You could afterwards stop by in Freiburg on your way back and visit FOSSGIS:

https://www.fossgis-konferenz.de/2020/

This is exceeding the scope of a diary discussion a bit probably but i will try to address a few things quickly none the less:

The OSM Foundation is by law the governing body […]

The OSMF has been by its own self understanding (see here and here) always in a support role only for the OpenStreetMap project. I am not quite sure if you want to indicate you would like to change that (which would likely not only get opposition from large parts of the OSM community but also from the local chapters) or if you want the OSMF to be more serious, better organized and more efficient in its support role (which most including me would very much support).

I do wonder what kind of bias you perceive in the Foundation membership (“OSMF membership…is highly biased in composition”). What is the bias, and how did you measure it?

Regarding regional bias see here. Regarding social bias - the requirement to pay for membership is a significant factor of course. Regarding language bias - the dominance of English in the OSMF is fairly clear, there is no culture of non-English communication within the OSMF, even the membership signup form is available only in English. AFAIK only the CWG and the DWG have a standing tradition in non-English communication with the broader OSM community.

I must also point out that if the Foundation and Board do not act on issues the community believes are important, because a vocal minority insists that Foundation or Board action is “not the OSM way”, well, that is tyranny by a minority of the Foundation’s members, and that is truly “not the OSM way.”

I am with you here - but my view would always be that the opinion of the majority should not supersede reason. Any majority decision should IMO be preceded by a battle of arguments which of the options of the decision is the best for the project.

WRT your comment, “the board members are themselves often invested in specific interests,” Board members are required to recuse themselves from voting on issues in which they face a conflict of interest.

In this context i used the term ‘interests’ more in the sense of characterizing what unites the members of the different factions: common interests. In the past most board members have positioned themselves w.r.t. these factions and the interests they represent - either by statements made or by the way they argued and voted in board meetings. It is admirable and certainly helpful if you want to try raising above that and regard all the different views with equal sympathy and consideration. But ultimately i think the main source of synthesis in policy decision making should be the argumentative discourse about what approach is the best. That is what i had in mind when i wrote about the more parliament like nature of the board right after the last elections.

I would advise against taking the results of this brainstorming directly as a basis for any decision making. To me so far the results of this mostly indicate what the strongest interests are that are articulated in the OSM community and in what direction these interests would like the project to move. Now if you’d condense these interests and use them as a basis for decision making or as a todo list without first having a discussion on the viability and sustainability of these ideas and if the interests they are based on are even compatible with the basic goals and values of the project you would be very likely to clash with the mission of the OSMF.

I agree that there are in a way factions within the OSM community (in particular within the voiceful part of it and within the OSMF membership) - or like i called it above distinct and partly incompatible interests. There are multiple possible approaches to dealing with that:

• making majority decisions. This means favoring the interests with the strongest support. This comes with the problem that the interests with the most support is not necessarily the most legitimate interest and that the OSMF membership (which you indicated to be who would make such decision) is highly biased in composition.
• negotiating a compromise. This comes with the same problem of the negotiation strengths being based on the representation in the negotiation. And it also bears the risk of resulting in bad compromises being counterproductive for the project (we had quite a lot of those in the more recent history of the OSMF).
• evaluating the legitimacy and merit of the interests based on the goals and values of the project and deciding from that. This is the approach i would prefer but it would require at least a broad agreement on the basic goals and values of the project that is specific enough to allow this kind of assessment. And in the past the OSMF board has not been very interested in positioning itself w.r.t. the project’s basic goals and values (my attempt in bringing this up in the board elections a year ago can be found here) - largely because there is no consensus on that within the board because the board members are themselves often invested in specific interests.

To close on a clearly positive note - a lot of interesting ideas in the brainstorming. Even though it starts getting a bit difficult to maintain an overview i think there are perspectives widening the view of the project and how different people see it for everyone.

I don’t think this is a problem of specific communication channels. A proposal in a very similar direction was not successful either:

osm.wiki/Proposed_features/Default_Language_Format

It is simply that this would be a big change that would impact a lot of people and tools both on the mapping and on the data use side and that would mean a higher level of abstraction in how names are recorded. Skepticism regarding this is fairly natural and understandable - which however does not mean it is a bad idea in the long term.

