[Talk-us] Open survey on participation biases in OSM

Tue Sep 5 18:58:47 UTC 2017

The very notion that studying who participates in OSM is divisive is
preposterous.

The very notion that there would be nothing to learn if a project where
"everyone has a chance to contribute if they want to" had a 99% to 1%
gender imbalance is absolutely ridiculous. If there are groups of people
who have a chance to contribute but choose not to participate, the
reasons for that are absolutely worth studying. Are there ways that OSM
could change to encourage more people to participate? Are there ways
that OSM could change how it works in a way that would produce a better
product? Or a more welcoming experience for people who aren't like you?

I also find the idea that learning more about ANYTHING is divisive to be
offensive. I find it difficult to find any legitimate reason for the
vehemence of your responses on this topic.

And, to be frank, if the price of my participation is putting up with
anti-knowledge and faux-egalitarian BS, then I suspect I will be another
woman walking out the door of OSM.

Kristin

-- 
  Kristin Rollins
  gis at kristin.verumsolum.com
  Chesapeake, VA

On Tue, Sep 5, 2017, at 02:27 PM, Joel Holdsworth wrote:
> Because the very notion that it is relevant to study OSM by gender is 
> divisive.
> 
> Who cares what the gender balance of contributors to OSM is? I don't. I 
> didn't even know what the split was until this thread. Because it 
> literally doesn't matter.
> 
> Even it were 99% women, it wouldn't matter. So long as everyone has a 
> chance to contribute if they want to.
> 
> Some people are saying about how awful it is to have a gender bias in 
> the mapped data. If it were 99% women, I would imagine there might be 
> better detail about the women's toilets. In that case, I would add data 
> about the men's. No one owes me an apology, or a commitment to change 
> their mapping habits. The solution starts with me - "Be the change you 
> want to see."
> 
> It's simple - whatever gender, race, social group you are, come and use 
> OSM. If some data you care about is missing, get mapping!
> 
> 
> Joel
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 05/09/17 12:14, Charlotte Wolter wrote:
> > 
> > My goodness, all this anxiety! Why are you feeling that
> > you have to justify what you map, just because someone is
> > studying it by gender?
> > 
> > Charlotte
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > At 10:10 AM 9/5/2017, you wrote:
> >> On Tue, 5 Sep 2017 08:25:33 +0200 Marc Gemis <marc.gemis at gmail.com> 
> >> wrote: > One of the discussion points on her diary entry was female 
> >> hygiene > products found in women's toilets. How is a man going to map 
> >> that, > without access to women's toilets ? > > The real question for 
> >> me is are men more likely going to map shop=car > than 
> >> shop=clothes;clothes=underwear/fashion/ ... (sorry for the > 
> >> stereotyping) > will men map leisure=playground or amenity=pub ? > 
> >> will a roman catholic map a mosque ? > will a non-dog owner map 
> >> leisure=dog_park ? > > in short: will we map everything we see or do 
> >> we map only our > interests ? Furthermore, do we really see everything 
> >> or do we only see > (and map) things we are conditioned to ? > > This 
> >> is not about buildings, addresses, roads and paths. They are
> >> > pretty gender neutral I think. It's about POIs.
> >>
> >> I know I map what I see (or more precisely, what my camera
> >> captures). If it doesn't have a sign out front, I don't map it.
> >> To take an example from the midwives vs. strip clubs debate,
> >> the phone book lists seven midwives and/or midwife groups
> >> in the Spokane area. Of those, three are attached to hospitals
> >> and one to a community-health clinic, and so wouldn't have
> >> signs. Two are operating out of private homes and don't have
> >> signs (and I wouldn't map them if they did, just like I don't map
> >> lawn care or computer repair businesses operating out of
> >> private homes).
> >> The last one is in the 95% of the city I haven't yet photo-mapped.
> >> The phone book lists zero strip clubs in the Spokane area.
> >> Despite that, I've found and mapped one strip club: it was on a
> >> major street and had a clear sign out front.
> >> Yes, there's a bias in my mapping, but it's a bias towards
> >> "things identifiable from the street." I'm more likely to map a car
> >> store than a clothes store, because car stores are generally
> >> not found inside shopping malls. Playgrounds beat pubs,
> >> because every playground is visible from the street.  And this
> >> non-dog-owner didn't map the dog park, because it was
> >> already mapped by the time I got started.
> >>
> >> -- Mark
> >> _______________________________________________
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> >> Talk-us at openstreetmap.org <mailto:Talk-us at openstreetmap.org>
> >> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
> > 
> > Charlotte Wolter
> > 927 18th Street Suite A
> > Santa Monica, California
> > 90403
> > +1-310-597-4040
> > techlady at techlady.com
> > Skype: thetechlady
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Talk-us at openstreetmap.org
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> > 
> 
> 
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