[Osmf-talk] Working with Dorothea full-time

[Steven Johnson]

I applaud this move. It shows that having talented and dedicated
individuals in paid staff positions can benefit the whole project. Frederik
has made a good case _specifically_ for Dorothea because of her dedication
to the operational success of the foundation and the wider OSM project.

-- SEJ
-- twitter: @geomantic
-- skype: sejohnson8


On Sat, Nov 9, 2019 at 9:28 AM Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org> wrote:

> Hi Christoph,
>
> I think the board should probably pay someone to come up with a concept
> paper on the implications of paid work on the OSMF and its position in
> the OSM community.
>
> This sounds like a joke but I am serious. We have in the past said that
> we should mainly consider paid work for tedious jobs that we cannot find
> any volunteers for. Your request for a detailed assessment is a prime
> example of tedious work that nobody in the board is burning to spend
> their volunteer time on, so if you feel that such work is needed, it is
> perhaps time to "go the Wikimedia Foundation route" and pay consultants
> to do this work for us.
>
> Now you could cry foul and say that if the board isn't even prepared to
> go through that little exercise they should not be trusted with the
> money in the first place, but this is not a "little exercise", this is a
> very wide-ranging issue of governance that would require us writing down
> lots of things, presumably revisiting our "mission statement" and taking
> it from there. In order to prepare a write-up of the kind that stands up
> to your level of scrutiny, many many person-weeks will have to be spent
> writing definitions and drawing the line between paid work and volunteer
> work.
>
> In contrast, the board is taking the approach: We have tried it, it
> worked well for everyone, let's continue on a more serious scale.
>
> I am fully aware that this means we are lacking the answers to some
> questions.
>
> The conflict comes mainly from the fact that you view this on a strict
> non-personal matter. In your eyes, the board is creating a full-time
> position to be filled by a suitable contractor or employee, and you
> expect there to be a job description that explains exactly what we want
> the person to do and how many hours to spend on what. Who the person is
> to fill that position, is something you will only consider later, it
> doesn't matter initially. Of course, rules need to be drawn up to ensure
> that whoever takes that position doesn't usurp volunteer work or makes
> themselves a willing instrument for the board exerting more control and
> muscling their way into parts of the project they couldn't hitherto
> reach, etc.
>
> The way I see it is totally different: It starts not with an empty slot
> to be filled be a replaceable contractor, it starts with Dorothea with
> whom I have worked together for a good 1.5 years now. She is not a
> random contractor. She has her own rules and ways of doing things, and
> she is very eager not to replace any volunteers (of which she, in
> addition to her paid work, is also one). Dorothea will be the first
> person to step aside as soon as any volunteer so much as lifts a hand.
> She is the right person to do this, and the opportunity to solidify our
> work with her is a chance I do not want us to miss.
>
> For me, this does not mean we are "creating a position" that, should
> Dorothea ever leave us, has to be filled with another person. It might,
> if someone equally suitable is available; otherwise, we'll have to do
> without.
>
> > The board has apparently discussed this matter more than half a year
> > ago at the f2f but have not shared the content or results of this
> > discussion in substance with the community
>
> True, this could have been done better.
>
> > until now while continuing
> > to make concrete plans and even hiring a consultancy for advise on
> > practical implementation of their plans - all without informing the
> > members.
>
> You're not exactly making "informing the members" any more enticing I
> have to say ;) the issue with this particular item is that it touches
> the contract/employment situation of a person, and it is always a little
> unclear how much of it should be considered personal information. For
> example, if this is discussed on the board, a certain assessment of the
> contractor's qualities will come into the discussion. Is it ok for this
> to be public? Is it fair? Is it more "professional" to keep everything
> that even remotely sounds like "payroll issues" under wraps?
>
> I agree that "extending Dorothea's hours" could have been discussed
> earlier, but then again, it would have led to exactly the same result it
> does now and did in the past - your demand that "you have to provide an
> exact job description and show that this cannot be done by volunteers".
>
> I say, if you have someone as good and respectful as Dorothea then you
> do not need an exact job description. It will work out to everyone's
> benefit. You will say that it is reckless, that we have to define a
> process that will work even if the person in the job is adversarial and
> cannot be trusted to make their decisions in a way that do not harm the
> community. I will say sure, but this is not about working with "anyone",
> this is about working with Dorothea! You will say that that's not the
> point. I will say nggggghghhhh.
>
> > Specific example:  You now write:
> >
> >> [...] by helping with the
> >> administration of the upcoming microgrant programme, and others.
> >
> > But when you requested comments on your plans for the microgrants
> > program two weeks ago you did not provide any hint that you were
> > planning to administer this with paid staff.
>
> Yes, I am not involved in the microgrant discussions in the board too
> much. But it seems obvious to me that some management will be required
> and Dorothea would be well suited to do it. I think it is good if the
