The thread was mainly about bad science and how it effects the perception of OSM in the public, including that it doesn't help in addressing real issues.
Normally I would expect the moderators to suggest starting a new thread if you want to discuss the issues around diversity and how to address them instead of hijacking a thread with a different topic, but they seem to be strangely absent Simon On 27.07.2017 14:41, Mikel Maron wrote: > Takeaways > * Everyone understands gender diversity is a problem > * Some of us think it's very important to address, others think other > issues are more important at this moment > * The dudes arguing here among themselves about what's more important > and dissecting arguments are not doing much to address the issue. > * The volume of discussion and overly sensitive responses to details, > beating drums about our pet peeves, only shows that the key issue of > gender diversity is not something some of us want to put energy into. > * The discussion here doesn't matter. If we want to work on gender > diversity, let's go away from here and support the women and men who > have started good work on strategies at last year's SotM. > > * Mikel Maron * +14152835207 @mikel s:mikelmaron > > > On Thursday, July 27, 2017 7:54 AM, Frederik Ramm > <frede...@remote.org> wrote: > > > Hi, > > On 26.07.2017 23:58, Ilya Zverev wrote: > > While I was dismissive of her arguments four years ago, now I see that > > all of her points were valid, and are still valid. > > I think that it is possible for an insider of OpenStreetMap to look at > Monica's work and see some valid points in there. But try to switch off > your background knowledge and look at her work. What sticks with you is > something like (quoting from a 3rd party web site that introduces the > talk): > > "She looks specifically at the case of how "childcare" was not approved > as map category within OpenStreetMap." > > This comes from her work massively exaggerating the issue for effect, > and being extremely sloppy with OSM background research. > > Reviewing her talk, the OSM part begins with her showing group photos of > past SotM conferences claiming "these are all men". Which clearly isn't > true (you just have to zoom in on the picture). Maybe I'm putting the > bar to high by measuring this with the "science" yardstick, but it feels > wrong to me. Do you want future scientific papers to quote "according to > <source>, no women have attended large OSM gatherings before 2013"? > Because that's what she says. > > She then goes on to equate the number of different values in the > "amenity" key space with the importance of something (arguing that > because you have different amenity values for bars and pubs it is clear > that this is an important distinction); this is not tenable as just > slightly more research would have shown, there is no correlation between > the importance of something and the number of different key values in > the amenity space. > > She then claims that "amenity=swingerclub" was the (1) most recently (2) > accepted (3) voted on (4) approved amenity - not a single one of the > numbered points is correct as far as I can see from the Wiki history > (but I invite readers to double check, I might have missed some page > renamings?). > > Going forward, she gives listeners the impression that a successful tag > proposal was a requirement for being able to tag features, which is > plain wrong. At the very least, a non-misleading, non-sensationalist > presentation would have to mention that > > (a) anyone can tag anything they find important, > (b) this *may* be influenced by editor presets (which didn't feature > swingerclubs at the time and don't now) > (c) what appears on the *map* is a different issue again, and > swingerclubs weren't on the map then and aren't now. > > (As a tiny nod towards the actual subject of this thread, point "b" was > addressed in Andrew Hall'S "Wikimedia Research Showcase" presentation.) > > She then goes on to discuss the amenity=childcare proposal, which had > been voted down in 2011. As you can see from > http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Proposed_features/childcare&oldid=789581 > the proposal itself had been framed sloppily; it claimed to be > applicable to all age groups ("Example: 0-6") but didn't explain in how > far it was meant to replace the existing amenity=kindergarten or just be > for after-school/after-kindergarten care. A total of 9 people voted > against the proposal; most because of this technicality, and two because > they would have preferred amenity=social_facility. > > Did those 9 people vote because they "were ignorant" or "didn't care"? > Maybe, but in my eyes the fault lies just as much with the proposal > itself; the confusion with "kindergarten" and the question of whether > "social_facility" would not be better didn't come from nowhere and they > should have been addressed, the proposal refined, and brought to vote in > a better shape. > > Do voters have a duty to pass a badly done proposal when