Re: [OSM-talk] [Osmf-talk] A Better Map
Hi Serge, Serge Wroclawski schrieb: Then we have the OSM community who sticks around and is participatory. Sadly if you look at the current candidates for the board, most of them have never even been in a working group. I know that's not your actual point, but as I'm one of the candidates for the board and as I've indeed never worked for a working group in the OSMF I have to ask on that. Do you suggest that this should be mandatory? As I see the OSMF as a representation of the OSM community I think it should not make a difference if one supports OSM via the Foundation or by doing stuff like plain mapping, helping on forum, ML, help or contribute code. Imho all is important and valuable work. I just think that the discussion regarding the OSMF, and paid staff especially, ignores the fact that a great deal of work is done today by people who are happy to do it (as I am) [...] Indeed. And imho it's a counterpoint to having paid staff in the OSMF. Peda ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] [Osmf-talk] A Better Map
On Wed, Oct 22, 2014 at 12:24:10PM -0700, Kate Chapman wrote: I'd say the size of the board to me is not necessarily the issue. I do think however having a board elected completely just from the OSMF membership isn't the best approach. Those elected from OSM contributors (I frequently have seen in the past people post people's OSM edits for board elections) are not necessarily the best to be on a board. This statement seems at odds with your complaint that members are not enough involved. The board elections are at the moment pretty much the only means for the OSMF members to voice their opinion, precisely by electing those candidates who are most likely to steer the OSMF in the direction the membership wants. I dare say that previous elections have shown a very clear trend towards electing people that are firmly routed in the community. It does not allow the flexibility to seek out board members with specialized skills. For example most of the board would not claim to be experts in finance, or legal matters. I certainly think election from part of the community is not a bad thing, but perhaps it isn't the only way. Among all the problems I perceive with the board, lack of skills is very, very low on the list. What the board needs are foremost people that are able to work with others, that can listen and compromise. We need people who are really interested in bringing OSM forward instead of just following their own agenda. Accountants and lawyers can be hired. Sarah ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] [Osmf-talk] A Better Map
I usually map house numbers on Sunday morning when there is less traffic. I use bicycle and a specialized application for smartphone for collecting address (with a smartphone stylus). It is better to map addressable first, say, 30 large buildings where 1000 people live or work, than 60 small buildings, where 100 persons live. And de facto it is always not about house numbers only, as during such on-the-ground surveys one corrects street names, adds POI, building names, etc. We just make a photo of a sign or a plaque, again with the smartphone camera, and see to it later. Nothing can replace an on-the-ground survey, of being there physically. Besides, it is interesting, because it is a possibility to visit and learn areas of a city, which one would never visit otherwise, to make discoveries for yourself, to maintain an explorer spirit. It is surprising how much map area one can cover on bicycle during one Sunday morning expedition. I would say one weekend mapper is capable to map addressable a medium city in couple of years. Perhaps, not exhaustively, but major buildings. brgds, Oleksiy (Alex-7) On 22.10.2014 13:59, Marc Gemis wrote: ... I have a bad feeling about how feasible it is to crowd surf house numbers... regards m ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] [Osmf-talk] A Better Map
2014-10-22 12:15 GMT+02:00 Steve Coast st...@asklater.com: Together, we could do this in 6-12 months and finish addressing in 1-3 years. At that point we wouldn’t have just made the world slightly better, we would have put a big dent in the universe. Nobody would use a closed map ever again, and it would be people like you that made it happen. I agree with you that addressing is very important for a lot of commercial (and non-commercial) map users. What I don't understand is how a paid board would help us map more addresses. Unfortunately mapping addresses is typically less fun than going to the video arcade. Looking at the current figures we are not doing too bad. Currently there are 130 Million buildings in OSM and 46 Million housenumbers. I don't know exactly how many buildings there are in the world, and how many of them don't have addresses, but I guess it will be at least 1 Billion addresses in the world, probably more. According to the stats page we have roughly 25.000 active contributors a month ( http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Stats#Contributor_Stats ). To get an address on all currently mapped buildings in three years time, (84M to go), every active contributor would have to add 93 addresses a month - constantly. To get 1 Billion addresses mapped by 25.000 contributors in 3 yrs, it would be housenumbers a month per active contributor. Are we planning to pay the mappers as well? The only solution seems to get more contributors mapping, and have them insert addresses. cheers, Martin ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] [Osmf-talk] A Better Map
