[Osmf-talk] Draft resolution on membership prerequisites

[Kathleen Lu]

> And my experience is that most people who get involved in Foundation
> business didn’t start out that way, but started out doing actual regular
> mapping: getting 42 lifetime days of mapping in your past seems like a
> relatively low bar.
>
>
>
> But MegaCorp getting 1000 employees (who don’t care about OSM one way or
> the other) to do this would be a much bigger challenge.
>
>
>

These assumptions do not make sense to me.

For a huge corporation, getting 1000 employees to make one edit a day for
two months should be trivial. Huge companies will already have over 1000
employees, and they can make it a requirement of the job. While I
understand the exploration of anti-takeover measures, I do not think going
down the route of setting a minimum participation amount actually makes any
progress towards this goal. The thing that corporations have a systematic
advantage over individuals is *resources*. Requiring *more* resources to
participate would *advantage* corporations over individuals (and advantage
larger corporations over smaller businesses).

On the flip side, suppose someone maps for a couple of hours every other
weekend. They would be required to map for nearly two years before they can
become a member. As for my own stats, if I chair 12 LWG meetings a year
instead of editing the map, how would you measure that? Do I get 12 days of
credit (3+ years to meet the 42 day threshold), or do the days I make the
agenda count too? How would MWG know which days I made the agenda? OSM has
no centralized stats as to who attends meetings or works on planning,
coding, etc. How could MWG, made of volunteers, have the time to
investigate 1000s of people's involvement in OSM?

Even if the requirement is not difficult to meet, it *sounds* difficult to
meet for someone new to OSM. Simply requiring someone to explain themselves
to a bunch of strangers discourages participation, and has a
disproportionate effect on those with less confidence in the process
(gender minorities, due to socialization and past experience with gating;
non-native English speakers, due to less confidence in their communication
skills; newer participants unfamiliar with MWG, etc) resulting in reduced
diversity.

If OSMF only wants dedicated hobbyists to be able to vote for the OSMF
Board, then state that as a goal and limit Board voting to a select group.
Don't mess with membership (unless the sole purpose of membership in OSMF
is to vote for the Board, in which case change the communication around
membership to make this clear).

Regards,
Kathleen
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