Ok, feel better now?

Wow. Who hurt you?

This is a remarkable report from the Chair. I’ve served on a lot of OSMF Boards, and they have frequently been contentious, but this sounds like a whole other level. It’s quite disappointing that an official OSMF report reads like a game of passing blame on to others.

I think the conflicts must have clouded the Chair’s perception of what the OSMF and particularly the Board has accomplished this year. Maybe it’s because a lot is still in process? One thing I’d love to point out but can’t yet are a couple major fundraising wins that would completely counter the narrative presented here.

The red tape comment seems like a red herring. I’d probably agree that circulars on travel costs is unnecessary. However the other process improvements I’m aware of, particularly transparency and accountability within the personnel committee, have been very much needed and helpful.

I’ve directly worked with all the individuals involved, and don’t recognize the “some people”. The insinuations toward other Board members read as self serving to the Chair’s narrative. What’s sorely missing from this report is self-reflection and accountability on the Board Chair’s role in setting a productive work environment.

It’s too bad that several Board members chose to not continue and run again because of this atmosphere. We lost some incredibly productive people.

I’m very happy to see all the candidates that stepped forward this year, and I fully congratulate the winners. There’s a lot of skill on this incoming Board and it needs to be harnessed well.

That must extend to the Board Chair role. Guillaume has served for several years and accomplished a lot. He has a lot of knowledge and experience to share in his last year on the Board. I appreciate what he’s done, but it’s time for a fresh start in 2024/2025.

As in: You should stand in front of the shop to map it … or have great local knowledge of the shop to map it.

I agree to a point – I think being familiar with an area is essential. I don’t think the mapping needs to happen standing right in front of it. I see Overture Places as a source for jogging my memory, or sparking my interest next time I travel in a direction. I wouldn’t use it as a source alone, but it’s useful as a source in combination with knowledge.

I appreciate the points you made specifically about how MapBuilder functions, and think the items you listed under “What now?” are wise.

However my personal opinion is that this statement would have been stronger without the alarmism. Concluding that “OSM is in trouble” and “This is designed to kill the community.” is a level of intent that goes far beyond mere speculation.

In years past, mention of an ED would be a nonstarter conversation. Maybe it shows how OSMF has matured that we can even talked about controversial things.

I can only speak for myself – I’m focused on 2 areas. Other Board Members might think they’re focused on 0, 1, 2 or 10. Really two is too many, and I’d like to just focus on one, but I think they’re both too important.

Areas of work that need focus: * Finance – that’s our treasurer * Communications – in part of the duties of secretary, but supporting broader as well * Organizational Structure – we need to get serious about EU entity * Legal and Website are more…

No one disagrees with your opinion that OSMF should be more governance oriented and less of a working board. Fortunately we have amazing WGs, communities and committees. That governance role is a lot of work in itself – simply facilitating decision making processes and mobilizing resources takes a lot of energy. I’ll also say there is not yet a consistent understanding of that role.

Some things are always going to be Board work. Fundraising is a traditional Board role. Fortunately there is a great Finance Committee to help. But again, it will take a lot of work to mobilize. Personnel is one that simply can not be left to volunteers. I’d say that bringing on a small group of personnel has been a great force multiplier for our volunteer community. We need to selectively do more.

One part of the way forward is adding a non volunteer Executive Director. We have discussed this idea and I’ve been surprised it has not been dismissed out of hand. This would help quite a bit in having a governance oriented and effective Board.

Tyler, it’s hard enough to find 5 candidates among HOT’s membership, let alone folks with all the needed experience. Do you think it’s time for HOT to evaluate changes to HOT’s governance structure?

Andy

Voting Members of HOT, who are the eligible candidates for the Board, have a lot more exposure to what’s happening in HOT and who is being listened to. While we can quibble about the labels being used here, I take the point to be that there are particular skilled needs on the HOT board.

One question I have for you is who, in the more wide view, do you think HOT needs to listen to more? And how best to enable listening and dialogue?

Mikel

@Österreich you make a good point that we haven’t included individual mappers in this outreach. It’s not because they are not valued – recognize that a big portion of contributions comes from folks who find OSM and just do it. I think it would be really valuable to hear more from this part of OSM, and understand interests and concerns and views. I’ll reach out for a chat.

Hey @arnalielsewhere I think something like this could be great. What’s needed is someone to pick up the reins. I’d be happy to attend and participate.

One thing I have been waiting on is the conclusion of planning work by the LCCWG subcommittee on moderation, since I think that’s a key milestone.

Wonderful to hear this update Nama and look forward to seeing the action of the mobile hub

@RAytoun I appreciate your focus and all the work you do to help in response to mapping disasters!

However, I must strongly disagree with your framing of HOT. There’s nothing contradictory in centering HOT’s work in OSM. In fact, that’s exactly why we created HOT.

