Hi Allan,

In a sense we already have a tiered/hierarchical arrangements with the working groups. Two-tiered, to be precise: Board->working groups. So far in the conversations I did not sense a desire from any quarter for that to change, or a particular need at this point.

Well indeed, but there is some desire to refine it a little. As you said yourself many “widely recognise that the Operations Working Group has collapsed”. On the LCCWG (on which I am a member) we have more on our plate that we can currently achieve.

So yes, there is a structure and no radical change required. However in my view there is presently limited ability for the board to delegate as much as a board normally would due to limitations in the WGs. Some can be solved by establishing new groups (DISC, microgrant committee) others will take a little longer.

Anyway I don’t think we are disagreeing here, a least not fundamentally so I’ll stop talking as I seem to have been misunderstood by both you and Tordanik. Perhaps another sign of why video calls are so important. :-)

All the best, Rob

Hi Tordanik,

I know. But in my experience there is a difference between passively listening and actively engaging. I certainly appreciated Allan’s approach and hence my comments. This wasn’t meant to belittle the work of others so sorry if it came across that way.

As you know our community is large and complex. It simply will never be possible to read everything in every channel. Indeed I don’t want the board to be doing this as it will leave no time for anything else. You also wouldn’t get a full picture as on some channels the views of the vocal minority don’t match the views of the silent majority.

I think the right solution is to get the info you need at the time you need it related to a policy or change you are working on.

Thanks Allan,

I think this is the most extensive attempt any board member has taken to gather input from the community ever. Possibly more extensive than any non board member too.

I am therefore not sure I understand some of the concerns in the responses here, perhaps because they lack a way forward.

The way I see it is that the board is elected so are free to get on and do something. They are free to gather information and evidence however they like from informal chats, to “requests for information” to a Resolution of the members (as per the articles of association). At the end of the year we can pass judgement on this via the board elections.

If you’re looking for a more complex arrangement then it would have to be a tiered/hierarchical arrangement with defined groups and decision making powers. However so much is missing here at the moment.

Start at board level and let’s grow out from there until we find our suitable solution that goes beyond the previous “do-ocracy” but still meets the spirit of our project (i.e. not a super sized organisation).

Best regards Rob

I’ll keep it short because I think this is pretty straightforward. On the addition of video, this is a step in the right direction. Communication is not just verbal so adding video helps a lot and with internet speeds improving globally it makes sense to do that now.

Side channels however are distracting if people start using them for secondary conversations. I found this on Mumble and clearly it’s the same here. My recommendation is:

(1) use the side channel but only when everyones attention can be moved to it. For example to share and discuss some text, to share a desktop screen and discuss it, and so on.

(2) do not use it for conversations that run in parallel to the main conversation. Just like it is rude to speak over people the same is true here. If you have something you want to contribute to the conversation then say so.

As for choice of platform, my view is that the board should pick what works best for them as it is their meeting.

Best regards Rob

@jguthula: Any intent to expand this beyond Germany? I can see a lot of value in recent street imagery (even if private to Amazon) in other places such as my home country (United Kingdom). We know there are lots of regions that are still heavily based on traced aerial imagery and lack turn restrictions and the like.

Thanks, Rob

As an aside: there is loads of things in OSM that are not verifiable on the ground. Borders and boundaries are the classic ones. However pick one particular invidual - to them 99.99% of the map is individually unverifiable due to the fact that as individuals we simply cannot visit all places frequently enough.

Our project is therefore as much about trust as it is about anything else. We can greatly improve our trust of each other by helping each other out friend to friend rather than by interrogating everyone from a presumption of no good.

Thank you Rob

Hi Andy,

They are using recent imagery in addition to reports from their employees on the ground. It’s a very sensible approach.

Sure any individual who thinks an edit is wrong can go and do a new on the ground survey. If the real world situation has changed then that individual can make a change.

But without a new real world survey I think it is absolutely wrong for the DWG to revert an edit relying solely on imagery that is older than the source Amazon is using. You don’t revert things I do and the record of what I have seen is “private” and, because I rarely take or upload photos “no-one else has access to” my records either.

My suggestion is that whenever you see a company name you replace that with the name of a responsible human being. If you did this would you make the same statements?

Amazon has no requirement to make this imagery available just like I have no requirement to provide copies of any photos I take (or a download of my brain/memory).

P.s. thanks for your concern on the licencing side. I’m pretty sure Amazon and CycloMedia would have discussed this.

