[OSM-talk] An open letter to OSMF board members.

[Mateusz Konieczny]

May 31, 2022, 23:59 by wlodzimierz.bartczak at openstreetmap.pl:

> Some feel that (...) maintainers don't care about the community 
> instead trying to follow their own agendas
>

I am one of OSM Carto maintainers, almost inactive. Out of some reasons why I am inactive:

I implemented most of what I wanted and could improve
lack of time (though I guess I could drop some time-wasters of lower utility)
people were unhappy, no matter which decision I have taken (see also the first point)
people were unhappy also if no decision was taken
people kept trying to use OSM Carto to force their pet tagging schemes on others, bypassing discussions (to be clear, this one is not about packstations)
"don't care about the community instead trying to follow their own agendas" is not
one of reasons for such inactivity

And to repeat another comment 
from https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Cristoffs/diary/399189 :

I am definitely NOT running out of things to do. Even if I would live for 10 000 years I can
be busy entire time without contributing to OSM Carto ever again.

And insults are not effective way of encouraging people to do something they want,

at least in my case.

If I can do several projects then "people who me to work on it will/have/are insulting me"
is going to be effective way to decide that it is not attractive.

And as result at this point I am not planning to become active in OSM Carto project.
Therefore I decided to remove myself as a maintainer, effective immediately

https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/pull/4561 has a PR
with a documentation update.

(And if you disagreed about this claim or meant something else - then why you repeated it?)

> Most concerning however was > the comment from swedneck <https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/pull/4512#issuecomment-1100642468>>  that one of openstreetmap-carto maintainers revealed information about him that he was not comfortable sharing (doxxing) and that nothing was done. Andy - openstreetmap-carto creator - was informed > in another comment  <https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/pull/4512#issuecomment-1101720910>> and ignored it. The issue > was raised on OpenStreetMap discord <https://discord.com/channels/413070382636072960/787125151959351307/966810172330745926>>  where Amanda - board member - saw it but claimed that carto's Code of Conduct does not list that doxxing is explicitly forbidden. This is very disappointing as it damages community's trust in the project. 
>

1) https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/blob/master/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md#reporting-issues
contain a clear explanation how issues should be reported, and pinging
someone is not a solution

Pinging someone on github is NOT a reliable way to notify someone, as
people with more involvement may receive many notifications

See for example https://github.com/isaacs/github/issues/167 and
https://nolanlawson.com/2017/03/05/what-it-feels-like-to-be-an-open-source-maintainer/

Many people have notifications completely disabled and ignored.

BTW, this was mentioned already in
https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Cristoffs/diary/399189#comment52526

2) To clarify what happened what that someone posted report of some
problem with a screenshot and tried to keep location secret.
But
(1) location was trivial to recover from what was posted
(2) it located city, presumably where someone was living

I am mentioning this as doxing is rather used to describe release of info previously private
 which is a detailed personal info, typically things as exact address where someone lives

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doxing 
"act of publicly revealing previously private personal information about an
individual or organization, usually via the Internet"

To be clear, what happened was not OK and I intervened once I was aware of it.

> Since then another maintainer Mateusz corrected that some actions were taken but this generated a comment only after I made > diary entry <https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Cristoffs/diary/399189>>  that elicited 46 comments making some noise within the community.
>
This diary entry had no effect whatsoever on my intervention.
I become aware of the problem in a different way.


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