It would be nice to know how many of the buildings and house numbers in OSM were imported versus surveyed / drawn by hand. I have a bad feeling about how feasible it is to crowd surf house numbers. regards m On Wed, Oct 22, 2014 at 1:37 PM, Martin Koppenhoefer dieterdre...@gmail.com wrote: 2014-10-22 12:15 GMT+02:00 Steve Coast st...@asklater.com: Together, we could do this in 6-12 months and finish addressing in 1-3 years. At that point we wouldn’t have just made the world slightly better, we would have put a big dent in the universe. Nobody would use a closed map ever again, and it would be people like you that made it happen. I agree with you that addressing is very important for a lot of commercial (and non-commercial) map users. What I don't understand is how a paid board would help us map more addresses. Unfortunately mapping addresses is typically less fun than going to the video arcade. Looking at the current figures we are not doing too bad. Currently there are 130 Million buildings in OSM and 46 Million housenumbers. I don't know exactly how many buildings there are in the world, and how many of them don't have addresses, but I guess it will be at least 1 Billion addresses in the world, probably more. According to the stats page we have roughly 25.000 active contributors a month ( http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Stats#Contributor_Stats ). To get an address on all currently mapped buildings in three years time, (84M to go), every active contributor would have to add 93 addresses a month - constantly. To get 1 Billion addresses mapped by 25.000 contributors in 3 yrs, it would be housenumbers a month per active contributor. Are we planning to pay the mappers as well? The only solution seems to get more contributors mapping, and have them insert addresses. cheers, Martin ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] [Osmf-talk] A Better Map
On 22 October 2014 12:37, Martin Koppenhoefer dieterdre...@gmail.com wrote: Currently there are 130 Million buildings in OSM and 46 Million housenumbers. Do we know how many of these addresses come from imports? I wouldn't be surprised if over 90% of the housenumbers in OSM come from imports. The Dutch BAG import accounts for 8 million adresses, and the Czech RUIAN import accounts for 3 million addresses. Then there have also been large imports at least in Germany, Poland, and France, but for these countries I can't find exact numbers. -- Matthijs ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] [Osmf-talk] A Better Map
2014-10-22 13:37 GMT+02:00 Martin Koppenhoefer dieterdre...@gmail.com: I agree with you that addressing is very important for a lot of commercial (and non-commercial) map users. What I don't understand is how a paid board would help us map more addresses. Martin, Steve said paid staff for a board of volunteers not paid board. To me, this is a very significant difference. This is not to say that I have any magic recipe to solve this problem, I just want to avoid the spread of innacurate citations. :-) I would say that having a common, agreed upon and shared goal is step zero for success and a bright future, though. Cristian p.s.: at the moment my feeling is that we are GNU/Linux more than HP or Apple. The GNU is important, because we are very often talking about licenses. (I am just kidding, in case you are wondering) ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] [Osmf-talk] A Better Map
On Wed, Oct 22, 2014 at 4:59 AM, Marc Gemis marc.ge...@gmail.com wrote: It would be nice to know how many of the buildings and house numbers in OSM were imported versus surveyed / drawn by hand. I have a bad feeling about how feasible it is to crowd surf house numbers. I think Steve is asking to focus on building a better playground, not inventorying the toys. He is giving a suggestion of reducing the board size and restating the mission. I love to working on addressing, but why not take that to a new thread. Clifford -- @osm_seattle osm_seattle.snowandsnow.us OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] [Osmf-talk] A Better Map
