[Osmf-talk] AoA changes and new fee waiver for this year's AGM

[Christoph Hormann]

On Wednesday 16 October 2019, Frederik Ramm wrote:
>
> https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/w/images/c/c5/Suggested_AoA_Changes.pd
>f

Overall this looks quite good IMO.

Regarding the individual changes:

* rejection time frame - i am not sure if it makes sense to exclusively
concentrate on the acceptance period (article 15).  A Simon already
mentioned this will likely have the effect of people dragging their
feet and not necessarily will lead to decisions being made.  Remember
that in the specific case from last year the board would have actually
had the opportunity to reject these applications within the 7 days
period but could not come to a decision to do so AFAIK.  I would not
really mind the increase from 7 to 30 days but i would like to see also
a clarification on the expulsion criteria (article 18) so it is crystal
clear that in a case like the one from last year the board would have
the right to expel these members (IIRC there was disagreement on that
among the board members last year).

* vote eligibility lead time/board eligibility lead time - while i see
these, especially the first, having a negative effect on motivation of
people to participate in the elections i think this is a good idea
overall and it could even help to communicate better in the OSM
community that for an active contributor becoming an OSMF member should
be something to do independent of specific elections.

* board terms and term limits - i think this plain and simple solution
is probably quite good.  What i would probably change a bit is article
34.  Since this after the change is accepted would also apply to
current board members with very different lengths of terms a limit in
number of months served (66) kind of would make more sense IMO - and it
would also be more consistent with the draft for article 33.

* Fee waiver for mappers/contributors - this i find very good - in fact
i have been calling for a change like that for a long time.  I wonder
about two things though: Who will be doing all the administrative work
in handling the applications?  And why only associate membership?  That
would mean AoA changes would be the privilege of people who have paid.
If the general fee waiver is very successul and leads to something like
a five times increase in numbers of members (which would be great) that
could create a significant political rift between the membership in
general and the normal members which might in the long term make it
more difficult for the OSMF to function.  I don't necessarily want to
suggest to change that right now but that is IMO something to keep in
mind as a potential future issue.

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