@trial I don’t know what you are talking about. I deliberately don’t use the term “leadership” in the context of OpenStreetMap because of this different understandings of the terms across cultures.

The questionnaire was made up of questions submitted by members of OSMF. I don’t think the questionnaire was in any way written in a way that encouraged only certain types of people to run – in fact the questionnaire was compiled after nominations for the Board were completed. In the future, consider adding your own questions there, if you think this year’s questions were not as good as they could be.

Yes, Heather submitted a question that used the term “lead”. I addressed my ambivalence about the term in my answer to that question. Frederik wrote this diary post in response to the question, fully aware that there are different understandings of the term from several Board F2F converstions about it, yet deliberately did not include his full understanding of the term.

I didn’t think it was a trap at all, but needed to take a second to think through if this was the right step. I really appreciate Guillaume picking up the initiative for us to consider this. The Board had already been discussing the diversity topic quite a bit on the Board mailing list, in chat, on OSM diaries, and social media. There’s a lot brewing in those discussions, and I hadn’t considered the idea of a working group right at that exact moment, so I paused. There’s been a lot of community momentum on diversity, making this not a top down effort at all, but the natural step for us to consider.

No, I don’t want it not in German. I just want all our friends around the world to be allowed to write in their language, because they can express themselves in a much more differentiated way than in a foreign language.

Ok great! Agreed that’s good.

I think this shows the limitations of automatic translation. I commented back in German, because this was how your prior comment was translated. It seems to be asking me to respond in the language the post was written in. Anyway, understand your meaning now. As you say, it can take more work to communicate this way.

The use of the English language as a French language is a barrier to participation in the community. I hope that you understand how problematic this is, and that you will support my efforts for greater linguistic diversity by responding to posts and comments in the language in which they were written

Agree the results show a good balance, support for core values, and everyone is good to work with.

Before conceptually translating people’s intentions into red herrings to slam, and throwing around the usual insults and usual words like “dominance” “opportunistic buffoons”…

The fact is that we have poor representation of gender and geography on the Board and in the OSMF. I think everyone can acknowledge that for a start.

Also acknowledge that we have poor information on what is keeping women from engaging and what they want from OSMF, so let’s get proper research rather than speculation.

I’m not defending the term leadership. I think it doesn’t work because it’s confusing. And that’s been part of a long running discussion when Frederik was on the Board.

Naturally, I agree with Frederik that OSM is not a top down project. There is space for initiative, and need for facilitation.

Anyway seems like this comment is basically saying I shouldn’t comment. Please know, I’m done hesitating in response when I see people talking about topics I care about in OSM.

And yes, I am listening. I’ve listened to Frederik many times, and we have plenty of common ground. And I read very carefully what he wrote here. I’m going to listen to women, and hear what they want out of OSM and osmf. I’ll even listen to you Christhoph ( though in this case you’re wrong, I don’t have a “board in front of my head”)

And btw I didn’t call Frederik an “idiot” (that was automatic translation of your words) or that he “misunderstands everything”. I wish that conversations could avoid ratcheting things up by putting those kind of words in other people’s mouths.

Entschuldigung, ich habe nicht bemerkt, dass Sie Antworten auf Ihren Beitrag auf Deutsch haben möchten. Hier geht - nicht sicher, wie gut diese automatische Übersetzung ist. Vielleicht wäre eine gute technische Verbesserung für Tagebücher die Online-Übersetzung.

Wir sind uns auf jeden Fall einig, dass wir uns mehr Vielfalt bei OSMF wünschen. Von all den Parametern, die Sie festgelegt haben, versagen wir ganz offensichtlich bei Frauen und der Geografie außerhalb Europas und Nordamerikas. Ich denke, dass es ein perfekter Anfang ist, wenn wir erst einmal erkennen, dass dies etwas ist, das wir ändern wollen. OSMF kann klar sagen, dass wir dies ändern wollen. Eine Möglichkeit, dies zu ändern, besteht darin, sich persönlich als Mentor für Menschen zu engagieren, die sich von unserer bestehenden Kultur herausgefordert fühlen und einbezogen werden möchten. Ich weiß, dass du das schon machst Manfred.

I don’t think this is your intention @Ivan Gayton, but for avoidance of doubt for anyone else reading, we’ve seen nothing in OSM like the behavior and words of Richard Stallman. It would be easy to say “but that’s not OSM, there’s no one here who acts that bad” and thereby ignore the real cultural issue facing OSM.

