[Osmf-talk] Commitment to open communication channels

Rory McCann rory at technomancy.org
Tue Aug 18 19:27:26 UTC 2020


People have different standards for how they want to interact.

There are people who are OK signing up for, and using proprietary 
communication channels. And those who aren't. And some (e.g. me) accept 
it a compromise. So some people don't like the environment on the list, 
some do, some accept it.

Just accept that people have different interests & standards and move on.

After all, how would you like if someone said that using Facebook, or 
Google Hangouts, or Slack or whatever is not a problem, so you shouldn't 
complain? 😉

On 18.08.20 10:09, Martin Koppenhoefer wrote:
> 
> 
> sent from a phone
> 
>> On 17. Aug 2020, at 19:41, Heather Leson <heatherleson at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> 1. Do you think the OMSF mailing list is where all community members feel safe and included to communicate?
> 
> 
> I believe it is as safe as any other channel and abuse is very rare.
> Try to find 2 examples from this year of non acceptable communication, and if you cannot, let’s reflect how “toxic” this list really is. From my perception, people spreading the myth of toxicity on OpenStreetMap mailing lists are behaving more toxically than all the communications I have seen on various OpenStreetMap mailing lists in 12 years. Disclaimer: I am not on talk-us, maybe this list is an exception I am not aware of.
> I do recall two events of unpleasant communication, in both cases I believe that personal discourses from
> the real life had moved to the lists (one was on the diversity list, the other was a flame against you before the elections I think 2 years ago).
> 
> 
> 
>> 2. If not, what steps can we take to do this better?
> 
> 
> I’m not sure we can do anything to prevent inappropriate messages completely, because of the open nature of these channels (someone would have to approve every post and having such gate keepers would be surely worse than some aggressive post every blue moon, I believe it’s less than one in a few hundred posts that clearly abusive things are posted). What we can do is speak up in defense of the attacked person if we think that a post was unfair. It also depends on the context. During the election campaign, discussions might be tougher than in regular times (like in real life, onestly, we are light years away from spreading fuzz like Steve Coast keeping children in the basement of a pizzeria, or having health issues, etc. and I don’t see a tendency we are moving in such a direction) and I believe it is acceptable, as long as there are still real arguments exchanged.
> 
> 
>> 3. If osmf continues down this road, how will they do so to also be ssfe, inclusive and equitable in terms of power and true dialogue?
> 
> 
> key is “inclusive” here. To include also means to be tolerant towards people with different opinions and a different way of communication.
> 
> 
> 
>> 4. What will each person responding to make sure that: more women respond, more people from other regions of the world respond, and, more importantly, that this is a safe and inclusive mailing list that is truly global, truly equitable and truly safe?
> 
> 
> Do we have fewer women on the channels that we have in the project otherwise? I agree there are few women here, but on the board for example they are likely overrepresented compared to their percentage in the project. I also agree it would be desirable to have more women (and maybe also children) mapping and the focus should be how to get them involved there, if more of them are mapping it will also lead to more of them posting on the lists. Locally, in Germany and Italy, there are some women which are active and as far as I can tell, feel included, but ultimately it would be on them to comment on this question.
> 
> Cheers Martin
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