Alex, the LWG would love to work with you on fixing any confusing if you're interested in resuming work on the guideline - currently it lies abandoned with the feedback needing to be integrated. On Oct 22, 2014, at 05:33 AM, Alex Barth a...@mapbox.com wrote: Steve - would love to work on fixing the license with you so addresses in OSM make sense in the first place. Right now you practically can't use OSM for permanent geocoding. See also: https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/2014-July/007900.html On Wednesday, October 22, 2014, Steve Coast st...@asklater.com wrote: Why are we here on these mailing lists? Why do we spend so much time making maps? I think ultimately because it’s fun. It’s a neat hobby and we’re making the world a slightly better place. You need the right environment for things to be fun. Someone has to install the toys in the playground. Someone needs to pay for the slides and install the swings so that the kids can run around. Then someone else needs to fix them when they fail and make sure you don’t break your neck unexpectedly. In the past I’ve tried hard to make OSM a fun playground, by doing things like taking all the warning labels off and letting people do whatever they like. Things like open tagging or letting anyone edit, which were crazy ideas in 2004. I’ve also at times been responsible for it not being fun. Partly because I was a kid learning the hard way and partly because sometimes you need to make decisions. I agree that in some ways OSM isn’t a fun playground right now. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be again. We had a lot of fun with our swings and our slides. But now there are a lot more people to join the fun from far away places and we’re older. Maybe we now prefer bumper cars and video games to the old swings and slides. We should keep the swings and the slides. People new to the playground will still enjoy them. But we should also build a bumper car arena and maybe a video game arcade. Sometimes we might go back and play on the slide too. We need some new skills to build these new toys. Together, we need a mission and then a couple of course corrections to make it happen. I think addressing should be our mission. We built the worlds best display map already. We won. If you print out any OSM map of practically anywhere, it’s the best. But we can’t find anything on it without comprehensive and global addressing information. It’s the hidden data behind the map we now need to go after. All the other things we need to do are also good things. Diversity in all it’s forms, faster servers, better tools, easier documentation and more. A clear mission provides a framework and guidance for achieving those things. “Map more stuff” got us very, very far. But now, we should focus on what’s stopping us replacing proprietary maps. And that is addressing. How would we go achieve that? There are two basic fixes. Make the board functional and give the board bandwidth. The board is too big. It grew for good reasons but now it’s just hard to achieve anything. Seven people mean that if everyone speaks for five minutes in a conversation on some issue, you use over half an hour. In an hour-long meeting that means you can barely discuss two things. Ignoring all the other issues, just the pure mechanics shows you how hard it is to talk through something let alone achieve a consensus. The board needs to be 3 people. 5 at maximum. Being on the board is a difficult job, especially as a volunteer. Most people aren’t used to such roles. They may think like I did that they need to please everybody all the time. They aren’t able to attend meetings because they have a day job and other life commitments. The board needs to meet in person regularly with a facilitator and also have guidance about what it means to be on a board. We can’t expect volunteers to naturally figure all this stuff out by themselves and then also devote the time to also achieve goals. The board needs paid staff. There are a variety of things those paid staff can do which the board can decide. It’s clear that there are things that volunteers don’t have fun doing and therefore they don’t happen at all, but are still very important for a functioning organization. Having paid staff isn’t about deprecating volunteer involvement, it’s about plugging the gaps. It’s not a perfect solution but the alternative is to rely on companies to do many of these things, and that really isn’t perfect either. In terms of the mechanics, 1. Change the mission statement of OSM to be something like “The world’s best addressable map” 2. The board figures out how to voluntarily shrink to 3-5 people, and, meets in person 2-4 times a year 3. Consulting with the community on exact roles and remit, hire 1-3 people [*] Together, we could do this in 6-12 months and finish addressing in 1-3 years. At that point we wouldn’t have just made the world slightly better, we would
Re: [OSM-talk] [Osmf-talk] A Better Map