I can feel your pain and your suggestions are sound as far as i can see.

A long time ago i proposed a more radical solution to the whole problem:

http://blog.imagico.de/you-name-it-on-representing-geographic-diversity-in-names/

which unfortunately did not and probably still does not have sufficient support. So you will for the foreseeable future have to try parsing the name tag to try determining which name or what kind of name combination is put there by the mapper to be able to render a consistently labeled map.

Regarding cultural dominance - i don’t want this to sidestep the main topic here, i already explained in my reply to Andy what my main point was meant to be. However i see your arguments more underlining the existing dominance of American business culture in the world wide business world and the dominance of the business world and its values in our societies outside the domain of business itself. I would like to see OSM be an exception from this - hence my concerns.

Regarding the need for a goal being specified - the German wikipedia agrees with me on that, so this might be a cultural thing. In general i think a SWOT analysis tends to say at least as much about the person making the analysis as it objectively says about the project analyzed. And this effect is probably even stronger when no clear goal is specified in advance. In other words: While the manager will probably regard this as an instrument to rationally analyze a project or business a social scientist would probably more look at it as an experiment analyzing both the manager and the project.

@SomeoneElse - i can’t know for sure, Wikipedia says the origins are obscure. It seems certain that the origin under this name is within the English language domain and given the dominance of the US within the ‘free market economy’ part of the world both economically and in terms of economic sciences at the time this came up an American origin seems likely.

Anyway the underlying concept of looking at inside and outside positive and negative factors regarding a project and its goals is a natural way to look at this that can be understood across cultures i think. As long as you don’t give too much weight to the specific terms used (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) which have their culture specific meaning and implication this is all fine. Especially when trying to translate the concept to different languages going with a generic description (internal/external and positive/negative) instead of trying to perform a 1:1 translation of the terms used is probably a good idea.

First the idea of making a risk analysis of the OpenStreetMap project is a good idea, this should be something everyone involved with any kind of decision making in OSM should contemplate and it is good to do such contemplation also collectively.

There are a few things i like to point out regarding the specific form chosen:

• good idea to do it on the wiki - gives people the freedom to articulate their views in the form they find suitable. Anyone who wants to contribute without revealing their identity can create a pseudonymous wiki account and use it for this purpose.
• to get a broad spectrum of views on this it would be important to (a) also ask and invite answers in other languages and (b) not tie this too strictly to the concept of SWOT which is strongly linked to American business culture and kind of implies that OSM is a business project based on American cultural values.
• it would be of advantage if the different opinions on this would be linked across the four categories, for example by having the points signed by those who make them. The reason is what some consider a strength others might consider a weakness. For understanding the different views on this it is important not to look at the points for each category in isolation but being able to connect how they form distinct overall views of the project.
• it is my understanding that the idea behind SWOT is to look at things w.r.t. a specific goal - in the business world often essentially to maximize profits. You have not specified or referenced any specific goals to consider so the answers you get might significantly diverge because people consider the matter w.r.t. very different goals without actually specifying the goals in question.

So overall: Good as a starting point to get people thinking and exchange some spontaneous ideas but more in depth and structured analysis of the situation is required for actually assessing the risks of the project. There is a strong possibility that some people might attempt to just calculate an arithmetic mean or take a vote (as it has been suggested on osmf-talk already) instead of looking at the ideas and see which of them are supported by facts and reason and which might just be wishful thinking or represent special interests (which are possibly in themselves a risk for the project).

In a way the Soviet military maps were a predecessor of OSM in that they were one of the most notable and extensive earlier attempts for recording a detailed cartographic account of the world wide geography to a uniform standard. There were earlier and less extensive attempts at that - like US mapping campaigns during WW2 but nothing to the extent of the Soviet military mapping program. That they have copied information from local maps for that IMO does not really diminish this important innovation.

