[OSM-talk] Call to Take Action and Confront Systemic Offensive Behavior in the OSM Community

[Jean-Marc Liotier]

Considering the reaction - especially strong in the USA, and the fact 
that I'm a candidate to the Board of the Openstreetmap Foundation, I 
suppose I have to make a statement of my position.

In preamble, I condemn the use of sexual assault metaphor - that has no 
place anywhere.

In understand that the form of assertiveness traditional in mailing 
lists and forums can be off-putting. I may be part of that problem 
because, even as I dislike aggressive tones, I take dealing with them as 
a cost of doing business. That may be part of why different communities 
have fostered their own communications channels - I can't stand a 
Facebook thread, a pile of Slack channels or Discord noise for a minute 
but I'm happy that each village decorates his pub in his own taste. 
There is more to Openstreetmap than the @openstreetmap.org mailing 
lists... I would even bet that their population is considerably smaller 
nowadays than the communities that have flourished elsewhere. Users have 
mitigated the problem with their feet - compounding the trend of younger 
ones not even considering mailing lists as an appropriate channel at 
all. Do my white hair show yet ?

On the other hand, let's not take fragmentation as an excuse for failing 
to consider improvement potential. A couple of years ago, in a diary 
Heather Leson posted Public Lab's code of conduct 
(https://publiclab.org/conduct). My first reaction at the concept was to 
consider it infantilizing - can't we all exercise common sense ? It took 
me a while to connect that to my old intercultural management courses at 
ESSCA: when people from different cultures interact, there is no common 
sense pre-existing - it must be built. It follows that, while clumsy, 
starting with explicit norms may be an an effective way to bootstrap 
common sense among an highly diverse population. So count me in !

That said, I do not understand how a community where the barrier to 
entry is as low as editing a node can be perceived as gatekeeping. I 
never asked for anyone's permission to do anything in Openstreetmap - I 
just tried things, sometimes in hilariously wrong ways... The do-ocracy 
isn't a myth, everything really is up to us. And none of that requires 
any specific genital configuration. So, the explanation for the male 
majority in the visible Openstreetmap community has to lie elsewhere.

As I failed to answer the "What will you do to encourage more women 
leaders in OSM working groups and governance?" official question (it was 
an involuntary oversight, but I don't expect anyone to believe me), as a 
lazy pupil I'll copy my neighbor's excellent answer - Roland Olbricht 
put it better than I could have:

"As a first step, we should be bluntly honest: We as OSM have no idea 
what is actually keeping people from candidating for positions. Or 
electing them: all elected candidates last year were male despite at 
least on female candidate. Or contributing in general.

Honestly again, I consider the lack of diversity primarily as a missed 
opportunity of growth and resilience. There are probably many people out 
there who both can and want to engage with OSM, even if rather as a mean 
than an end. Our community probably could triple if we get those people 
involved and excited.

Various things have been tried, but we have not seen any significant 
progress, even after years. Again, we don't know whether we are doing 
not enough of the initiatives or simply not the right things. It is time 
to compare to other similar organizations and settings that attract 
minorities better, and to scrutinize whether we can learn from them. The 
gender ratio of math students in Germany has been eased to be almost 
balanced, many years after it was discovered that school teachers 
actively and massively talked down girl's math competences. In that 
case, the true origin of the problem has been entirely outside the 
institution where the problem has been observed"

Put it on account of my male-biased point of view if you will, but I 
believe there are obstacle to participation more significant than 
gender. Local communities overcome the language barrier by producing 
documentation in their own idiom - but the software's world alignment on 
English remains a strong barrier. In every African country I have 
visited, the cost of Internet access keeps many willing souls from 
taking part in Openstreetmap. Leisure time is luxury - many of my 
African friends do not understand why I spend time on pursuits that do 
not improve my income. So barriers to entry do exist - but they may not 
be those that produce the most outrage in our circles. So I support that 
statement from the call to action: "Diversity and Inclusion special 
committee should actively work to consult, analyze and understand the 
structural limitations of under-represented people to participate".

Finally, writing one's name in signature of a text that evolves after 
you have signed it feels foolish to me - but then again, that may be 
part of cultural differences...


On 12/9/20 8:34 PM, Maarten Deen wrote:
> I have been silent about this but when a document is drafted where 
> only supporters will be heard, I have to speak out in Frederiks support.
> I have seen no systemic aggressive behaviour that demotivates and 
> excludes participation by women and minority groups in OSM or 
> behaviour that degrades the spirit of open community culture, and 
> damages the OpenStreetMap reputation from Frederik.
>
> If you then feel that I am part of the problem, I am saddened and hurt 
> by that because I do not feel myself that way. I have never been 
> non-supportive of anyone in this community or any other.
> I feel this is more a witchhunt than anything else. If you can not 
> make an analogy then conversation and discussion is lost and I do not 
> see how this comment would degrade women. It degrades the maker of the 
> comment, i.e. Trump.
>
> On 2020-12-09 20:06, Celine Jacquin wrote:
>> Hello everybody
>> I hope you are all well
>>
>> We, several groups, chapters, organizations and individuals, have
>> reacted to the conversation in the osm-talk-list
>> (https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/2020-December/085692.html) 
>>
>> considering that it is an incident symptomatic of the problem we have
>> faced for many years in the community, which is one of the greatest
>> obstacles to diversity at all levels of OSM. Time to make a real
>> change.That is why we have developed a beginning of statement on the
>> desirable mechanisms to work solidly on the rules of coexistence and
>> improve diversity.
>>
>> We bring it to your attention and invite anyone who feels represented
>> to sign it. Translations are in preparation (any help is welcome):
>> https://docs.google.com/document/d/130JCTX9ve4H4ORXznmIVTpXiN3TX8nRGA8ayuTZ9ECI/edit?usp=sharing 
>>
>>
>> On behalf of the signatories
>>
>> Best regards
>>
>> Céline Jacquin
>