Hi Steve, Thanks for your thoughts, I have a few questions/comments inline. On Wed, Oct 22, 2014 at 3:15 AM, Steve Coast st...@asklater.com wrote: There are two basic fixes. Make the board functional and give the board bandwidth. The board is too big. It grew for good reasons but now it’s just hard to achieve anything. Seven people mean that if everyone speaks for five minutes in a conversation on some issue, you use over half an hour. In an hour-long meeting that means you can barely discuss two things. Ignoring all the other issues, just the pure mechanics shows you how hard it is to talk through something let alone achieve a consensus. The board needs to be 3 people. 5 at maximum. I'd say the size of the board to me is not necessarily the issue. I do think however having a board elected completely just from the OSMF membership isn't the best approach. Those elected from OSM contributors (I frequently have seen in the past people post people's OSM edits for board elections) are not necessarily the best to be on a board. It does not allow the flexibility to seek out board members with specialized skills. For example most of the board would not claim to be experts in finance, or legal matters. I certainly think election from part of the community is not a bad thing, but perhaps it isn't the only way. Being on the board is a difficult job, especially as a volunteer. Most people aren’t used to such roles. They may think like I did that they need to please everybody all the time. They aren’t able to attend meetings because they have a day job and other life commitments. The board needs to meet in person regularly with a facilitator and also have guidance about what it means to be on a board. We can’t expect volunteers to naturally figure all this stuff out by themselves and then also devote the time to also achieve goals. I completely agree regarding meeting in person and having a facilitator. Would help lead to a more productive board. It is certainly impossible to please everybody all the time, facilitators I've worked with in other groups at least give the opportunity for more voices to be heard. The board needs paid staff. There are a variety of things those paid staff can do which the board can decide. It’s clear that there are things that volunteers don’t have fun doing and therefore they don’t happen at all, but are still very important for a functioning organization. Having paid staff isn’t about deprecating volunteer involvement, it’s about plugging the gaps. It’s not a perfect solution but the alternative is to rely on companies to do many of these things, and that really isn’t perfect either. Yes, I think that paid staff can certainly help with some of the tasks. Financing this is a different issue however. I used to work as paid staff on an animal shelter for abused/neglected horses that had many volunteers while attending uni. When there was 2 feet of snow in the middle of January it was the paid staff usually out feeding the animals and shoveling the manure. Volunteers were great for the fun tasks such as giving tours, grooming horses and giving pony rides at fundraisers. We need to seriously look at what the OSM equivalent is of shoveling manure and if it is appropriate hire people to do it. In terms of the mechanics, 1. Change the mission statement of OSM to be something like “The world’s best addressable map” While I think addresses are important, I'm not sure this is really a rallying cry. Having tools that make it easier to import addresses and collect them will certainly assist with the usability of the map. 2. The board figures out how to voluntarily shrink to 3-5 people, and, meets in person 2-4 times a year 3. Consulting with the community on exact roles and remit, hire 1-3 people [*] This consultation process is important and I don't think one the community can do on our own. There are plenty of groups that could assist, some of which I've worked with directly before in other groups. Regarding your [*] regarding funding I completely agree. If anything the OSMF has turned away funding over the years, maybe not in as direct a way as someone trying to hand them a check (though I could see that might have happened) but communities with less impact on the world receive way more funding easily than the OSMF currently does. I do think at some point it would be good to speak at length about funding often when discussing funding I feel there is not much knowledge about the different ways that could be approached. Seeking funding for a project such as OSM is not a new thing and there are many other groups we could learn from. There are people that are willing to help if we simply asked. Best, -Kate Together, we could do this in 6-12 months and finish addressing in 1-3 years. At that point we wouldn’t have just made the world slightly better, we would have put a big dent in the universe. Nobody would use a closed map ever again,
Re: [OSM-talk] [Osmf-talk] A Better Map