Even today the cartography of the larger scale maps is an important inspiration for anyone who attempts to display the variety of world wide geography in a common cartographic design. I can recommend studying the map key of the Soviet maps - an early version is available on

https://www.lib.berkeley.edu/EART/pdf/soviet.pdf

Allan, thanks for the comment. Starting from the back - i have not criticized the board for moving too fast and as you correctly said i have in the past criticized the board for failing to move on important issues without a good reason so this would be kind of inconsequential. I have made critical comments on the idea of the board creating a diversity working group top down - in line with the comments made by Tobias in the board meeting which went in a similar direction.

As i have said repeatedly in the past (see for example here i would always welcome a fact based discussion and argument on matters of diversity. But that in my experience needs to start on a pretty fundamental level and only few people are willing/able to look beyond their narrow cultural horizon far enough to do that. We have had some contributions in that direction more recently (like from Frederik, Manfred and a few others) but also a lot of non-helpful noise in the form of self absorbed and intolerant rants.

My advise to the board on the matter of diversity (which is a fairly ill defined term of course) - focus on the OSMF and on improving proportional representation of the active OSM community in the OSMF. This is an extremely tough subject to get to substantial improvements with but there are plenty of potential practical measures that could help a lot in that regard and that the board would have an actual direct influence on - for example the free membership for active community members that is to be introduced now. The good thing is the new board has the best starting conditions for this - it features a larger linguistic diversity than any board of the past i think. And don’t shoot yourselves in the foot by - as said - founding an English language debate club for wannabe diversity engineers and community managers and leaders.

Regarding communication channels - i think a large variety and flexibility is good in that domain. Diaries are a good medium for fairly compact thoughts on things. Before the last board meeting there was also an attempt of using blog.openstreetmap.org to publish the diverse views of the different members on matters together which i - like others - found an interesting idea worth exploring further. The OSM wiki can also be a place for structured idea collection when used wisely. And as i mentioned in the past having a dedicated OSM issue tracker which can be used without selling your private data and attention to a third party corporation would be good.

My personal preferences for community communication channels are

• barrierless public read access
• public and linkable archive of communication
• open communication standard and availability of diverse clients for different platforms
• open source software
• self management of channels by the community
• no third party controlled sign-on
• non-commercial hosting

The first two are fairly absolute for me - which is why i won’t use Slack for example.

And regarding the procedural rules of the board - i think i clearly said that i like the new procedure in many ways. But still i advise sensitivity and caution regarding a possible language and culture bias. Since all of the board members currently speak English quite well this might not be very visible but that does not necessarily mean it cannot be an issue. And since the board meetings are public public perception is - while it should not be a primary concern - something to take into account. The comparison to programming languages and communication protocols is problematic in two ways:

• it kind of implies that a bias towards people with technical skills/talent is all right.
• it overlooks that Latin script is the basis of HTML/python/java in a similar fashion as the English language is the basis of Robert’s Rules of Order. There is a certain bias in that.

As said - i don’t think this is a reason not to use these procedural rules as a starting point but sensitivity to the potential need to adjust these to the circumstances of the project is probably a good idea. But overall i think i am pretty much with you on this matter, clear rules which are actually followed are a good thing - also as i have in the past criticized the board for not consequently sticking to the self given rules of order on several occasions.

All of the newly elected board members have jumped in somewhere https://mobile.twitter.com/HeatherLeson/status/1205892966428106757

Not sure if Twitter presents a different reality to customers than to outsiders but i am pleased to see neither Guillaume nor Allan lowering themselves to this hateful mob.

https://mobile.twitter.com/allan_mustard/status/1209879368400539649

That is a bit more civilized. Still a truly thoughtful conversation on a matter like this is not something you can really have on twitter.

I fail to see how my words here or at any other point connect to what you write about ”engineering pseudo diversity” or an ”English language debate club”.

I can see that and i don’t think there is much i can do about it. It is my sincere hope that i won’t get the opportunity to illustrate better what i mean with the quoted statements using an actual OSMF working group as example.

That is more or less exactly the reaction i expected from you - and largely the core of what i had in mind when i wrote We should not let the board get off the hook that easily and recruiting an English language debate club most likely mainly talking about how to engineer a pseudo-diversity within the OSMF and propagate that down into the OSM community.

