[Osmf-talk] Africa as a training ground - protecting its vulnerability & HOT practices was RE: google Open Buildings usage request

[Bert -Araali- Van Opstal]

@Heather:

> With all due respect, this is an "open" community. I or anyone should 
> not be excluded because I have a job or belong to any community. To 
> restrict this is to not be "open".
Yes, this is an open community, the board isn't. That is fine, as long 
as it is able to operate (thanks to Jean-Yvon for refining my statement 
as "Conflict of Interest"), without a conflict of interest, is inclusive 
and assures diversity. For me the meaning "open" goes beyond open as in:

- anyone can put it's candidacy for a board position, which is 
essentially true, however this only applies to foundation members. The 
electorate are paying members only. Thus, it's not open. The underlying 
reasons why this is the case might be practical, legal or procedural. 
The positive note I'd like to add is that both the community as the 
board has recognised this and works on it to make it more open.
The conflict of interest, for simplicity reducing it here to a financial 
interest, is either addressed, as Alan thankfully clarified, by law 
and/or strengthened by procedures or code of conduct. Though not 
perfect, as nothing in this world is, gracefully and professionally 
practised by the OSMF board. It is challenged and closely observed by 
the community at large, also good, as it keeps the board "in pace".
- inclusive. An organisation or company, a board as you wish, to be open 
by definition, should have no barriers or offer safeguarding for the 
less fortunate in our community. With less fortunate I mean not only 
financially, but also to freedom of expression (incl. religion), gender, 
race, culture, access to resources etc... . Our community is, the OSMF 
board, HOT and many companies active on OSM pursue it. One doing a 
better job then another, OSM and our board, at least recognised there is 
lot's of room for improvement and working on it.
- diversity is a reflection of inclusiveness and electoral procedures. A 
numerical majority or an electoral procedure without forced 
representation or obligation mechanisms is not supportive for diversity. 
It is not open, not representative. It supports outcomes of the largest 
or most resourceful group in a community. Eliminates the incentive for 
minorities or less resourceful groups to even participate.

What we should expect from a humanitarian organisation, an organisation, 
interest group, individual or a company in general that supports these 
concepts and wishes to strengthen them, or a group or individual wishing 
to do some mass or organised edits is that they respect these 
principles. As they are the strength and core of OSM, reflected in our 
"Good Practices". And if we are weak or fail to do so in any of these 
aspects, have internal procedures, so the OSM community or potential OSM 
contributors doesn't perceive their activities as limiting or hostile.
So as a challenge to where this discussion has started:
1. Organised mass edits should be exceptions, and if we allow these 
exceptions they come with guidelines and procedures which must be 
strictly adhered to. For me personally, as a global response to help 
communities were there is a potential of loss of lots of lives or abuse 
of basic human rights, yes. Under the condition they follow the 
guidelines, do this on the OSM wiki, justify them and report it on the 
OSM wiki; Communicate and find consensus or approval from the OSM 
community and local communities, using OSM communication channels.
Any organisation or group fail to do so will see all it's contributions 
reverted, when it happens repeatedly have it's promoters or the 
organisation sanctioned.
2. Local chapters must have a structure and procedures in place to guard 
against "Conflict of Interest", improve inclusiveness and diversion. Any 
organisation, company group, who wishes to support these chapters, 
should have a policy in place that forbids it's payed members for taking 
a seat in any board or managerial or leading position. To avoid taking 
advantage of weaknesses in law, managerial, organisational or procedural 
skills available within the local communities.

