[Osmf-talk] Draft resolution on membership prerequisites

[Kathleen Lu]

>
> I’m not sure what other privileges are afforded to members **other than**
> voting for (and standing for) the Board; I not even sure one needs to be an
> OSMF member to be on a working group. I am probably uninformed about this.
>

I don't know that there are any other *formal* benefits, but it's
communicated as "become a member, support the community!" Rather than just
"join the voting electorate of OSMF"
Relatedly, OSMUS has had the problem of lots of people wanting to support
financially with membership, but not concerned with voting, resulting in
OSMUS having to beg people to vote, even to vote negatively, just to meet
quorum. Given that OSMF has nowhere near 100% turnout for elections, it
seems this is a sizable contingent, and putting barriers to their
membership would hurt OSMF financially

Really: those with ideas on how to solve this problem should really speak
> up.  Might not be a bad idea for the Board to maybe consult some
> corporate-structure legal advice. Kathleen, know any good lawyers? 😊
>
>
>
Sadly, I don't, at least not in the EU. Quite frankly, I would not expect
it to be possible for OSM to find a lawyer who was *not* company-affiliated
to volunteer to help with such a big project for free, so if fear of
company influence is driving this, I don't see a solution.
If OSMF had a sizable (5-figure) budget for this, I (or the lawyer OSMF
wanted to consult on attribution) could put the word out and see if any EU
lawyers submit a RFP.

Kathleen

>
> *From:* Kathleen Lu <kathleenlu09 at gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Monday, February 14, 2022 12:36 PM
> *To:* Steve Friedl <steve at unixwiz.net>
> *Cc:* Imre Samu <pella.samu at gmail.com>; Tobias Knerr <osm at tobias-knerr.de>;
> OSMF Talk <osmf-talk at openstreetmap.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [Osmf-talk] Draft resolution on membership prerequisites
>
>
>
>
>
> 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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