@Rory and Andy: “Please” goes a long way, something which I’m sure you would have been taught from a young age :-)

Best regards, Rob

Frederik, I think you have completely misinterpreted this. I also find the argument that leadership equates to white male as completely and utterly wrong. It’s actually very sad and worrying that you even try to make that arguement.

Mikel’s first paragraph is spot on. It’s not about “top down” but is instead about being able to listen to the mappers & users and then support them by steering an efficient OSMF and wider OSM community.

Nor does the board of directors allocate vast amounts of funding to projects deemed worthy of support.

This is a personal view of yours. It need not be that way. The OSMF could follow a differnt logic. For example it could decide to extract as much money and other resources from those willing to provide it and direct that money and resource into helping the hobbyist community.

The elections are a way for us to decide on this. In this case the mapper you refer to crept in as a board member by a very slim margin (0.2% if I recall).

But the key thing is people should be able to decide for themselves based on well reasoned and polite debate. I don’t think that trying to make this about race or gender is part of a well reasoned debate.

Hopefully most people can see that gender or race has nothing to do with leadership. Everyone of every race, gender or background has the ability to be a good leader (of any description) and all OSM members should be encouraging everyone to contribute to OSM and consider running for the board.

The fact that an ex board member is trying to push the idea that leadership equates to white male is very sad. As a society we should have dropped that logic many many years ago.

Interesting. Sounds similar to an app called Input which I’ve been meaning to test for some time. Perhaps I’ll compare both over the holiday break.

Input app: https://www.lutraconsulting.co.uk/products/

At best I do not see how this post is in anyway useful, at worst this comes across as a desperate attempt to cling on to something (power? Influence?)

It would be good if board members remembered that OpenStreetMap is the project that creates and distributes free geographic data for the world. If you genuinely care about this aim then the new board members should do as much as they possibly can to guide as many people and and as many companies through the process of successfully contributing good quality data. That is the best way to achieve our aim of distributing free geographic data for the world.

Every member should of course decide based on their own personal preferences who to vote for.

Indeed and in fact it is common for my views to differ significantly. I’ve not finished reading yet but can already tell that my ranking this year will again differ significantly to your personal view. But that’s the great thing about an election - we can all vote as we see fit without anyone pressuring us to vote a particular way. It’s for that reason that I’m not a particular fan of publishing my ranked list. I believe there is a lot of benefit of a secret ballot.

Hi Frederik,

Given that you linked to one of my emails, I felt it best to share some thoughts especially as I do not think you have identified the root cause of the issue. But first to address your request.

Yes we can “stop using that “official” version of iD” however the issues you discuss are not limited to iD. I have experienced the same issues within numerous OpenStreetMap projects and there seems to be no link between whether they are run by volunteers or by corporate employees. In fact in one such volunteer example I stopped posting issues several years ago as it became clear that they also had very little interest in the UK specifics I was describing. There is another project (again community run) that I would think twice about posting an issue to given my observations of the way they treat others. So, yes we can “stop using that “official” version of iD” but if we do can we also stop using the “official” version of other OSM projects featured on, or linked to from openstreetmap.org?

So what is the root cause? It could possibly be the core value of OpenSreetMap itself - “do-ocracy”. The problem with do-ocracy is that not everyone comes to OpenStreetMap with the same skill set. Most can do basic map edits but after that the number drops dramatically. Using iD as the example here, the number of members within the OpenStreetMap community who have the right skills to contribute to iD is very small. The same applies to the community run projects I have experienced issues with - the common feature is that most of the community are locked out of these projects because they do not possess the right skill set.

The issue with a do-ocracy is that individuals are faced with two choice: (1) commit serious amounts of time to learn every the skills required to contribute to single element of OpenStreetMap, or (2) rely on the goodwill of others and hope that those others also share your point of view.

In reverse order: the issue with (2) is that you will not always succeed. Individuals have their own approach (whether paid or by a company or contributing in their spare time). Sometimes they share the same my point of view, sometimes they don’t. Some are ok at reading the mood of the community, others less good. Who can blame them - the community is complex and rarely appears to agree (it takes just 1 loud person to express an opposite opinion even if the other 99 mostly silent people agree).

The solution I hear most often is choice (1) - i.e. teach yourself and join the do-ocracy. However there is a major problem here. We want as many mappers as possible to contribute to OSM. As such we need to be attracting people from all walks of life, including those who may just want to dip in and make a small edit every now and then. They might still be passionate about OpenStreetMap’s aim (free geospatial data of the world) but they are held out of many aspects of the project unless they learn all the skills we demand.

