[Tagging] Filter bubbles in OSM

[bkil]

Not sure about the context of this message but Andy's reasoning seems sound.

On Fri, May 24, 2019 at 2:26 PM Andy Townsend <ajt1047 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 23/05/2019 20:58, Nick Bolten wrote (in the "solving iD conflict"
> thread:
> > OSM needs an alternative for community tagging discussions outside of
> > these mailing lists. Ones that people will actually use and that have
> > a reasonable, community-oriented code of conduct. I have talked to 10X
> > more people about my `crossing` proposals outside of this mailing list
> > (in-person, personal emails, slack, etc.) and the differences could
> > not be more stark ...
>
> Nick,
>
> I don't doubt your last sentence at all - but these people are all (in
> some sense) people like you.  They're people that you know personally
> well enough to meet personally or exchange emails with, or from a
> geographically-centred community (Slack) that you have both joined.
> These people are essentially self-selecting - they will interact the
> same way as you, and are probably more likely to agree with you.
>
> OSM is a global project.  By that very definition there will be people
> who don't share your views, approach or language, yet it the map belongs
> to everyone, and sometimes we have to find ways to talk to each other
> because we need to talk about stuff that applies to everyone.  Sometimes
> people talk in ways that don't (to borrow Simon's phrase) "wrap any
> criticism in multiple layers of cotton wool".  This list has an owner,
> and although some list owners are more active than others OSM mailing
> lists have certainly warned people in the past when people have e.g.
> made unsolicited allegations.
>
> The problem with "an alternative for community tagging discussions
> outside of these mailing lists ... that have a reasonable,
> community-oriented code of conduct" is that it sounds like you want to
> set rules about who is allowed to participate in those discussions and
> who is not, and that people that would be allowed to participate are (in
> some sense) "people like you".
>
> I'd actually like to make it easier rather than harder for people to
> take part in international discussions - features on the web site such
> as changeset discussion comments (and even indirectly the report
> buttons) are a way of stimulating conversation between people who are
> united only in the fact that they're editing the same map.  When
> communicating with people on behalf of the DWG (and when suggesting how
> people communicate with others) I've always suggested trying to send
> something in the recipient's own language.  Even if it's a machine
> translation and a bit rubbish they will hopefully understand that "some
> other human being is trying to communicate with me".
>
> Various OSM communities have tried different communication mechanisms.
> Lots of OSM people in the US love Slack, whereas I suspect that a number
> of German OSMers would run a mile if asked to use it (a bit too
> corporate).  The subset of OSMers in the UK that are part of the "OS UK
> chapter" are using a closed discussion board called "Loomio", but as a
> volume communications mechanism it's not been a success - there's much
> less traffic there than https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
> .  OSM's a distributed project, and different communities will pick what
> works for them, but there still needs to be an open way to communicate
> internationally - you shouldn't have to pass a test that you can "wrap
> messages in cotton wool" before joining.
>
> It's perfectly reasonable for a group designing something that's part of
> OSM to need a space away from the hubbub to discuss things; that's why
> github issues get closed and locked.  It's even OK (if arguably somewhat
> ill-advised) to write what was written in
> https://github.com/openstreetmap/iD/issues/6409#issuecomment-495231649
> which among various other inflammatory stuff seems to say "it doesn't
> matter how right you are and how wrong we are; we'll do it anyway";
> what's not OK is to expect people not to call the author out on that and
> it's not OK to try and shut down the wider discussion (e.g. on this
> mailing list).
>
> To be clear, this isn't just about iD, or mailing lists, or Slack, or
> USA mappers vs German mappers.  I've seen a few examples around the
> world recently with a DWG hat on where a bunch of people decided to do
> X, but some other people somehow didn't know about it and complained.
> The first bunch of people could perhaps have tried to make things a bit
> more public, but they probably didn't realise they hadn't done this as
> they were using the communications channel that "everyone" uses (in a
> few specific examples I can think of that was Telegram, Slack, or a
> subforum at forum.osm.org).  The second bunch of people complain that
> something happened that they weren't expecting and that it was
> wrong/undiscussed/some other sort of problem.  Everyone's acting in good
> faith - they're trying to do the right thing but somehow communication
> doesn't quite occur.  What everyone (including me) needs to try and do
> is to say "OK, that didn't quite work; how do we try and make it work
> better next time?"  I'm sure that the answer to that last question isn't
> choosing who can and who can't be part of the discussion.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Andy
>
> (a member of the Data Working Group but writing in an entirely personal
> capacity, obviously)
>
>
>
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