Zverik’s diary post contained the word “Gatekeeprs” and I have also used that term, as well as “self appointed Sheriff’s of OSM” and “grumpy people” :)

OSM contributor Dzertanoj made the comment that “Gatekeeper” was a very negative term in Russian, that it even implied “dumb”. In American English it is a negative term, but mildly so. In fact, to most folks it even implies the longest contributing, most experienced folks in an open source project.

Gatekeeping is a critical role to a large open project like OSM.

The problem is, that over time, years of experience supporting and contributing to the project, the gatekeepers are in the best place to see what is needed to keep the project at a very high level of quality, which OSM is at, a very high level of quality, infrastructure, data, code base, ecosystem, etc, it is in large part due to the gatekeepers.

But I think what happens is that after several years, over 10+ years in some cases, of seeing all sorts of folks and ideas and efforts come to the “commons” that is an open source project, the gatekeepers get a little focused on keeping the gate closed. They have cleaned up after this, heard this, seen this, tried this, whatever it may be and they know all the parts that cause issues on the commons. So they rightly keep the gate closed or try to.

What is needed, what I have personally tried to do, and what HOT (disclosure: I am a HOT member and past board member) tries to do is be “Gateopeners”

We know the rules as the community and gatekeepers in particular have created, they are things like the import guidelines and draft of the directed edition policy are two great examples.

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Each year HOT organization members should review their contributions to HOT and the OSM communities and look forward to their goals for the coming year.

This past year I participated in mapping and contributed (in some way ;) to coordination of all the activations and many of the non crisis mapping projects.

As a HOT board member I attended a few international conferences and meetings to promote OSM and HOT. Most importantly to me personally were the sprint and fall International Working Group of Satellite-based Emergency Mapping organizations meetings in Bonn and via teleconference in Vienna. The other major highlight was the Missing Maps meeting in Toronto. Two amazing groups of people it was an honor to work with!

In that same area of working with amazing people, I was the HOT liaison to the Digital Humanitarian Network (DHN).

And of course helping organize and attending the first ever HOT Summit which provide the opportunity to meet so many of our community members.

I had the privilege to participate in all of the currently active HOT Working Groups and see first hand how dedicated and talented the HOT/OSM community is. As many people know, Tom Taylor, one of the chairpersons of the Training Working Group passed away at the end of 2015. He will always be an inspiration to me for how he faced the end of life and his dedication to his family and humanitarian work.

I also served as Vice President/Treasurer of the HOT Board of Directors which allowed me to work very closely with HOT’s new ED Tyler Radford and the amazing staff people HOT has been lucky enough to have work for our organization.

I was an Outreachy mentor, but luckily Rekth was good enough that she quickly surpassed my limited expertise and created a great UI analysis of the Tasking Manager.

I was a participant in the activation coordination sprint that helped lay the ground work for Russ’s and Mhairi’s activation protocol and curriculum work.

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Reviewing, revising, polishing and providing helpful feedback are all parts of what someone validating a HOT task square has to do and that takes some experience.

But most of what validation ends up being about is typical HOT mapping: roads and buildings. This is mainly because most people who do validations do not want to mark task squares “Invalid”, I would much rather finish one up and then leave some good feedback for the good work that was done.

That is always, for me, the biggest use of my time and what slows down my validation process, mapping in missing features. So new mappers are really helpful to the validation process, directly and indirectly.

Directly, I encourage new mappers to get started in any HOT OSM Tasking Manager project by reading the instructions and then looking at 3 or 4 of the “Gold” colored task squares. They are “Completed” but not reviewed or “Validated” yet.

After you read the instructions, just review a “Completed” task square to see if anything is missing and if it is map it in. That is amazingly helpful to this whole process, just standard mapping in “Completed” task squares.

Do not try to make it over detailed, that is not the goal of most of our mapping. Our goal is roads that connect places and some of the most used roads, tracks or paths around those places.

And buildings, if the instructions call for buildings, we do want to get every one of those we possibly can. So fill in any buildings you see if the instructions call for buildings.

By reviewing a “Completed” task square will help you see how others are mapping an area and help you see where people miss things so your mapping will get better too.

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Hi everyone,

It is with mixed emotions that I present myself as a candidate for the HOT Board of Directors.

As a relatively new member of HOT, the existing Board members have been the only board members I have known. I find them all to be dedicated and experienced humanitarians who have helped build HOT into the amazing organization it is today. I hate to see any one of them step down or not seek re-election. But, I guess change is unavoidable.

However, I am also excited at the possibility of continuing to serve, promote and build an organization and membership that means so much to me, but from a much different perspective than I have been in so far.

Like many people I was first introduced to HOT by the Ebola outbreak and I think it took literally about 5 mins before I completely fell in love with the organization, its mission, activities and community. Since that moment I have worked very hard to learn the ins and outs of HOT and find ways to contribute to its growth and success. I have participated in all of the currently active working groups and several of the activations, projects and events around HOT and the OSM community.

I come from the software industry, and while I have been a programmer, product manager and small business owner in the past, my first love is teaching. I have always enjoyed working with people who want to learn new skills, especially when they are learning to increase their opportunities. I have worked or volunteered in several educational settings including primary and high school, university level and the US Federal Prison system.

It is my dedication to teaching and education that will focus my Board activities. As a Board member my main areas of focus and priorities will be:

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