Hi Kate, Replies in-line. On Wed, Oct 22, 2014 at 3:24 PM, Kate Chapman k...@maploser.com wrote: I'd say the size of the board to me is not necessarily the issue. I do think however having a board elected completely just from the OSMF membership isn't the best approach. Those elected from OSM contributors (I frequently have seen in the past people post people's OSM edits for board elections) are not necessarily the best to be on a board. It does not allow the flexibility to seek out board members with specialized skills. For example most of the board would not claim to be experts in finance, or legal matters. I certainly think election from part of the community is not a bad thing, but perhaps it isn't the only way. I think you're connecting board membership with officer positions and that doesn't need to be connected. It's possible (and often preferable) to have a board of people who oversee the officers but are not one of them. That also gives you flexibility because your board can say We will nominate so-and-so to be CEO and so-and-so to be CFO, rather than using terms like President and Treasurer. It also means the board positions can be equal, if the board so chooses. I think that this argument of separation of concerns makes a lot of sense, I think that board members should be members, but officers may not need to be. Yes, I think that paid staff can certainly help with some of the tasks. Financing this is a different issue however. I used to work as paid staff on an animal shelter for abused/neglected horses that had many volunteers while attending uni. When there was 2 feet of snow in the middle of January it was the paid staff usually out feeding the animals and shoveling the manure. Volunteers were great for the fun tasks such as giving tours, grooming horses and giving pony rides at fundraisers. We need to seriously look at what the OSM equivalent is of shoveling manure and if it is appropriate hire people to do it. Yes, and adding on, some recognition would also be nice, even for volunteers. Last month I received an extremely nasty, rude email from someone about actions that I took as part of my DWG duties. That email insulted me, attacked my sexuality, was vaguely threatening to my fiancee, etc. and the board was CCed by the original author. None of the board members or members of management team (who was also CCed) said a word about it. This kind of dismissal for our feelings as individuals as we put work into the project is really disheartening. - Serge ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] [Osmf-talk] A Better Map
I want to actually apologize for one mis-statement. Michael Collinson from the MT actually was very good about this and one-on-one, board members who I speak with have been kind/supportive, I want to also point out that this is not about me getting recognition for my work on OSM, but about the general lack of support that the volunteers can get from the board, when just a pat on the back would be nice. The board is under incredible stress and strain, and they're volunteers like the rest of us, but there's a ton of work being done by groups like the Operations Team, the License Working Group, the Management Team, the Communications Working Group, the Data Working Group, etc. All of these folks deserve more support and recognition. - Serge On Wed, Oct 22, 2014 at 4:15 PM, Serge Wroclawski emac...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Kate, Replies in-line. On Wed, Oct 22, 2014 at 3:24 PM, Kate Chapman k...@maploser.com wrote: I'd say the size of the board to me is not necessarily the issue. I do think however having a board elected completely just from the OSMF membership isn't the best approach. Those elected from OSM contributors (I frequently have seen in the past people post people's OSM edits for board elections) are not necessarily the best to be on a board. It does not allow the flexibility to seek out board members with specialized skills. For example most of the board would not claim to be experts in finance, or legal matters. I certainly think election from part of the community is not a bad thing, but perhaps it isn't the only way. I think you're connecting board membership with officer positions and that doesn't need to be connected. It's possible (and often preferable) to have a board of people who oversee the officers but are not one of them. That also gives you flexibility because your board can say We will nominate so-and-so to be CEO and so-and-so to be CFO, rather than using terms like President and Treasurer. It also means the board positions can be equal, if the board so chooses. I think that this argument of separation of concerns makes a lot of sense, I think that board members should be members, but officers may not need to be. Yes, I think that paid staff can certainly help with some of the tasks. Financing this is a different issue however. I used to work as paid staff on an animal shelter for abused/neglected horses that had many volunteers while attending uni. When there was 2 feet of snow in the middle of January it was the paid staff usually out feeding the animals and shoveling the manure. Volunteers were great for the