[Osmf-talk] First Meeting of Diversity and Inclusion Special Committee

[Andy Townsend]

On 12/02/2020 19:58, Michal Migurski wrote:
> 4) Some aspects of the diversity discussion foreground 
> northern/western participation channels by (for example) wondering why 
> other communities aren't participating in Talk@, SOTM, or other 
> locations. I’m interested in trying to flip this question to ask why 
> core board and community participants aren't showing up in forums like 
> geographic Telegram groups or other locations called out at 
> https://openstreetmap.community ? In a recent post, Allan commented 
> that he was often greeted with surprise by local communities who had 
> no experience of an OSMF board member reaching out and saying hello.

I've occasionally dipped into a couple of Telegram channels when I've 
needed to contact the community in places where that's the most-used 
communication channel, but using the mobile app's a bit challenging for 
a traditionalist like me - it's a pain to sign in to, you're continually 
saying no to information you don't want it to access, and the UI for 
access from a desktop web browser's pretty awful too.  I end up using it 
in a similar way to the way that I use OSM US' Slack - as a way to 
contact people who are mostly there and often not in other channels, but 
I certainly wouldn't use either unless I absolutely had to.

Another problem with Telegram is that at least one OSM community 
worldwide has struggled to access it (see 
https://forum.openstreetmap.org/viewtopic.php?id=67507 for more info).  
Obviously this is more generally a potential threat to any centralised 
infrastructure, but it seems to be an issue with Telegram now.  
Obviously people are welcome to talk about OSM wherever they like 
(Facebook, Tiktok, comments below the line in the Daily Mail - all 
places I'm unlikely to darken the door of) but it doesn't mean that it's 
a good idea to try and have meaningful conversations there and only there.

Best Regards,

Andy

(from the Data Working Group, but writing in a personal capacity)