[Strategic] consensus

[TimSC]

On 02/09/10 15:20, Rob Myers wrote:
> On 09/02/2010 12:55 PM, TimSC wrote:
>>
>> The question I was asking was primarily about HOW we reach that
>> consensus, which you did not address. If you had specifically answered
>> my questions, it would have helped.
>
> My understanding (such as it is) of how OSM works comes from having 
> watched it online over the years. The public record shows that there 
> have been several years of conference events, mailing list 
> discussions, working group and board meetings and other events 
> dedicated to deciding on the licence issue.
>
> This has resulted in consensus.
I have responded on the strategic list, as it is more relevant here.

There have been the intention by various parties the engage the 
community. The next questions are: do these events actually come to the 
attention of a sufficient proportion of the mapping community?
Secondly: how is the consensus quantified, decided and documented?
Thirdly: When specifically was consensus reached on the issues we are 
discussion? And documented?

My personal observations on these points:

1) You have begin to outline the "where" part of the consensus. But the 
means used so far can only engage a small fraction of the community. The 
wiki front page is probably the most visible face of OSM, and the 
license change has only recently become a prominent item. Therefore 
community engagement has been too little, too late. (But I thank those 
involved for their effort.)
2) Important decisions should be made in a specific public/community 
forum or setting. How specifically do we decide when consensus has been 
reached? It seems to be an amorphous authority decides when consensus 
has been reached, based on (the lack of) what you said. The fact that 
there is a split in mappers views tends to point to no consensus. 
Majority yes. Not consensus. Transparency is critical (and admittedly 
OSMF are relatively good at that).
3) Having an (unrepresentative) committee decide the compromise between 
two factions in a community is frankly not seeking consensus, which is 
what seems to have happened.
4) You have yet to point to where the decision was made in this specific 
instance. Referencing mountains of data doesn't help me. If consensus 
was achieved, you should be able to show me how, when and where. These 
are not small issues, these decisions are fundamental changes to the 
project. Therefore it should be clearly and explicitly in there 
somewhere. Either these decisions were made publicly and documented, or 
they where not. Evidence would support their argument here.
5) Mapper's views change over time. Consensus changes. Perhaps something 
that was decided several years ago no longer reflects the community's 
view. If we are going to follow community consensus, we need to keep up 
community engagement, even on controversial issues.
6) Proposing false dicotomy choices (e.g. CC-BY-SA or ODbL v.1) leaves 
room for doubt as to other alternatives. And tyranny by the majority can 
alienate parts of the community.

I perhaps should write some suggestions on how to solve this, but I need 
to have a think. I am feeling slightly too embattled to start being 
creative! As a first idea, it would be good to have the answers to these 
issues decided and documented. This would provide a basis for future 
actions. That's why I have moved my response, to feed into the strategic 
group.

Regards,

TimSC