fun tasks such as giving tours, grooming horses and giving pony rides at fundraisers. We need to seriously look at what the OSM equivalent is of shoveling manure and if it is appropriate hire people to do it. Yes, and adding on, some recognition would also be nice, even for volunteers. Last month I received an extremely nasty, rude email from someone about actions that I took as part of my DWG duties. That email insulted me, attacked my sexuality, was vaguely threatening to my fiancee, etc. and the board was CCed by the original author. None of the board members or members of management team (who was also CCed) said a word about it. This kind of dismissal for our feelings as individuals as we put work into the project is really disheartening. - Serge ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] [Osmf-talk] A Better Map
Serge I want to apologize in case you missed explicit support from me (and the board), it was likely just a miscommunication given that the person in question lambasted essentially everybody that he had ever had contact with and you in discussion suggested that we simply ignore him. Simon Am 22.10.2014 22:54, schrieb Serge Wroclawski: I want to actually apologize for one mis-statement. Michael Collinson from the MT actually was very good about this and one-on-one, board members who I speak with have been kind/supportive, I want to also point out that this is not about me getting recognition for my work on OSM, but about the general lack of support that the volunteers can get from the board, when just a pat on the back would be nice. The board is under incredible stress and strain, and they're volunteers like the rest of us, but there's a ton of work being done by groups like the Operations Team, the License Working Group, the Management Team, the Communications Working Group, the Data Working Group, etc. All of these folks deserve more support and recognition. - Serge On Wed, Oct 22, 2014 at 4:15 PM, Serge Wroclawski emac...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Kate, Replies in-line. On Wed, Oct 22, 2014 at 3:24 PM, Kate Chapman k...@maploser.com wrote: I'd say the size of the board to me is not necessarily the issue. I do think however having a board elected completely just from the OSMF membership isn't the best approach. Those elected from OSM contributors (I frequently have seen in the past people post people's OSM edits for board elections) are not necessarily the best to be on a board. It does not allow the flexibility to seek out board members with specialized skills. For example most of the board would not claim to be experts in finance, or legal matters. I certainly think election from part of the community is not a bad thing, but perhaps it isn't the only way. I think you're connecting board membership with officer positions and that doesn't need to be connected. It's possible (and often preferable) to have a board of people who oversee the officers but are not one of them. That also gives you flexibility because your board can say We will nominate so-and-so to be CEO and so-and-so to be CFO, rather than using terms like President and Treasurer. It also means the board positions can be equal, if the board so chooses. I think that this argument of separation of concerns makes a lot of sense, I think that board members should be members, but officers may not need to be. Yes, I think that paid staff can certainly help with some of the tasks. Financing this is a different issue however. I used to work as paid staff on an animal shelter for abused/neglected horses that had many volunteers while attending uni. When there was 2 feet of snow in the middle of January it was the paid staff usually out feeding the animals and shoveling the manure. Volunteers were great for the fun tasks such as giving tours, grooming horses and giving pony rides at fundraisers. We need to seriously look at what the OSM equivalent is of shoveling manure and if it is appropriate hire people to do it. Yes, and adding on, some recognition would also be nice, even for volunteers. Last month I received an extremely nasty, rude email from someone about actions that I took as part of my DWG duties. That email insulted me, attacked my sexuality, was vaguely threatening to my fiancee, etc. and the board was CCed by the original author. None of the board members or members of management team (who was also CCed) said a word about it. This kind of dismissal for our feelings as individuals as we put work into the project is really disheartening. - Serge ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] [Osmf-talk] A Better Map