> design of the microgrant programme does not *rely* on there being an
> administrative assistant who can help (because if Dorothea should quit
> we might not have one), so any "concrete plan" that says "the admin
> assistant can do it" would have been dangerous.
>
> > How can you expect useful feedback from the community on plans like this
> > when you specifically hide your considerations on central aspects of
> > your plans from the members when you present those plans?
>
> This is a very good example of you suspecting evil plans when there is
> nothing of the sort. I don't know if those board members who worked on
> the microgrants programme thought in their heads that "Dorothea can do
> it", if they did, they certainly did not say it. It was me who listed a
> number of things that were *obviously* things that Dorothea *could* be
> doing. These are not "plans" and they were not "hidden" by those who
> worked on the microgrants stuff.
>
> > My intention is not to dress down the board for this - i am sure from
> > the perspective of the board there are reasons for this.
>
> Or not - as I said, it could just be some board members concentrating on
> one thing and others on another.
>
> > But i think
> > the board should understand that this is part of a general problem of a
> > culture of intransparency and exclusivity prevalent within the
> > organizational culture creating immense problems when interacting with
> > the broader OSM community who largely strongly despise this kind of
> > culture.
>
> There is a grain of truth in what you say but you are also whipping
> things up far beyond what is reasonable. By suspecting evil machinations
> where there is, at worst, a lack of diligence, and by using words like
> "despise", you are playing to an audience of outrage like so many
> populist politicians. We haven't deserved this.
>
> > What i strongly miss in your announcement is any reflection on all those
> > matters that have been the core of the discussion when the idea of
> > hiring paid help for administrative tasks within the OSMF in the first
> > place.  Specifically this is mostly about the relation and conflicts
> > between volunteer work and paid work.
>
> See initial paragraph about hiring professionals to do a month-long
> community consultation and provide a 50-page full-colour brochure with
> the results.
>
> > One of the main points of the OSMF being based on and depending on
> > volunteer work is that it forces the OSMF - in particular the board -
> > to comply with the collective needs and wishes of the volunteer
> > community.
>
> In theory this is right, and I support that. In practice, of course,
> this foundation is already eaten away at by people who "volunteer" their
> paid employment time.
>
> > Volunteers tend to have their own idea on how they want
> > things to work they volunteer for.  In a do-ocratic culture like we
> > have in the OSM community that is the base assumption we work under.
>
> ... and if people "volunteer" their paid work time, then their bosses
> are the ones in whose hands the do-ocractic power concentrates.
>
> > Now if you call for volunteers but don't want them to bring in and
> > insist on following their own ideas on how projects should be run that
> > will mean you have more difficulties getting qualified people to
> > volunteer.
>
> Of course a balance needs to be struck, you wouldn't want every
> volunteer to the sysadmin group to switch from Chef to Ansible to Puppet
> and back again. Sometimes volunteering requires to, at least initially,
> swim with the flow before you can assert your own ways.
>
> > You can then of course - using money collected from
> > corporations - buy in paid work to fill the gap and continue managing
> > projects to your own liking but this way you'd be digging yourselves
> > into a hole disconnected from the community you want to represent and
> > you could have difficulties getting out of this again in the future.
>
> Then again, collecting money from corporations and hiring someone to do
> work to our liking *could* still be preferable to being sent
> "volunteers" from corporations and submit to their "do-ocracy".
>
> Not saying you are wrong, just offering an additional data point. Of
> course, having lots of volunteers available for everything we need would
> be ideal. But there are many areas in which you cannot, as a volunteer,
> simply do what you please. For example if you had a volunteer writing
> board minutes, you'd have the community breathing down their neck to do
> it properly. If you were a volunteer in the SotM-WG dealing with
> scholarship arrangements, you couldn't suddenly say "you know what,
> we'll not do Visas this year" and so on, these things would still need
> to be discussed in the group and the volunteer would have to submit to
> the collective decision.
>
> > The motivation of the average hobby mapper to volunteer for working in
> > that project without being able to substantially shape it is therefore
> > rather low.
>
> I think if I were running SotM-WG and an average hobby mapper came to me
> offering their volunteer contribution for, in return, a chance to
> "substantially shape" the event, my response would be a cautious
> suggestion if they could perhaps start a bit smaller ;)
>
> > You will never be able to create a true
> > community conference this way that is carried and shaped collectively
> > by a large number of voluteers (like for example the CCC).
>
> I don't want to pre-empt Christine here but I think she's very fond of
> the idea of getting more people to make volunteer work contributions to
> SotM. The great thing about Dorothea is that if Christine manages to
> make this happen, Dorothea will say "great, then I can do something
> else" rather than try to out-perform volunteers.
>
> Bye
> Frederik
>
> --
> Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"
>
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