Could you point me to where the board has been discussing things on social media?

My own impression is that there is a lot of (in parts fairly intolerant and discriminating) theoretical contemplation in English language on how to reshape/re-educate the OSM community according to certain cultural preferences and values (i commented on some of that) and label that a pro-diversity measure but so far very little practical interest in actually addressing the core issues of the OSMF like the representation problem. Or as Manfred puts it: Glaubwürdig werden Forderungen nach Diversity aber nur, wenn die Fordernden den ihnen schon jetzt als Communitymitglieder und Foundation-Mitglieder zur Verfügung stehenden Spielraum nutzen und selbst das Projekt mitgestalten.

I am confident that most of the board members are aware that there are practical things of immediate importance that would actually substantially improve the proportional representation of the OSM community within the OSMF - like implementing the free membership for active community members in a way that does not favor English language speakers and that bootstrapping and endorsing an English language debate club is not one of them.

Since i have not explicitly mentioned that in my comments - board meetings are routinely minuted on the OSMF wiki and are generally open to visitors listening in on Mumble.

Es geht hier nicht um Meinungen und persönliche Präferenzen, es geht um sachliche Argumente. Und zu der Bedeutung offener Standards und der Problematik proprietärer Kommunikationskanäle, die Unternehmen wie Facebook jederzeit abschalten oder beliebig zensieren können, muss ich hoffentlich in OpenStreetMap niemanden aufklären.

Und es bleibt im OSM-ci natürlich nicht bei einer Bewertung der Einträge, da wird auch mal gerne zensiert

Das Thema ist aber insgesamt natürlich ein bisschen off-topic hier.

@karussell

imagico: The idea that the participants of this project are in need to be managed, … or otherwise ‘handled’ by professionals is in my eyes an affront to these fundamental goals of the project.

Why?

I explained that already: OpenStreetMap is a cross cultural, multilingual social project with the goal to record local knowledge about the verifiable geography of the world through egalitarian cooperation of individuals. If you install a professional to handle, manage or do whatever else with this community of peers that professional will make decisions either based on their own cultural values or based on the ones of those who pay their paycheck - in either case they will be imposed on the community in an act of cultural dominance.

In any case - the burden of proof would be on your side. If you want to install paid community management in the OSM community you would have to convince people that this is beneficial for the goals of the project.

I know for many people with a technology background try to project their experiences with tech projects and organizations onto OSM and think that solutions and approaches that worked well for those and the technical goals of these projects should also be good ideas for OSM. You should not do that. What OSM tries to accomplish is something very different and unique.

imagico: beneficial for the goals of the project you need to do more than just campaigning for it, you need to present facts

What do you mean here? “community management is not beneficial” or “the community will manage itself” or something else?

I mean that just repeatedly stating a belief that certain measures (community management, behavior regulation) are a positive thing will not convince a lot of people, you need to present evidence (like in the form of empirical data and logical deduction) and will need to defend that to scrutiny.

If you ask my opinion on what will happen if hypothetically professional community management was installed in OSM - it would widely be ignored by people. The powers-that-be then could try to push it through authoritarian rule but the risks of that are high and the only hope for the ‘management’ would essentially be to replace large parts of the current community firmly tied to the core values of the project with more malleable engineered community. And that would mean the end of OSM as a cross cultural social project.

@westnordost: Du bist Dir schon darüber im klaren, dass der OSM community index ein subjektives Rating beinhaltet nach dem Motto Mailinglisten böse, proprietäre Plattformen gut (siehe hier und hier).

I can only repeat what I - as well as Manfred (in point 6.5) already said - to convince people you need to provide evidence that what you want to do is beneficial for the goals of the project. Suggesting that your ideas are good because this is what a lot of tech organizations with an English language and Anglo-American cultural dominance do will not convince a lot of people, especially not outside that cultural domain. OpenStreetMap is not a tech project and does not as a whole subscribe to Anglo-American cultural values. We are a cross cultural, multilingual social project with the goal to record local knowledge about the verifiable geography of the world through egalitarian cooperation of individuals. The idea that the participants of this project are in need to be managed, engaged, lead, facilitated, developed, resourced, advocated or otherwise ‘handled’ by professionals is in my eyes an affront to these fundamental goals of the project.