HOT is not separate from the OSM community. The OSM community is made of people and groups who edit OSM. HOT and people who take part in HOT activities are firmly part of OSM.

Quality mapping is definitely HOT’s remit. Of course OSM improves over time. But every edit should be as good as possible, and it’s not a stretch to expect an activation to make quality a top objective.

Lastly, disaster activation is a big part of what HOT does, but not the only thing.

Thanks for the detailed reflections @Fiftyfour. As others commented, the site is mainly for mappers, but I don’t think that’s clear and you’ve pointed to a lot of detailed ways that purpose is not intuitive either.

I like the phrase “community health”. Sometimes this has been referred to as “sustainability”, but health has an element of ongoing care, rather than casting out to survive.

I’m a broken record on this, and I’m very biased, but I’ll recommend again reading the Sustainability in OpenStreetMap paper, and talking to the author, my wife Erica Hagen.

Getting away from the label, and back to Rebecca’s questions..

I think the most important first step to codesign is to understand the communities in the places. Research and document the history of communities in each country in the region, with people involved. Who are the people which have worked and organized? Who is doing a lot of mapping and technical work? What are the organizations, companies, and agencies which have been present? What projects have been implemented? What are the opportunities and what are the challenges?

Recognize communities are not amorphous, but made of individuals and organizations with complex relationships, sometimes cooperating, sometimes competing.

Then ask and listen — what do they need? What are they worried about as risks? Given Covid and distance anyway, may take a series of dialogues both directly with individual, and more publicly.

Then write what you’re hearing and reflections often to get feedback. Be visible in the and available in the development.

I think Allan Mustard had done a good job since becoming OSMF chair, of having as many conversations as possible, and doing his thinking in the open. I’d love to see Nama and the other hub leads take similar approaches.

Thanks @RebeccaF for opening this public discussion. Very excited to see Nama take this on. A few thoughts…

In this post, you’ll see the use of hOSM, which stands for humanitarian OpenStreetMap

What’s been the consideration for using “hOSM”? I understand the purpose of distinguishing from HOT, but I find the actual contraction awkward. It wouldn’t sound good to say it out loud except as the full “humanitarian OpenStreetMap”. But you’d need to know what it stood for, and that “humanitarian OpenStreetMap” is different from “Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team”.

I don’t have a better term to suggest yet..

And is there a real need to distinguish humanitarian OSM from OSM? Can HOT simply talk about supporting OSM?

I think this gets more fundamentally to how the hubs strategize and help build mapping ecosystems. Is there an important difference to be made when building for sustainability? Is this just about not working with existing and new local companies that support the map? In general, the humanitarian system has been at odds with sustainability because it doesn’t encourage local growth.

Geoffrey, love how you’re taking the comprehensive view of the hub’s territory.

I’m curious to hear more about how you came up with the capacity rating. I’d expect it’s not down to a formula, but a bit of a discussion and judgement call? Also what do you think about assessing overall “community health” rather than only “capacity”?

Some ideas on other metrics of community health. There’s different difficulties in all of these measurements, but I’m sure there’s ways to explore assessing them. * OSMF membership rates * Rate of remote vs in country edits * Depth of OSM data (POI coverage, % of roads w/ names) * Number of communication channels and activity volume * How many projects have taken place and at what scale (whether through HOT or another entity) * Organizations in-country engaged in OSM. Not only YouthMappers, but non-profits, government, companies. * Is there an official or proto local chapter?

One more thought. Metrics can only capture so much, and each country has its own unique narrative and dynamics. Would love to see an OSM country profile for each place, that in a couple paragraphs relates the historic trajectory of that community.

Thanks @Heather Leson. I wrote up some thoughts myself and welcome connections with anyone thinking about the OSMF osm.org/user/mikelmaron/diary/394595

A more flexible framework will be more effective. There’s too many factors to consider to set up specific rules like this. It’s too much operational detail for an AGM vote. Rather, I’d like to see membership have OSMF make a commitment to reduce carbon, request a thorough audit be undertaken, and come up with a range of specific operational changes.

I do the carbon audit at Mapbox. Based on that I’d expect that OSMF computing resources are several orders of magnitude more contribution to emissions. How much exactly would require some work. Options to reduce by selecting more sustainable power sources for hosting, or other efforts, might take some time. But worth looking at.

As is, the proposal is not likely to have a significant impact on OSMF’s carbon emissions, and just add additional burden in a small number of situations. The numbers seem arbitrary based on a subjective assessment of convenience trade-off, not actual emission reductions. We already choose a F2F site to reduce overall travel, that has typically meant in Europe (the only place where realistically the choice between fight and train or bus would be realistic). In the vast majority of cases, Board members have preferred non air travel. Intercontinental flights dwarf the potential emissions savings. Who knows if we’ll resume F2F after COVID-19, or if Screen 2 Screen will become the norm; it’s been nearly as effective in my opinion – depending on the amount of focus brought to the event.