I rarely visit the forums these days. Between real-life issues, activism, studying and work, on the case when I have a few minutes to map I do exactly that. Silent mapping. Probably what many of us do.

Apparently, this was not meant to last.

Recent events with bans of Ukrainian users seem to clearly violate the Ban Policy, and from what I’ve seen, DWG can’t (or doesn’t want to) provide a reasonable explanation. It remains a “closed circle” with zero transparency. Usually I’m fine with that. I can’t fix all the things in the world, so it’s about priorities. However, this particular case seems serious enough to break my seclusion.

I could present it as bias or discrimination (as I probably should), but as the discussion about the issue in our Ukrainian community progresses, I came to understand it had more serious implications than merely suppressing people from a certain group.

From what it currently looks, DWG is currently trying to play thought police and persecute people for the content of their OSM profiles based on personal opinions of DWG members. In doing so, DWG is overstepping their borders and misusing their power.

We came to think that OSM is community driven, and all the overarching structures are in place for our convenience. However, if anyone can be expelled and permabanned (to be more precise, banned for 10 years) from the platform without clear ramifications and rules of dispensing these bans, it is the beginning of the end. This threatens the future of OSM project as a whole, a tangled community I am fond of.

I will try my best to spare time and go into details as we struggle with finding a reasonable solution that will benefit OSM and hopefully prevent any future issue of this kind from happening. I will also try to avoid calling names at this time as I’m still studying the situation. I am hesitant to point fingers unless having solid understanding first.

First of all, Frederik Ramm suggested that DWG members may have received death threats.

It so happens that I live in a country seared by war. I have received physical threats in the past. Journalists in Ukraine have been threatened and even murdered before, the last widely known case being Babchenko’s staged death. Luckily law enforcements were able to prevent it and capture the criminal responsible thanks to timely warning.

I take death threats seriously. It is not a valid tool of argument. It is a crime. Using death threats for any purpose, both in and outside OSM, is unacceptable. Darafei here has a point, there is a reason to make such cases public.

PS. We have and interesting member here. I totally agree with the “firefighters” comparison. That being said, I believe >creating an exception in Crimea

is not the correct description to OSMF decision. On the contrary, an exception was created when this territory was included into the country that annexed it (look at how Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria (not to mention “LPR” and “DPR”) are all tagged within their legal borders - all of them are controlled by Russian Federation).

PPS. @Adamant1 Sorry to ‘spam’ again, but this is worse than bullying, and I can never tolerate nor ignore this. Discussing professional qualities is one thing, threatening is a completely different story.

Our case revealed a serious problem. This problem is not only of ignoring international law, but also a problem of lack of transparency in an open community-driven project. The boil was present for a while now, but this case is where its existence became apparent. Data Working Group now is not what it was when it was created, and not everyone is happy with what it turned into. Currently it is a non-transparent OSM body that answers to no one but has serious influence on decision-making inside OSMF, as three out of seven OSMF Board members are also DWG members.

Our indignation and our actions have flushed out this issue into the open. We must, however, remain calm and patient. We should inform OSM community and draw attention to the issue as it is the only way to see it properly resolved.

This text is not mine but I agree. OSM currently lacks rigid rules or firm agreements concerning community, it lacks some sort of social contract. While this approach has certain advantages, it utterly fails in case of internal conflict in the community, and resolving such a conflict is challenging (to say the least).

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A funny thing OSMWeekly mentions my posts as “ad hominem”. Whether it truly is or is not, I’m not sure.

However the thing I know is, this discussion is not about exclusively professional topics. It is not a “perfectly sterile scientific discussion”. We are talking politics since OSMF and DWG are essentially OSM politicians. OSM is heavily used by many organizations related to governments. OSM depends on grants offered by international organizations and corporate sponsorship, it uses infrastructure provided by corporations. It does not exist in a vacuum, and is related to the processes happening in the real world. It influences said processes and is, in turn, influenced by them, whether we like it or not. OSM’s independence is important - but it is independence from corporate politics, not public responsibility. Since OSM itself is not commercial, its success is greatly dependent on its reputation and public image. In this situation the one who makes decisions should understand that his decisions do not concern him alone. Like circles on the water from a thrown stone, these decisions cause consequences, both close and far-reaching, both for OSM and outside OSM, and it is paramount to understand these consequences. Legal consequences. Commercial consequences. Influence on mass-media and public opinion. In our century sources of information can start and stop wars, make or break a man. Or an organization, for that matter.

(Seriously though, I feel really uneasy now, as I perceive all of the above as self-explanatory, and it is extremely hard to explain something you see as obvious).

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Several hours ago three Ukrainian ships were attacked, shot and captured by Russians in Black Sea. Currently there are around 6 wounded on Ukrainian side. Ukrainian government considers declaring martial law. Make no mistake, we face war.

@SomeoneElse, Andy, stop changing the borders of Ukraine. I don’t care any more what you can possibly say. From now on, you are an accomplice. Stand down and leave DWG before you disgrace yourself, us and the project even more.

I call to DWG to publish a transcript of the vote on Crimean “resolution”. We need to know our heroes.

I should stress that this is currently my personal opinion and my personal view and not the opinion of OSM-UA.

In the recent days we’ve seen a number of interesting notions. First of all, the one by Frederik Ramm. Yes, that Frederik Ramm.

I think I don’t quite understand some ideas of Herr Ramm.

Herr Ramm seems to be misunderstanding the nature of OSM. OSM is not a business like Geofabrik. It is not enough to make a resolution to see it working. You have no army, no corporate security, no riot police. No way to one-way enforce a decision. You need (surprise!) to convince people.

First of all, “there was really not any doubt” is not an argument. It is a way to avoid presenting documents. Simply put, it is sophistic.

Next, the argument of “not silently” is simply false. You (and I mean DWG here) never posted the transcript of your discussion, neither did you make a statistic check on community to realistically evaluate if your decision is implementable. You were not elected by the community. We have no reason to trust your decision except your reputation, and reputation is a fragile thing.

Next, I do agree that “political map” is not the intention of OSM. But OSMF needs to take some political decisions into account, or risk being subjected to national and international laws. Putting disclaimers in your resolution doesn’t make it any better. We are not “misinterpreting”. We are extrapolating the effects of this decision, and evaluate your actions, not your words, just as one old dusty book teaches us. Russian propaganda (namely, rg.ru, the official state press of Russian Federation) already uses your decision and both you and I have absolutely no way to stop them.

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Original post

I believe we are entering dangerous grounds here, setting a very curious precedent, to put it mildly.

*1. The way I see it, the authority of DWG is focused on vandalism

Nowhere in the description of DWG on OSMF wiki we see that it is entitled to make decisions about territorial disputes. The way I see it, it was and is intended for preventing copywrited uploads, vandalism and edit wars.

As we can see from DWG’s resolutions, the only existing decision concerning disputed territories (or at least the only one published) is about Crimea. That raises questions such as “why making a decision about this at all?” and “why revising it 4 years later?”

*2. DWG is not transparent in what it does

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