I disagree with a lot of what you write here (at least through automatic translation).

Without prescribing a solution, I think we can all agree this is not representational of what we want OSM to be. Gender and location are two defining characteristics that I think we can take a stand on.

I do agree with you, we need to understand the issue a whole lot more. Thank you for compiling statistics on working groups and gender breakdown. Better research on other aspects of culture issues in OSM are needed to inform our decisions.

I’m also frustrated by some of the drive by outrage I’ve engaged with on Twitter. However I think that people outside of OSM are right to be concerned about an all male, all “Western” Board. And if discussion happens there, fine. I agree more discussion should happen in OSM channels, like diaries and mailing lists, and only be engaging will we move this conversation forward.

There’s been a lot of excellent work on diversity-talk and series of in person discussions on diversity at OSM events. I think the time has come for the OSMF to recognize that work, and ask for input and direction on how to address in-balances in our representation. I agree that we need to have more women involved in OSMF, and that will lead to more great candidates. Let’s work on addressing the barriers women feel to getting involved, and work to support them to be here.

I think moderation is needed, and that that moderation needs to be guided by clear expectation. In fact we have guidelines already but they can be improved. I posit that’s no different from a Code of Conduct, and we should not get stuck on our perceptions of words. Important thing is to resource moderation – I had no idea that Nakaner wanted a moderator for the forums in fact, I don’t believe it was raised with the Board. Again we need to know that this is needed, set up the guidance, and make sure it’s resourced.

@rab huh? Right now there are exactly zero official local chapters in countries where HOT is active. As far as HOT controlling local chapters, HOT is not set up for that at all. If anything, they need to reinvest in cooperating with communities and OSM.

Also “western male big money”? Yes agree there is more influence from humanitarian organizations in HOT, and companies, and there are problems with that (like mapathons for straight up CSR with companies with no basis in OSM – not the ones you list). But risk of this leading to unduly influencing local chapters is not well supported by fact.

The English word leadership is meant in at least two different ways, and it’s particularly understood differently when translated. We’ve talked about this many times when you were on the Board, but it seems like it hasn’t really sunk in. It’s not a useful word to beat a drum about, if it actually means different things to different people. There are certainly qualities that are valuable in a Board member, and I don’t think it’s bad to dig into them.

What you are talking about in “leadership” is top down instruction. Of course that is not how OpenStreetMap works at all, and I don’t see anyone anywhere suggesting that. I agree 100% that OSM succeeds because it’s an environment where people are enabled to do the things needed to build our map together. Btw, yes, that means “hobbyists, makers, and activists” and also on totally equal footing “professionals” like yourself who have been key part of this project from day 1.

There’s another meaning of “leadership” which is better called facilitation. There is a direction the group wants to go in, but it takes energy to help everyone organize and move that way. For example, there are many people from across the community who want to re-examine tagging processes. When Andy Robinson stepped up in 2006 to create the Map Features page, that was “leadership” skill and energy. He didn’t tell anyone what to do, but did something and then worked with everyone to make sure their feedback was incorporated. Again this is about enabling the environment where people can build the map together.

Rory had a very honest response to the leadership question. But on the other hand, I think the qualities he shows in advocacy for diversity and inclusion in OSM shows that he will be productive on the Board, and yes display “leadership”, depending on how you define it.

I don’t think anyone is intimidated by the talk of “leadership”. I read the twitter post you refer to, and he probably has something specific in mind (which I just asked about on Twitter), that’s not about being a manager. You propose that women are discouraged from running for the OSMF Board by the talk of leadership, but that’s just your conjecture. Have you asked any women why they don’t want to be involved in OSMF? I directly hear that OSMF is intimidating because of the strident, divisive, reactionary, emotionally draining, uncompromising tone demonstrated in this and in your recent series of diary posts.

In closing, let’s leave debate about the word leadership behind, and not use it as another way to avoid dealing with the challenges we have in OSM. And one of those challenges is that we have no gender or geographic diversity on our Board. That’s going to take listening and hard work to address.

Minimum 1 seat for a woman for the board and 2 - 3 designated seats for local chapters/sotm working groups from around the world. This might be unpopular until the culture has more shared leadership, but the community and project deserves to be open and global.

If it’s unpopular, it won’t happen, since AoA changes require 75% approval from membership.

