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

ndrw ndrw6 at redhazel.co.uk
Wed Dec 9 22:50:09 UTC 2020


Sorry for adding to the noise but this is important. Quote from the 
document:

    Changes to form part of OSMFs agenda over the coming 1-2 years:

     1.

        Make Working Groups and OSM activities more equitable: the
        Diversity and Inclusion special committee should actively work
        to consult, analyze and understand the structural limitations of
        under-represented people to participate, though permanent
        consultation and communication mechanism, and improve openness
        in the Working Groups and OSM activities.

     2.

        Official governance roles should be accountable to diversity and
        inclusion: OSMF Board and Working Group members should take
        Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) training, and sign D&I statements.
        This should also be available to all local chapters and
        community members.

     3.

        Support Diversity and equality for Local Chapters, recognizing
        that constituencies have different legal frameworks and contexts.

     4.

        Create anInclusive Framework for Board Members to explicitly be
        aware of the accountabilities regarding DEI with their roles. A
        non-partisan community facilitator could provide support for
        thisforthis.

It is an attempt to forcefully change OSMF governance, pure and simple, 
and I strongly disagree with that. OSMF exists to promote use of 
openstreetmap and to encourage people to map. Inclusivity and diversity 
fit these goals and are well established in OSM (something I can attest 
to personally) but they are /not/ goals on their own.

Above proposals go far beyond inclusivity and diversity. In fact, points 
1, 2 and 4 directly violate them and as such they have no place in OSM.

It is fine to /create/ an organization or a political party to promote 
new ideas. It is /not/ fine to /hijack/ an existing and successful 
organization and change its charter against its existing members.


As for Frederic's email:

- It does not represent a systemic failure of OSMF or OSM in general. In 
fact, it attracted considerable amount of criticism for what it was.

- It was off-topic, unnecessary and in very poor taste (quite vulgar, 
frankly) but it was not harming anyone except Donald Trump and Mike (by 
unfairly comparing him to DT).


ndrw6


On 09/12/2020 19:06, 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 
> <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 
> <https://docs.google.com/document/d/130JCTX9ve4H4ORXznmIVTpXiN3TX8nRGA8ayuTZ9ECI/edit?usp=sharing>
>
>
> On behalf of the signatories
> Best regards
>
> CĂ©line Jacquin
>
> _______________________________________________
> talk mailing list
> talk at openstreetmap.org
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk



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