[OSM-talk] About OSM social implications and what can/should be displayed on the map (or not)

[Maarten Deen]

On 2018-06-29 17:27, Carlos Cámara wrote:
> Dear all,
> 
> After participating in this openstreetmap-carto issue [1] discussing
> to create an icon for casinos in which I stated that they should not
> be highlighted with an icon due to their grave consequences derived
> from gambling addiction (there are plenty of scientific literature
> about it),

I totally oppose this stance. If we start censoring casinos, why not 
censor brothels? Why not censor butchers? Why not censor churches and 
mosques? Why stop at that point that you propose because someone or 
another thinks he sits on a moral highground and thinks he can decide 
for others what they should see (or how they should behave)?
An attitude like that is wrong on so many levels.

> First: Any map is also a political act in terms that the mappers
> decide which information is displayed and which one is not, but also

This argument is wrong. Any single mapper may decide he does not want to 
add certain information because from his moral believes or ethical code 
he thinks it is wrong to have that in the map, but any other single 
mapper may decide he will add that information. And at that point it is 
not for that first mapper to delete that information.
You are proposing that if any single mapper should decide a certain 
piece of information should not be added, no one can.
The latter is a political standpoint. The former is not.

> Second: The very foundations of OSM as a project are techno-political
> in terms that it was created to overcome the lack of certain
> geographical information about certain areas or topics. This is even
> more obvious in HOSM or the not-at-all-accidental use of open licenses
> from its very beginning.

What argument is this for not adding certain pieces of information from 
a moral reason?

> Third: by creating the map the way we love, we are also creating the

I love a map that displays everything that is there. That includes 
casinos.

> In order to overcome those matters (and if I am not wrong), so far the
> position on this regards is to render everything on
> openstreetmap-carto provided the following conditions: A) there is a
> significant number of uses (don't know how much is "significant"), B)
> someone creates an issue requesting for it, C) someone designs an icon
> or a representation for it, D) someone implements it by creating a
> Pull request that is merged into openstreetmap-carto project.
> 
> It seems a sensible approach as it tries to be both as objective as
> possible and pragmatic but is not free from polemics: behind the
> appearance of not taking part on the political debate, the truth is
> that the resulting map has a strong Eurocentric and heteropatriarchal
> perspective which may not take into account diversity either in the
> world nor in OSM's community (which does not have to do with figures
> about representativity). Or in other words, it is like European white
> heterosexual males were doing a kind of digital colonization of the
> world by imposing their rules simply because other groups are not
> participating in the decision-making process and hence their
> needs/opinions have not been taken into account.

Do you have examples why you think so? You say yourself, anyone having a 
proper reason or case for displaying anything and/or is willing to 
invest the time to do so, is welcome to.
How does this exclude the non-european, non-heterosexuals and non-male 
people from doing this?
And again: do you have examples for this?

And no: displaying something that a homosexual japanese lady does not 
want us to display is not an example.
It may be true that the map is as you describe because the people on the 
carto team are as you describe.
If this is about diversity, if this is an outcry that the carto team 
should have less eurocentric and heteropatriarchal people or view, than 
you should do something about that. And please do not propose a minimum 
percentage of gay asian women to be included in the carto team, that 
does not work. But if you are one, you are welcome to join that team, I 
suppose.

If the map were really eurocentric then why are not all place labels in 
latin script? (pet peeve)

Regards,
Maarten