Simon, Thanks for that. I want to make it clear that my frustration is not based on any one incident, but rather that I just wish the board did more to recognize the hard work of the dozens of individuals who volunteer hours of their time to this project in so many ways. I feel that the working groups often get short shrift. The board gets a lot of attention (positive and negative) but it's the working groups (and a special and emphatic emphasis on the work of Operations Team) that make OSM possible. The DWG gets a lot of abuse thrown at us, and I think something in Kate's email really spoke to that idea of fun. I've never considered the work I do for the DWG to be fun. I find it stressful and frustrating. Sometimes I find it sad, but never fun. We may need a staff to do certain jobs, but whether we do decide to hire a staff or not, it'd be great if the volunteers we do have now got a bit more recognition for their hard work. - Serge On Wed, Oct 22, 2014 at 5:04 PM, Simon Poole si...@poole.ch wrote: Serge I want to apologize in case you missed explicit support from me (and the board), it was likely just a miscommunication given that the person in question lambasted essentially everybody that he had ever had contact with and you in discussion suggested that we simply ignore him. Simon Am 22.10.2014 22:54, schrieb Serge Wroclawski: I want to actually apologize for one mis-statement. Michael Collinson from the MT actually was very good about this and one-on-one, board members who I speak with have been kind/supportive, I want to also point out that this is not about me getting recognition for my work on OSM, but about the general lack of support that the volunteers can get from the board, when just a pat on the back would be nice. The board is under incredible stress and strain, and they're volunteers like the rest of us, but there's a ton of work being done by groups like the Operations Team, the License Working Group, the Management Team, the Communications Working Group, the Data Working Group, etc. All of these folks deserve more support and recognition. - Serge On Wed, Oct 22, 2014 at 4:15 PM, Serge Wroclawski emac...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Kate, Replies in-line. On Wed, Oct 22, 2014 at 3:24 PM, Kate Chapman k...@maploser.com wrote: I'd say the size of the board to me is not necessarily the issue. I do think however having a board elected completely just from the OSMF membership isn't the best approach. Those elected from OSM contributors (I frequently have seen in the past people post people's OSM edits for board elections) are not necessarily the best to be on a board. It does not allow the flexibility to seek out board members with specialized skills. For example most of the board would not claim to be experts in finance, or legal matters. I certainly think election from part of the community is not a bad thing, but perhaps it isn't the only way. I think you're connecting board membership with officer positions and that doesn't need to be connected. It's possible (and often preferable) to have a board of people who oversee the officers but are not one of them. That also gives you flexibility because your board can say We will nominate so-and-so to be CEO and so-and-so to be CFO, rather than using terms like President and Treasurer. It also means the board positions can be equal, if the board so chooses. I think that this argument of separation of concerns makes a lot of sense, I think that board members should be members, but officers may not need to be. Yes, I think that paid staff can certainly help with some of the tasks. Financing this is a different issue however. I used to work as paid staff on an animal shelter for abused/neglected horses that had many volunteers while attending uni. When there was 2 feet of snow in the middle of January it was the paid staff usually out feeding the animals and shoveling the manure. Volunteers were great for the fun tasks such as giving tours, grooming horses and giving pony rides at fundraisers. We need to seriously look at what the OSM equivalent is of shoveling manure and if it is appropriate hire people to do it. Yes, and adding on, some recognition would also be nice, even for volunteers. Last month I received an extremely nasty, rude email from someone about actions that I took as part of my DWG duties. That email insulted me, attacked my sexuality, was vaguely threatening to my fiancee, etc. and the board was CCed by the original author. None of the board members or members of management team (who was also CCed) said a word about it. This kind of dismissal for our feelings as individuals as we put work into the project is really disheartening. - Serge ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk ___ talk mailing list
Re: [OSM-talk] [Osmf-talk] A Better Map
Am 22.10.2014 23:38, schrieb Kate Chapman: ... I was not suggested the entire board would be non-affiliated. There are different approaches to this and you can look at other organizations with mixed boards. Checks and balances are possible, especially with a membership. Just to clarify. My reference to non-affiliated was as in: not working for a company or organisation with a direct financial or other interest in OSM, or in other words the a prototypical OSM contributor. Simon signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] [Osmf-talk] A Better Map
