a larger Board statement.
I am not offering a bribe from the Board. I am only noting that the **OSMF** intends to set up a microgrants program. We do not yet have that operational. Decision making on what specifically will receive microgrants will not be a Board function.
The State of the Map has an independent program committee. The Board is not involved in program decisions.
-Mikel
Btw, my original full message bounced because I sent from a non-subscribed email. Here it is in full for reference.
>  statement the board in my eyes quite  clearly exceeds its own mandate and that of the OSMF (as described in the OSMF mission statement).  You here express you look forward to OSM recording alternative views or opinions about the geography that conflict with what is observable on the ground.  This is not a neutral statement, this is expressing a specific direction in which you desire the community to move.
By OSMF mission statement, I think you are referring to this phrase

> the OpenStreetMap Foundation is an international not-for-profit organization supporting, but not controlling, the OpenStreetMap Project.
Since the beginning of the OSMF this has largely meant that the OSMF does not make decisions on what is mapped or not mapped. (Even that is not entirely the case, as the OSMF has been called on to adopt many policies which solidify certain practical limits on that.)
However we are not even close to that. Expressing a viewpoint is entirely within the mandate. This was simply an encouraging statement from the Board about the recent work on new ways to address disputed boundaries in the map. The Board has not made a decision, or even taken a specific view on how it should be done. No one is bound to listen to us or not.
Should that work proceed (and I hope it does!) I can imagine many ways the OSMF can support. Not least of which might be deploying updates to software components. Or distributing a microgrant. Or welcoming a talk or BoF at the State of the Map.
> Just a question. Why The board didn't think about using the OpaVote or other system to open the decision to the community?
This was never discussed as an option. The Board is the every day executive decision making body within the OSMF, and took this situation on as our responsibility, as we do with many situations placed before the Board. 
There are ways the community has input on many topics and makes decisions. I would like to see more surveying. And the Articles of Association do allow for members to put topics up for a vote the AGM and special meetings.
-Mikel

* Mikel Maron * +14152835207 @mikel s:mikelmaron 

    On Thursday, February 7, 2019, 2:24:12 PM PST, Christoph Hormann <chris_hormann at gmx.de> wrote:  
 
 On Thursday 07 February 2019, Mikel Maron wrote:
>
> By OSMF mission statement, I think you are referring to this phrase
>
> > the OpenStreetMap Foundation is an international not-for-profit
> > organization supporting, but not controlling, the OpenStreetMap
> > Project.

No, i am not, i am referring to the whole document:

https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Mission_Statement

> [...] This was simply an encouraging statement
> from the Board about the recent work on new ways to address disputed
> boundaries in the map.

No, as i said you as the OSMF board are expressing a desire in which 
direction you would like the OSM community discourse to develop and 
this way influence the discourse and taint the process.  Given members 
of the board have just a few days ago expressed concern that prominent 
voices in the OSMF create an inbalance in discourse here that is fairly 
ironic (and removes any credibility of that concern).

> [...] Should that work proceed (and I hope it does!) I
> can imagine many ways the OSMF can support. Not least of which might
> be deploying updates to software components. Or distributing a
> microgrant.

So to the expression of clear preferences of the board what it would 
like the OSM community to map (i.e. disputed boundary claims) you add a 
suggestion of bribery for doing as you desire.  Not to mention the 
implicit indication that microgrants will not be granted by an 
independent body but by the board.

> Or welcoming a talk or BoF at the State of the Map. 

So no hope for the SotM program being developed by an independent 
program committee without the board taking influence...

-- 
Christoph Hormann
http://www.imagico.de/

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