How has HOT performed in these aspects, specifically in Africa ?
- we hardly see any comprehensive organised or mass editing wiki pages. 
They were there in the past, recently ever less, incomplete or absent. 
Being it directly managed by HOT or organisations using the Tasking 
manager. In the contrary, affiliates or contributors who joined OSM 
through HOT see the use of the Tasking manager and their activities run 
through it as a justification, an allowance to go ahead.
- local chapters, either established with financial help by HOT or with 
HOT members in their boards, or HOT (facilitated) volunteers as the 
majority of their members do not use the OSM communication channels, do 
not adhere to the basic principles.
- wannabee local chapters, recently, initiated by or from HOT, best 
example recently OSM Africa, do not have a local OSM wiki page. By using 
the OSM tradename restrict other groups from taking the same initiative. 
I don't think this would work in any other region of the world, HOT 
establishing an OSM Europe or OSM North America managed by HOT and 
through OSM foreign communication channels.
- even worse, when you as an OSM and an advocate of our "Good practices" 
join these preferred local channels, you are critical to HOT, trying to 
challenge, work on or willing to help to improve OSM and it's practices, 
it's been perceived as an insult, or even worse you are characterised as 
being motivated by differences in ancestry, culture by... HOT paid 
members. Not that I feel abused by this, I have a very thick African 
elephant skin and resilience, see it more as a frustration and natural 
impulsive reaction. However very contra-productive, a reflection of the 
fact that HOT no longer is or has become something different then it 
pretends to be. It underlines the fact that HOT has no safeguarding in 
place to ensure that it's employees promote the OSM or even the HOT core 
values in public forums, neither that some seem to have an incentive or 
background to do so.
- another example is the recently started HOT project: "OSM Galaxy - One 
portal for all your OSM needs". As far as I am concerned, there is just 
one portal for all my OSM needs, OSM wiki, the weekly OSM, it's 
community and mailing lists. Is this yet another take over attempt by 
HOT ? Isn't HOT Galaxy - One portal for all your humanitarian needs 
using OSM" a better description ? Why is it hidden on github ? Just 
sparsely mentioned in some meeting minutes on the hardly used HOT 
mailing list ?

These are not accusations, but a listing of facts and sometimes 
exaggerated observations. To be clear, I am a HOT contributor, even 
validator, but in the first place an advocate of African communities, 
not yet or sparsely present on OSM, an OSM contributor and OSMF active 
contributor member (no voting rights, which is fine, very happy with the 
openness, both positive as criticism, and convinced I can raise my voice 
and represent my and my communities interests by participating in 
discussions on this mailing list).

@Brian:

> Who gets to decide which companies or interest groups are 
> unacceptable?  Is it just companies and organizations that we don't like?
If we would take it to the extreme example given, all who are payed 
contributors or finance OSM. And yes, this would take out most of the 
current OSMF board members. On the other hand, opens opportunities for 
those less fortunate of being payed for our efforts on OSM. More 
representative of the real OSM community, an opportunity for the board 
to be more diverse and inclusive. The financiers are already represented 
and offered enough policy influences with the current communication 
platform, taking place behind closed doors.


On 04/08/2021 15:25, Edward Bainton wrote:
> Conflicts of interest are inevitable in any org. The question is 
> whether they're disclosed, and once disclosed how they're managed.
>
> This issue rightly generates a lot of heat, and some even more radical 
> openness may help. It might be good to require - in the constitution 
> of local chapters and as a condition of recognition by OSMF - that all 
> interests of local chapter board members are clearly stated in a 
> standard format in a standard place.
>
> I would suggest OSMF could lead the way there. In the past Allan has 
> pointed me to the OSMF board members' bios as places to find their 
> interests listed. That's a great start, but imo doesn't give it the 
> required formality.
>
> There's also only an 'expectation' on a board member to keep their bio 
> up to date (I hope I'm recalling Allan's words correctly), rather than 
> a hard requirement built into the constitution, and that would be much 
> better, imo. (Not so long ago it was a legal requirement for a UK 
> company to keep an register of directors' interests.)
We can improve of course, the idea doesn't seem wrong in the first 
place. What I am afraid of is the OSMF to become too much bureaucratic. 
What is in place currently, with the few incidents we had, seems to work 
quite well. Thankfully we have some very keen OSM contributors who 
reveal any perpetrators. A revealing, in public, of the perpetrators 
seems to me a better incentive and more effectively.

I think, what we currently have, at the board level is a quite stable 
consensus.

This doesn't mean that this works at the local chapter level. As 
mentioned with the HOT examples.  I would favour an initial and repeated 
evaluation by the board. I think the challenge lies more in the extend, 
or quantification (as suggested by @Mateusz) to find a middle way, a 
consensus. Between the ruled local chapters and those complete conflict 
of interest protection. As an alternative to the extreme solution I 
mentioned one could think about a requirement to the organisations 
themselves, as to forbid their employees for participating in leading or 
board positions in the local chapters, as the communities can be quite 
small and very vulnerable, easy to influence with resources or take over.

PS, I respect requests to keep the mass Organised and AI data discussion 
separated, so lets do so in a new sub-thread.

Greetings,


Bert Araali


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