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

[Christoph Hormann]

On Friday 08 February 2019, Frederik Ramm wrote:
>
> You are being overly sensitive here. Next time the board says "we
> hope for a prosperous year for all our members" you'll also shout
> "mandate exceeded"?

That statement to me indicates you either have completely misunderstood 
the core point of my statement or you deliberately distort it to 
dismiss it.

> > 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.
>
> "Desire to move" is perhaps too much. If the community doesn't move
> there we can't make them, but "it would be great to see that happen"
> is certainly true as far as I am concerned.

Yes, this is exactly what i understood it to mean.  I did not mean to 
say you actually put much pressure on the community (although Mikel 
with his indication of incentives clearly tried to) but you definitely 
expressed a clear desire what outcome of community discourse you prefer 
which is different from expressing the wish that the community has a 
healthy argument and establishes or re-affirms a consensus on the 
matter but you don't mind what this consensus might look like.

> Being able to give everyone the boundary they are used to see will
> make OSM more usable for many people. [...]

Yes, i know this is by far the most widespread argument for replacing 
the verifiability principle with a usefulness doctrine.  As you 
probably know i have written quite extensively on the matter some time 
ago [1] where i indicated that this might actually turn out to be the 
majority position in the OSM community even without intervention by the 
OSMF board.  But i also indicated that this would fundamentally change 
the nature of the project away from a global egalitarian community of 
local mappers.

And as you have probably seen from the discussion and comments of people 
on the suggestions for recording boundary claims in OSM i am not the 
only one who recognizes this to be a pretty fundamental question and 
potentially a turning point for the project.

> How much do I have to pay you to admit I'm right? ;)

If you have to ask the price you can't afford it.


[1] 
http://blog.imagico.de/verifiability-and-the-wikipediarization-of-openstreetmap/

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