[Osmf-talk] Board decision on initial composition of the Software Dispute Resolution Panel

[Christoph Hormann]

On Sunday 31 January 2021, Rory McCann (OSMF Board) wrote:
>
> No, of course these people are not “personnel” of OSMF. It's because
> we were discussing the suitability of people for roles. Those people
> were not there, and were not taking part in the meeting. It would be
> bad form to talk about their strengths and weaknesses of named people
> who weren't present to a public audience.

So it is better to talk about people and their 'suitability' behind 
closed doors than in public?

To be clear, that is not a rhetorical question.  We are a culturally 
diverse community so it is well possible that different people consider 
different practices to be good and bad form at the same time.  

In general in the OSM community we publicly talk about the qualification 
of people for different functions all the time.  Even in the OSMF 
context.  We have done so in case of the microgrants programm 
(insufficiently i might add - but that is a different topic) and we do 
so in case of OSMF board elections.  The recently published pamphlet 
about alleged systematic misbehaviour of members of the OSM community 
was essentially publicly putting into question the suitability of large 
parts of the OSM community to be part of the OSM community.

And of course you could have invited the candidates to the meeting to be 
there while you discuss their qualification.  Do you think this would 
have solved the problem and would have allowed the discussion and 
decision to have taken place in public?  If a live presence at the 
meeting was not feasible for everyone how about having the deliberation 
on the decision asynchroneously in public in advance and then having 
the vote publicly in the meeting afterwards?

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