[Osmf-talk] Working with Dorothea full-time

Sat Nov 9 15:06:00 UTC 2019

totally agree. Dorathea does a great job.

On Sat, 9 Nov 2019, 15:04 Steven Johnson, <sejohnson8 at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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"
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> osmf-talk mailing list
>> osmf-talk at openstreetmap.org
>> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/osmf-talk
>>
> _______________________________________________
> osmf-talk mailing list
> osmf-talk at openstreetmap.org
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/osmf-talk
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/osmf-talk/attachments/20191109/48ce5a3d/attachment.html>