Still - if you want to accept that is obviously up to you. My advise was meant as a suggestion, Manfred phrased his as an “Appell”. My invitation for a discussion of the fundamentals of cross cultural communication and how to define parameters and guidelines for that without cultural dominance stands but it is an invitation, not a demand.

Have a nice holiday - and maybe take your family out for some mapping to help them get a better idea of what OpenStreetMap is about (unless they are already avid mappers of course).

Good to see you setting a positive example for a start into the board being more active in public communication about their day-to-day work. Looking forward to the board meeting tomorrow.

@Heather - if you want to convince people that uniform and universal behavior regulation in the OSM community is something beneficial for the goals of the project you need to do more than just campaigning for it, you need to present facts, arguments and reasoning for that to those critical of it and defend your ideas against critique from others. This is one of the core ideas communicated by Manfred in his post above.

As i have just mentioned elsewhere i have specifically invited proponents of such regulation to engage in such a discussion based on facts and reasoning two years ago already. I have also more specifically reflected on the topic in public since then. During all that time i have rarely ever had a functional discussion based on facts and reasoning with proponents of behavior regulation - notable exception being Rory - or saw a fact based reflection on this from a pro-regulation perspective that takes into account the goals of the OpenStreetMap project (see 6.5 above) and respectfully discusses dissenting views of others (6.1 and 6.4). By the way my offer linked to above still stands - i would welcome and happily engage in any discussion of the matter with anyone willing to engage in a public discourse based on facts and reason.

And to you specifically i would also suggest to consider point 6.3 of what Manfred has written above. You might not realize that but statements like

Community management and strategy are key to our future

appear very disrespectful and offensive to many in the OSM community. The idea that they need somehow to be managed and that doing so is not only beneficial but apparently more important than the core ideas and values of the project will be rightfully rejected by many and opening with something like that as a claim of fact will not get you much support - neither from men or women probably.

Can you explain to me why you accuse me of “wallowing in their bias and intolerance”

I can’t because that is not what i did. I linked to

osm.org/user/Heather%20Leson/diary/391598#comments

not

osm.org/user/Heather%20Leson/diary/391598#comment46098

and i am talking about “manche” (some peope) - not all of them. Your comment was a perfectly valid, open and respectful question for better understanding of what Heather means but you might have noticed that except for Heather sidestepping your questions to get back to her narrative everyone essentially ignored your comment.

And to be clear - the problem is not that there are some people whose cultural values differ from those of others in the OSM community and who would prefer it is their values would have more significance in OSM. That is perfectly natural. The problem is the intolerance, disrespect and insults to those who do not share exactly the same values and the unreflected musings about how to top down impose their ideas onto the community and squeeze out those who are not willing to subject themselves to this imposed value system and to re-educate the rest.

That is completely incompatible to the core value of OpenStreetMap of creating the best map of the world through egalitarian cross cultural cooperation.

To be perfectly frank: The willingness and ability to accept people with cultural values fundamentally different from your own - including fundamental questions like fairness and equality - is kind of a prerequisite for working in the OSM community.

For those who have difficulties with that i have a long standing open invitation to discuss these questions without fixed premises in an enlightened fashion based on arguments and reasoning. But so far reaction to that has been fairly sparse.

Ist ja mal wieder allerliebst wie die englischen Muttersprachler sofort aus ihren Löchern geschossen kommen, um ihre Deutungshoheit über die Begriffe zu verteidigen und ohne mal etwas länger über das Geschriebene nachzudenken den Verfasser gleich als Idioten abzustempeln, der alles missversteht und keine Ahnung hat.

Kleiner Ratschlag: Wenn Ihr den Eindruck habt, dass der Andere alles total missversteht, denkt vielleicht mal einen Moment drüber nach, ob vielleicht Ihr es seid, die mit einem Brett vorm Kopf herumlaufen. Zumindest sollte man dann nämlich nicht etwas von “being able to listen to the mappers & users” erzählen…