it is for a > good thing? Or are they right to shoot down a badly written proposal? > The "post mortem" on the page says "Voters have either not grasped this, > or have considered the fact of overlap sufficient to reject the proposal > without taking the time to propose a proper alternative." - but is it > the voter's responsibility to propose a proper alternative? > > Monica Stephens makes the proposal sound less confusing in her talk - > she explicitly claims the proposal was for childcare for kids that are > "not of kindergarten age", when the proposal explicitly lists "0-6" as a > valid age example. So her listeners will not be able to understand the > confusion. > > She then says "OpenStreetMap is a democratic society where people vote > on which amenities will appear on the base map" which is, of course, > wrong in several ways (see my a/b/c list above). > > In criticising the "against" voters, she picks out a few that have > spelling mistakes and adds a prominent "[sic]" after each "refered" or > "usefull" - something that may be scientifically correct but speaks of a > desire to belittle these people for whom English is not their first > language. She doesn't quote any of the "against" votes that say that the > overlap needs to be explained, she only quotes those who believe the new > thing is identical to kindergarten. And the correct tally of 9 "no" and > 5 "yes" votes becomes, in her talk, "voting ended and was 15 to 4". Just > sloppy? > > She then proceeds with some anti-German slurs, claiming that "all but > 3... or 5 ... of the brothels in OpenStreetMap are in Germany, the rest > are in Amsterdam". Now this "American values are the right values" > attitude is something I could go on about for a while (are more children > harmed by brothels or by guns) but I'll save that for another time; I > have counted the objects tagged amenity=brothel in OSM at the beginning > of 2012 and found 510 in Germany and a total of 825 world-wide, so I > don't know how she counted but apparently it wasn't all that important > to her. Just a little harmless fun at the expense of all those German > and Dutch perverts, right, let's all have a good laugh? At the same time > there were 16,693 amenity=kindergarten and 51 amenity=baby_hatch mapped > in Germany, numbers which might have served to put the whole thing into > perspective - sadly her listeners are denied that piece of information > which a responsibly scientist should have shared. > > She concludes that "OSM is dominated by male contributions" (which is > correct) "and excludes the other 1/2" (which I'd argue with). She says: > "Women cannot really map their local community; their local information > is particularly excluded from this base map and from what features are > (inaudible) in OpenStreetMap." > > This is a very broad, I'd almost say outrageous, claim, and not at all > supported by the evidence she has provided, even if that evidence were > factual. > > She proceeds to claim that "... all of these options for child-care, > day-care, have failed in OpenStreetMap, continually". Again, not at all > supported by any evidence. She again claims that "swingerclub was > democratically approved without a single opposing vote in 2012", when > indeed no vote on that tag has taken place, ever. > > So, to close this off, Ilya I think you are doing OpenStreetMap a huge > disservice by taking a talk that is so full of false claims, so biased > and misleading, and publicly say that "all of the points are valid". > > There is a valid point in that it would be desirable to achieve gender > parity in OpenStreetMap and that this would make for better discussions, > better results, a better map. But almost every other point made in that > talk is at least exaggerated for effect, if not blatantly false. > > I'm afraid I have now wasted two hours of my life doing what Christoph > warned of, namely heightening the visibility of Monica's work by trying > to point out the flaws in it, and I agree it would be nice if we could > ensure that if researches criticize OSM in the future - and there's > certainly a lot to criticize - they at least get their facts right. > > I want to live in a society where everyone is free to say their opinion, > but I don't want to live in a society where everyone can claim facts > that are simply and demonstratively wrong and not be called out for it. > There's too much of that out there already. > > Bye > Frederik > > -- > Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org > <mailto:frede...@remote.org> ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" > > > _______________________________________________ > osmf-talk mailing list > osmf-t...@openstreetmap.org <mailto:osmf-t...@openstreetmap.org> > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/osmf-talk > > > > > _______________________________________________ > osmf-talk mailing list > osmf-t...@openstreetmap.org > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/osmf-talk
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