[OSM-talk] Report on the OSMF 2021 Survey after One Week

[Christoph Hormann]

On Monday 25 January 2021, Allan Mustard wrote:
>
> The questions were developed based on Board interactions with
> community members across the globe, as imagico has said is his
> preference,[2] by contacting community members and listening to
> them.  An example of such interaction was documented in my diary.[3]

No, my preference for symmetric two-way communication with people is 
*instead of a survey*, to be able to engage in arguments and reasoning 
with people - something that a survey is inherently unsuitable for as i 
pointed out on past surveys already [1].  Framing this as support for 
your approach to survey design is a misrepresentation of that.

It goes without saying that when talking to people this way one's own 
ability to draw useful conclusions from such interactions depends on 
the own ability and willingness to critically evaluate diverse views 
(including your own) and engage in arguments about those to determine 
which views, arguments and opinions are supported by reason and which 
are not.  I already expressed this more elaborately in April in reply 
to your diary btw. [2].

Quite a few community members have now expressed differentiated critique 
of aspects of the design of the survey as well as the indication that 
you plan to analyze the responses without taking into account various 
types of systematic errors.  That you don't want to engage in a more 
in-depth argument about the specifics of the survey while it is still 
ongoing is perfectly understandable.  You should however be clear about 
one thing:  The credibility of the board in analyzing and interpreting 
the survey results will depend on your willingness in engaging with 
critique of the survey design in substance in the end.

[1] http://blog.imagico.de/on-surveying-the-surveyors/
[2] https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/apm-wa/diary/392767#comment46985

-- 
Christoph Hormann
https://www.imagico.de/