[Talk-ca] Fwd: BC2020i - update Sept 2018

[Alasia, Alessandro (STATCAN)]

Hi Steve,
If you read the email, you would see I did mention OSM (and it was sent to several people active with OSM in Canada, who rightly started a discussion on talk-ca).

Specifically about your question: I do not think it is up to me to tell what should be the role of the OSM communities across Canada. They will decide. Of course, I would hope to have many involved, but there are certainly different views and priorities and that is perfectly fine.

I will welcome any outcome of those decisions. But I would be more concerned about the manner in which discussions take place and the governance systems surrounding the possible decision making process.
Online discussion forums are a great tool to discuss and generate consensus. But I am certainly not revealing anything new in saying that online forums can become channels through which ideas are misrepresented (if not distorted) and extremely vocal individuals, with troll-like behaviours, discourage others from expressing their views and be part of constructive discussions. Occasionally, it may even happen that people expressing different views are targeted off-line, with rather aggressive and annoying emails. This can quickly turn a great tool for democratic participation and consultation in its opposite. Of course, I am talking in general, right?
Nevertheless, as the Canadian OSM communities continue to grow, they may have to address some of the issues related to their governance system(s). This may strengthen their voices and an authentic representation of their needs and aspirations, in connection with, and as an expression of, local groups across Canada. Ideally, an enhanced governance system for relevant decision making would include transparent participation mechanisms and some form of accountability to the communities themselves. Having this would probably facilitate the dialogue between institutions and OSM groups and eventually unleash the real power of civic data science.

Finally, I do not think there was anything wrong with BC2020 or BC2020i (to begin with, they are the same thing; the "i" was a nice suggestion of a colleague, which ensured a unique hashtag in twitter). This is not to say that this initiative is perfect. New and innovative ideas do not hatch perfect; they always need a lot of improvements and refining, and there is nothing wrong with that.

So to conclude, I can tell you what our (i.e., my team) role can be in BC2020i (in short: do our small part for more and better data available to all Canadian; in the specific case: our goal is to create an harmonized database of building footprints, available under a single open data license compatible with OMS, which would be available to all OMS groups interested in using it, importing, etc., as well as to all Canadians).

We will continue to work in this direction, with all groups and entities that are interested in making meaningful and concrete contributions toward that goal.

I trust this answer your questions. I would like to have more time to write emails, but unfortunately that is not the case, so do not be offended if I will not continue this conversation.

Best regards,

Alessandro

From: OSM Volunteer stevea [mailto:steveaOSM at softworkers.com]
Sent: September-16-18 8:00 AM
To: talk-ca <talk-ca at openstreetmap.org>
Cc: Matthew Darwin <matthew at mdarwin.ca>; Alasia, Alessandro (STATCAN) <alessandro.alasia at canada.ca>
Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Fwd: BC2020i - update Sept 2018

Matthew, I personally thank you for sharing Alessandro's missive with talk-ca (an OSM-based list).

However, Alessandro mentions "BC2020i" (and even "BC2020i-2"), initiatives which "used" (or proposed to "use") OSM as a data repository.  Not wishing to rehash history about this yet again, the initiative was found to not fully respect some basic tenets of OSM (primarily that process and importation of data be "Open") and a genuine attempt was made (partly rather publicly here) to re-imagine a re-branded project (BC2020, no "i") which more openly and harmoniously integrated with a wider OSM community using familiar and more-open communications channels like our wiki and this talk-list.

As Alessandro didn't mention OSM one single time in that message, yet it was forwarded to this list, I remain quite curious what role OSM is to or might play in any "BC2020i-2" initiative.  So, I invite / politely request Alessandro to post here exactly what that is or will be.  Is it a national-scale import of the Bing building data (as he says "what they did in the US")?  I realize that from STATCAN's and indeed a much wider Canadian perspective, this "initiative" will be much more than that, benefiting many, and for that I do share enthusiasm.  Still, I ask the specific question from an OSM perspective:  what role will our mapping project play?

Please, Alessandro, address OSM directly (in this list) what OSM is to BC2020i-2.  You might start by addressing what is wrong with BC2020 (no i) as it exists in our wiki and how BC2020i-2 might diverge from that, but I'd prefer you explain it to us, rather than me guessing here in talk-ca.

Regards,
Steve All
OSM Volunteer since 2009
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