[OSM-talk] reddit AMA with some OSMF Board members. 15:00Z 9 Nov

[Christoph Hormann]

By quoting the board statement i did not really intend to argue with the authors of said document about the exegesis of it - that would be kind of pointless.

What i want to express is that this is a good practical case study how much commitment the board members have in their practical communication with the OSM community to open communication channels and platforms.  As (like you and Martin point out) individual board members but still in their capacity as board members and not as a group of private individuals.

We have a saying in German that goes "wie man in den Wald hineinruft so schallt es heraus".  So if the board boldly advertises their commitment to open communication channels and then holds an exclusive event on a proprietary platform said board will have a hard time dealing with corporations boldly communicating their commitment to OpenStreetMap, community rules, OSMF policy, the license or similar things but then practically not living up to said promises from the perspective of the board or the OSM community.

Language can be a powerful tool of social interaction but your ability to use it to that effect depends on you having and maintaining the reputation to be earnest, concise, well-defined and dependable in your communication - not only from your own perspective but also from that of the recipients of the communication.  If people have the impression that they cannot rely on what you say - and it does not matter if that is due to them misreading your communication or you being vague in it - you loose the ability to effectively communicate with people.  As a result you would massively narrow your social horizon to those people who are culturally close and like-minded to you.

Back on subject - the solution to the problem here to be able to reach out to people on reddit who are more comfortable there than on open platforms while not being exclusive in my eyes could be fairly simple - you just allow questions on both reddit and open platforms and you post answers on both equally as well.  Yes, that is additional work.  But commitment without inconveniences is ultimately not really commitment.

We even have a practical reference for Q&A in the OSMF context on open platforms by the way.  Before the board decided there to be a need for moderation (which was never re-evaluated afterwards by the way) in the lead-up to the board elections we had open Q&As on the OSM wiki with the candidates.

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Christoph Hormann 
http://www.imagico.de/