[Osmf-talk] Non-functional status links to local chapter applications

[Christoph Hormann]

I don't want this to turn into yet another back and forth on conflicting
values, perceptions and organizational cultures.  My intent was to
point out something on the OSMF wiki that is difficult to understand
for the members because of the partial access to information provided
there.  A simple reply along the lines of "yes, those links lead to
something only the board has access to and we will consider if it makes
sense to make this publicly accessible/we collect specific confidential
input and discussions on the local chapter applications there that we
have decided not to make public" would have been completely fine and
sufficient.

Beyond that I do not expect the board to change the way they work just
because i would like that, in fact i would be very much opposed to
that.  What i however would like to see is that the board and OSMF
working groups acknowledge that there are significant parts of the OSM
community which highly value a transparent and open work culture and
see potential benefits of a work culture more in that direction within
the OSMF.  If however the impression is that such a work culture would
turn the board into a "paper tiger with no authority" then my attempts
at explaining this have been non-successful.

Because the opposite is the case - as i have tried to explain in the
microgrants thread here more transparency often helps to reduce the
administrative overhead resulting from the need of compartmentalization
in communication and documentation and avoids misunderstanding due to
incomplete information.  And it helps getting people involved in OSMF
work which has the potential of reducing the workload of the board and
working groups.  For example Joost's latest update on the microgrant
document:

https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/File:Microgrants_working_document_snapshot_2020-01-13.odt
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=User%3AImagico%2FOSMF_board_Microgrants_working_document&type=revision&diff=1949340&oldid=1944393

would probably have been unnecessary if the document had been developed
on the wiki from the start because someone from the community would
likely have fixed these typos a long time ago.

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