I think there is widespread interest for Local Chapters taking a greater role in governance, and that may be a means to prioritize balance of gender and geography in a structured way.

re: Community Manager / Strategy … I understand this objective, and I agree it would be valuable. What I’m thinking about are specifics of areas in OSM which a plan needs to address. What is not being looked after cohesively already? I believe this is another area where Local Chapters can take a bigger role. At least, they can start defining priority needs for their local efforts, and seek to connect those efforts across the globe.

Thanks @Ivan Gayton, much better said version of what I intended.

@philippec lame comment, in a regular pattern of lame comments from you when discussion of gender diversity comes up. The implication that only someone who regularly maps is part of the community, and that this needs to be proven to you, is ridiculous. I happen to know many people who make contributions to OSM besides regular mapping.

Codify it - The Articles of Association need to state that women and global regional members are on the board.

Are you suggesting designated number of women on the Board?

Regarding community suggestions, I think #2 research and #3 change member sign up are immediately actionable. #1 that’s a harder one to make a case for. can you say more about the what a community strategy should cover?

There was discussion about automatic member registration from local chapters to OSMF a few years ago, but I think the immediate blocker was legal complexities. Don’t recall the details.

I’m aware of the history of the Advisory Board. I agree it’s not well framed as a “benefit”, and that should be rethought too. I think the benefit is actually to the OSMF, to have a structured means to hear from corporate perspectives. The general level of discussion about corporate interests in OSM is really uninformed, and I don’t think there’s a good existing forum for that to change. Most companies are going to be a bit risk averse and not able to keep up with the volume of existing channels. I don’t think setting it up as an untrusted space if helpful. Some degree of confidentiality in discussions are ok.

On the other side, totally understand the need for transparency on these kinds of channels, and think that public reporting on topics and views would be necessary. How else are we to learn what those perspectives are?

Thanks for clarifying @SJFriedl. I can accept “throwing his weight around” … and recognize it was not appropriate. Also agree, this isn’t a tribunal, and I’m not interesting in dragging this out more.

Fascinating post @ke9tv. This is one reason I love OSM .. as you try to map the world today, you engage in an ongoing centuries, or longer old, conversation about what’s happening in our world.

Frederik, curious about this statement in general:

“I have to judge you as one giant organism. I cannot separate the good from the bad”

With other entities, I’ve found the exact opposite to be the case. For instance, the US federal government is unquestionably headed by recklessness and incompetence. But I still work fruitfully together with USAID (the US government international aid agency) mapping folks. How is Facebook different? Or am I a compromised implicit Trump supporter now?

Also do you really believe that if Facebook is involved in OSM that they’ll destroy OSM? I don’t see evidence of that to be honest. I’ve found a lot of genuine excitement widely in OSM about mapwith.ai

Or is it that you think Facebook’s approach is dangerous because the technology they’re building in mapswith.ai will be adapted to target bombs? https://osm.gryph.de/2019/06/better-bombing-with-machine-learning/

I understand how you think all this based on the parts of the email conversation you saw. If you want to stick with just that, it’s fine. Obviously I disagree with parts of what you say, and feel the interaction on all sides was handled unprofessionally. Yes I readily admit including me. At no point did I not take the situation with GlobalLogic completely seriously and as top priority, but only wished for breathing space for the Board to read and discuss a detailed 20 page report without an ultimatum. No matter. We may or may not need to work together after the election, let’s see.

I included personal notes in my comment because Steve’s post felt, in parts, personal. If that’s inappropriate for this thread, please excuse it. I accept the substance of what Steve is saying, and I take responsibility for the discussion between the MWG and the Board going badly. In my comment I tried to focus on substantial parts of the episode that were raised here to contribute to a full picture and can go into more detail if there’s a particular question on that.

There’s not much point in addressing the majority of Christoph’s comment that’s just a weird characterization of me. Essentially the comment here doesn’t read as very reasoned to me, but mean and insubstantial.

One more thing. I’m not aware of any corporate agenda. If there’s any shared world view I’ve detected, it’s simply for a more predictable OSMF, and I think that’s shared by many. As for the OSMF Board, the current posture on attribution is pretty clear from the last Board meeting, and was a consensus from all. There are three current Board members who work for corporations in OSM (Frederik for Geofabrik, Paul for Amazon, myself for Mapbox), but none of us claim to represent those companies. I think it’s ridiculous to think that the four other Board members are under our tight control.