[OSM-talk] [Osmf-talk] Balance of power (was: Re: How to vote to match your view)

[Richard Fairhurst]

[Apologies to talk@ readers for this follow-up to a post on osmf-talk at . 
I'm not an OSMF member and therefore can't post to osmf-talk@, but as 
I'm being spoken about over there, I'd appreciate the opportunity to 
respond.]

Steve Coast wrote:
> See, there was no group that "mobbed" Richard out the board. The CWG
> took away Twitter access from everyone without any consultation,
> thinking Ivan's tweet was mine. I asked for it back, used every
> channel as I outlined. Richard sadly quit feeling CWG was being
> overpowered by the board but that's not what happened. The CWG took
> Twitter away from the people using it without talking to anyone, then
> was surprised this wasn't okay.

For the record:

Communications Working Group didn't think Ivan's tweet was yours. We 
genuinely didn't know who had sent it. (From what I remember of the 
content of the tweet, it didn't appear to be from a native English 
speaker, and at first I thought it might have been Emilie.)

At the time, CWG was aiming for a step change in our communications. In 
particular, we were aiming to follow up our very successful switch2osm 
campaign, and were in the early stages of planning a second campaign 
aimed at recruiting new mappers.

A large part of that was professionalising our message - bringing 
sharper focus to OSM's outbound communications, to consistently push the 
message that mapping was accessible, enjoyable, and made a difference. 
Basic marketing and not the sort of thing that should come as a surprise 
to anyone.

To get this focused message across, we needed to ensure that everything 
going out on our Twitter, Facebook and Google+ accounts was in line. In 
an ideal world we would like to have drawn up simple house style and 
messaging guidelines (again, marketing 101) for those with access.

However, our hand was forced by this badly phrased tweet, from persons 
unknown, endorsing a map which failed to attribute OSM (years later, I 
can't even remember what map it was!). Changing the Twitter password and 
asking those who wanted a message to go out to contact us, which is what 
we did, seemed the easiest and most sensible short-term measure.

Unfortunately you decided to take this as a personal affront, when no 
such affront was intended, and to campaign volubly for CWG's work to be 
overruled because of this.

There is absolutely no personal animus in this. Sure, I disagree with 
you on many things, but you're an engaging guy to chat to over a pint 
and I have no doubt we'll do so again some time. But let me make it 
clear that I did not quit because "CWG was being overpowered by the 
board". I quit because it was clear that there was no likelihood of 
improving OSM through the Foundation, in any fashion, when 
well-intentioned, industrious, and skilled volunteer work could be 
overturned by emotive say-so.

I see no sign that this has changed, and that is why I have no intention 
of rejoining the Foundation.

As a postscript, I believe switch2osm was the last substantial marketing 
effort that OSMF has done. All the good publicity for OSM since then has 
been from third parties, particularly Mapbox. Progress in OSM happens 
despite the Foundation, not because of it.

Richard