[Osmf-talk] Geolibres Local Chapter application for Argentina

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 05.05.20 11:39, Craig Allan wrote:
> The translation is a bit opaque, but I read in Article 5 that:
> a) full voting membership is available to an active OSM contributor,
> subject to an introduction by an existing active member and approval by
> the board.

I guess it depends on how this is implemented.

In the long run, local chapters will likely become more influential in
OSM/OSMF. We will give them more rights assuming that they represent the
community in their country, and that by listening to, for example,
"Geolibres" we are actually listening to our mappers in Argentinia, and
not just a club of friends at some university who had the idea to sign up.

Now the wording you cite above could easily be used to, say, run a
tight-knit club that is basically the president and their friends from
university, not letting anyone in who is from a different background
(because in order for someone to introduce you, you need to know someone
who is a member, and know them well enough, etc.etc.).

Or, the wording could just be a formality, and you just email info@, and
whoever handles your email is then the existing active member
introducing you ("this is Fred, he emailed this morning"), and the board
waves you through.

Perhaps in this particular case, if they cannot or don't want to change
their statutes, the local chapter agreement could be amended by
something along the lines of: "The chapter will inform the OSMF of any
membership application that failed to find someone to introduce them, or
failed to be accepted by the board" or something like that.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"