Kate, That's a great question. I recently joined the CWG, so maybe its my job now to fix this, but I feel like generally there's a deep seated communication problem in OSM. On one hand you have the vast majority of mappers who don't know what the OSMF is, or if they do, probably aren't members. Then we have the OSM community who sticks around and is participatory. Sadly if you look at the current candidates for the board, most of them have never even been in a working group. I think the one exception may actually be Frederik, who is currently serving on the board. It illustrates a series of serious problems (perhaps I should expand on that on another thread). As for what the OSMF can do... generally be more communicative and supportive with the people that keep the project going. As Simon points out, there's a budge proposal period, but I think that the OSMF could be doing more analysis with the WG's. Sometimes it's not clear when you're in the middle of something that it could be solved with money (vs time/effort). I just think that the discussion regarding the OSMF, and paid staff especially, ignores the fact that a great deal of work is done today by people who are happy to do it (as I am) but feel that the board could hilight this work, get more volunteers involved, and encourage those who want to lead to be participatory in the organization. - Serge On Wed, Oct 22, 2014 at 5:46 PM, Kate Chapman k...@maploser.com wrote: Hi Serge, What would you like the board to do to recognize the work of the volunteers? Within HOT for example we've learned culturally people don't necessarily even want the same type of recognition. I'm sorry I should have sent you a message regarding the tirade, it was not empathic of me. I honestly only read the first paragraph and then ignored it as I thought I was supposed to do. From a human perspective however I should have talked you. On Wed, Oct 22, 2014 at 2:12 PM, Serge Wroclawski emac...@gmail.com wrote: Simon, The DWG gets a lot of abuse thrown at us, and I think something in Kate's email really spoke to that idea of fun. I've never considered the work I do for the DWG to be fun. I find it stressful and frustrating. Sometimes I find it sad, but never fun. I think within volunteering there are a couple different aspects that cause people to help. Fun is only one variable. If a job is really important for an organization such as the DWG for example people will do it because it is necessary, not because it is fun. In my example of working on a farm, there were volunteers who would come do very not fun jobs because they knew they were needed. There were also jobs that it was extremely hard to get people to help. We may need a staff to do certain jobs, but whether we do decide to hire a staff or not, it'd be great if the volunteers we do have now got a bit more recognition for their hard work. As I stated before I'm a bit unsure how to respond to this. I suppose one thing we can say now is everyone is a volunteer and not getting any recognition! Anyway, what I mean by that is I'm unsure exactly what people want. I appreciate the working groups and the jobs that people do that I would never have the patience to do. The fact that the servers run, we don't get shutdown because of data licensing and all out edit wars don't destroy the map is a testament to everyone that spends hours volunteering. -Kate - Serge On Wed, Oct 22, 2014 at 5:04 PM, Simon Poole si...@poole.ch wrote: Serge I want to apologize in case you missed explicit support from me (and the board), it was likely just a miscommunication given that the person in question lambasted essentially everybody that he had ever had contact with and you in discussion suggested that we simply ignore him. Simon Am 22.10.2014 22:54, schrieb Serge Wroclawski: I want to actually apologize for one mis-statement. Michael Collinson from the MT actually was very good about this and one-on-one, board members who I speak with have been kind/supportive, I want to also point out that this is not about me getting recognition for my work on OSM, but about the general lack of support that the volunteers can get from the board, when just a pat on the back would be nice. The board is under incredible stress and strain, and they're volunteers like the rest of us, but there's a ton of work being done by groups like the Operations Team, the License Working Group, the Management Team, the Communications Working Group, the Data Working Group, etc. All of these folks deserve more support and recognition. - Serge On Wed, Oct 22, 2014 at 4:15 PM, Serge Wroclawski emac...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Kate, Replies in-line. On Wed, Oct 22, 2014 at 3:24 PM, Kate Chapman k...@maploser.com wrote: I'd say the size of the board to me is not necessarily the issue. I do think however having a board elected completely just from the OSMF
