[Osmf-talk] Draft resolution on membership prerequisites

Mon Feb 14 04:17:16 UTC 2022

> 42 days is an interesting number.

I’m on the Membership Working Group and can fill in some backstory on all this. I’m not speaking for MWG or the Board and not arguing for or against the recent proposal (I learned about it today via this list).

After the Global Logic incident a few years ago, there was a push to protect OSMF from takeover by a hostile party, and after a few intermediate steps, the Active Contributor Membership came about, which MWG administers.

By increasing membership, and especially increasing *diverse* membership, it would be harder for any one entity to overwhelm an election.

This program afforded a free Associate Membership to the Foundation to applicants who demonstrated a minimum level of contribution to the OSM ecosystem, and though efforts such as organizing the State of the Map, participation in a working group, or other non-mapping activities required a judgement call (approval by the Board), those who mapped on 42 separate days in the previous year were deemed to have made a contribution to OSM and would be approved automatically.

As to the number 42: I don’t recall the exact discussion, but this was derived from actual statistics of actual OSM mapper activity, though possibly rounded by a few days to reach “42”.

Sci-fi geeks – which does not include me – may recognize this as the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe, but I’m *quite* sure that we did not just pick this number for sentimental reasons or make it up out of thin air; it was derived by looking at real data from real OSM users.

I’m sorry I don’t remember the details – it’s been quite a while.

In any case, this 42 days criteria means you only have to touch the map once in 42 different days in a year, it certainly does NOT mean you need to map 42 days * 24 hours = 1008 hours to qualify. Personally, I’d never reach that standard.

Yes, of course it’s possible to move a single node slightly once a day for a month and a half to qualify, but we felt we really needed an objective standard, which makes it a *transparent* standard, so these Active Contributor Memberships were not subject to the whims of whomever is in MWG’s favor: You have to pick *something* and this was as good as any to get started.

There is no way to pick a transparent, objective standard that cannot be gamed by somebody. 

Timeline as best as I recall:

Dec 2019, AGM: OSMF membership approved (79% in favor) the development of the Active Contributor Program, which was delegated to the Membership Working group to flesh out.

Jun 2020: OSMF board unanimously approves the proposal from MWG, which included the 42-days mapping requirement. It seems there was a discussion of the actual number, but the Board was willing to let this play out as a starting point.

Dec 2021: OSMF membership approves counting Associate Membership towards the time required to run for the Board, which means that Active Contributor Members – who are “Associate” can upgrade to a paid Normal membership fairly late in the cycle and still be eligible to stand for the Board. Previously, you had to be a paid Normal member the whole required-membership-time prior to the election.

I don’t yet have an opinion yet on the proposal being floated, but it’s building on something that’s been in place for more than 18 months, not springing out of whole cloth, and I can’t recall a single pushback on the criteria.

Please discuss amongst yourselves 😊

Steve – who hopes that fellow MWG members chime in to correct my mistakes of recall.

--- 

Steve Friedl // Software guy + Volunteer mapper // Southern California USA

steve at unixwiz.net [OSM:SJFriedl] // OpenStreetMap MWG //  Fix ALL the maps!

From: Heather Leson <heatherleson at gmail.com> 
Sent: Sunday, February 13, 2022 11:24 AM
To: Tobias Knerr <osm at tobias-knerr.de>
Cc: OSMF Talk <osmf-talk at openstreetmap.org>
Subject: Re: [Osmf-talk] Draft resolution on membership prerequisites

Hello

Can you please share the research on membership practices that this was based on?  And, how will these metrics be created and compiled?

Meaning:  42 days is an interesting number. Will there be a way to account for this across all community channels? Do potential members and members report into some kind of process?  Is that 42 days one touch point or is it 24 hours for each of the 42 days? What is that tool or process for data collection and assessment?

Honestly, this misses any of the best practices of community engagement and metrics for open projects. I’ve cited resources on many diary entries over the years.

Heather 

On Sun, 13 Feb 2022 at 17:28, Tobias Knerr <osm at tobias-knerr.de <mailto:osm at tobias-knerr.de> > wrote:

Hi all,

at the 2020 AGM, a 79% majority of the membership asked the board to 
propose prerequisites for membership in the OSM Foundation which would 
ensure that all applicants for membership have made a reasonable amount 
of contributions to OSM (not necessarily through mapping).[1]

We would like to ask for your feedback to a first draft of this proposal 
which you can read below. It uses a definition for "reasonable amount of 
contributions" that is comparable to the active contributor 
membership[2], but has lower requirements: 42 days of contributions ever 
instead of 42 days per year. Existing memberships would not be affected 
by this change.

The 2020 resolution called for a membership vote on this topic in 2021. 
Unfortunately, the board didn't produce a proposal in time for the 2021 
AGM and we would like to apologize for this delay. Our current plan is 
to have the resolution ready for a general meeting on April 30, 2022.

# Potential text of the resolution

Using its powers under §15 of the Articles of Association, the board of 
directors shall reject applications for membership or associate 
membership if the applicant has not demonstrably contributed to 
OpenStreetMap on at least 42 days. The specific form of the 
contributions (e.g. mapping vs. non-mapping) does not make a difference 
for the fulfilment of these prerequisites. The board may delegate 
verification and rejection of membership applications to a working group.

## Rationale:

This change would more firmly establish the OSMF as an entity serving 
the people and communities who create OpenStreetMap. By ensuring that 
votes in Foundation elections and resolutions are cast by OpenStreetMap 
contributors, it becomes more likely that the Foundation will continue 
to support the the project well.

The criteria take inspiration from the fee waiver (known as active 
contributor membership) to allow using a similar implementation. Unlike 
the fee waiver, eligibility will be evaluated as a one-time step during 
application for membership, rather than annually. As such, members do 
not have to fear losing their membership if their activity fluctuates or 
declines. Existing memberships won't be affected.

## Considerations:

This one-time check applies to all member applications including those 
that pay the regular £15 membership fee.

# Footnotes

[1] 
https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Annual_General_Meetings/2020/Suggested_resolutions#Vote_3:_Work_on_membership_prerequisites
[2] https://join.osmfoundation.org/active-contributor-membership/

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-- 

Heather Leson
heatherleson at gmail.com <mailto:heatherleson at gmail.com> 
Twitter/skype: HeatherLeson 
Blog: textontechs.com <http://textontechs.com> 

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