So what is the solution? Personally I’m not sure but it somehow has to lie in channelling the energy of those who do have the right skills. This is something we are not very good at. We are quick to disagree when that energy is used to do something we disagree with, but as a group we are very bad at channelling that energy to our benefit. Perhaps that is because we have never figured out what the agreed “benefit” is. As such the small group within the do-ocracy are left to their own devices and are left to figure out for themselves how to help the wider community. As noted above, some people are better at this than others, but one thing is common - when they get it wrong they face abuse.

Hopefully in time we will find better ways to strengthen the OpenStreetMap community and get it to the point where it can express clearly it’s wishes as one community rather than the current he/she who shouts the loudest. If we can do that, then we (and the OSMF) can focus on pulling in as much help and possible (community volunteer, corporate employee time or corporate money) and channelling it to the things that the community agrees it wants.

For now we just continue as is - missing opportunities whilst we argue about something. Meanwhile in the iD project the developers are splitting the project into a core component and an OpenStreetMap plugin. If we’re not careful this will result in new features being developed entirely behind closed doors (e.g. a dedicated version of iD for Company Y) which we have no say in but also don’t get to benefit from if they are good features.

Conclusion: If we can find a way to make decisions as a community we can then help drive in this direction rather than just being a passenger not knowing exactly where we will go or how long it will take.

OSM is about groundtruth - what is really there.

Yes, but there is a second element, namely how you interpret the tagging guidelines. I feel that this is important here.

What Amazon seem to be suggesting us that they do not believe highway=track on its own is correct for routing to deliverable addresses.

Personally I struggle with choosing between highway=track and highway=service in some cases. Looking again at the wiki [1] it states “Roads which provide access to a single property, such as driveways, should be tagged highway=service.” (I think “single” is too string here - it could be a “few”). It also says that track is for agricultural and forestry cases.

Based on this interpretation I’m coming to the opinion that despite a ground truth survey the tagging is probably wrong. If Amazon have a property to deliver too (which they do) and can record a GPS trace (which they do), then my interpretation of the guideline is that the track can be re-tagged as highway=service. I would however leave it at that and not add a service=* any access tags or surface=* as they don’t have recorded data for those tags.

All views are my own not OSMUK’s.

[1] wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:highway=track

Hi Jothirnadh,

Thanks for sharing this question with the community. I have notified those members signed up to the talk-gb mailing list in case they want to comment.

We have a non profit community company here in the UK. Please see osmuk.org or reach out to board@osmuk.org (I am one of the Directors) should you wish to discuss ideas of how we can both help each other.

Do you collect any street imagery alongside the GPS tracks? Is this something you may want to consider?

Best, Rob

Is it a case of the more detailed the imagery the better the result? Have you tried it on any 12.5cm imagery?

Nice one. Any reason why you picked mapillary for Chiang Mai City and OpenStreetCam for Singapore? Any notable differences?

Good work. Just goes to show it’s always worth asking. If you don’t ask, you don’t get!

There are a number of skills that are useful in a board which don’t require you to be an active mapper. For example, it seems the current board are struggling with basics such as communicating their decisions (e.g. Crimea border dispute). And in any case, the OSM ecosystem is huge: why should someone who has decided to spend the last year focusing on promotion, software or documentation not be allowed to try for a board position? It’s up to the voters to decide who they vote for.

Perhaps draw some inspiration from the executive director and non executive director arrangement at large companies.

Having said that, many of the other suggestions made in the pdf are good and reasonably easy to implement. Beyond those we probably need a proper debate about what direction we want for OSMF. Personally I’d like to find some arrangement that allows for inclusiveness. Heading further into the “us versus them” mentality isn’t my cup of tea.

P.s. there have been times during my OSM years where I have struggled to map as often as I would like. For example when committing time to organising SotM or my OSM UK board duties. At no point during those times have I not been committed to OSM.

OSM UK has some flyers left. Happy to send a batch. Email me at rob@osmuk.org and I will arrange it. I’m hoping to make the New Year/January meeting Jerry advertised so can pass them to you there if you like?

I can’t help but notice that the comments from Brits and Americans so far seem oddly unrelated

Really? That’s not what I read. Whilst some worry about the last column having values well in excess of 100, others worry about the last column having numbers far less than 100. Personally I have no issue with come countries “raising the bar” - it encourages others to get involved too. The more the better :-)