Talk:Foundation/AGM2022/Election to Board

From OpenStreetMap Wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Official set of questions for candidates

Michael Collinson (facilitator):

I have now added the official questions. Thanks to all that have participated and my apologies for the late delivery. Candidates: Please submit your answers and your manifestos before 2022-11-13 at 23:59 UTC.- directly to Dorothea, as OSMF administrative assistant and cc me (dorothea@osmfoundation.org, mike@ayeltd.biz) as per the instructions here - please note the requested format, it makes collation far easier! An approximate estimate of how much time that you spend on your answers and manifestos would be appreciated; this will help us in future years.

Please answer as many questions as you can. Our suggestion is to answer all of them - we are a global organisation, so many voters won't know you and this will help them make a decision.

ABOUT YOU:

Your OSM activities

For example:

  • What brought you to OSM and why are you still part of it now?
  • What is your OSM user name?
  • What mapping contributions have you made in the last year?
  • What non-mapping contributions do you make to OpenStreetMap and why you think those are important.
    • Social meet-ups? Local Chapters? Working Groups? Have you ever run anything yourself?
    • Have you written anything about OpenStreetMap in blogs, mailing lists, newspapers? Please provide links if you can.
    • Do you contribute as a software developer?
    • Have you attended board meetings as a guest?

Experience running organisations

Do you have any experience helping run voluntary organisations such as sports clubs that might be a useful skill?

What would you personally like to achieve when on the board ? Do you have a focus ?

What are 1 or 2 discreet areas you are going to focus on when on the Board? How specifically are you going to work to achieve goals for those areas ... other than just talking!?

What languages do you speak ?

Transparency: Conflicts of interest

A. Is your main source of income related to mapping or GIS work in some way, (whether OSM-related or not)?

B. Are you an employee of, member of, or otherwise affiliated with (paid or non-paid) a company, government organization or non-profit that does work in the OSM ecosystem or might compete with it?

  • Do you have any contracts (employment or otherwise) which would limit what you can say in public that are relevant to OSM? eg a non-disparagement clause with a company/org in the OSM ecosystem? Or an employment contract which commits you to "always work in the company's best interest"?
  • Will your employer remunerate you in any way for your work for OSMF. If yes - in what way?

YOUR VIEW:

These questions are based on specific questions by members of the the OpenStreetMap community and so are of active concern to at least some of us:

OSMF Strategic plan

Last year, the board approved a "Strategic Plan Outline". Based on what YOU believe important, do you believe it needs any adjustments?

OSMF ... and Technical direction

In 2022, an OSMF working group commissioned a study to examine the OSM data model. That study highlighted a long list of identified issues, possible solutions, and a phased strategy for implementing changes.

Do you have an views whether our 13-year old core infrastructure (API, data model) still meets the needs of OSM users today and into the future? If no, what do you intend to do to make sure that OSM remains technically relevant into the future if elected?

Do think this should be entirely up to working group(s) or should you get involved as a board member? If so, what do you consider the proper way of going about it?

OSMF ... and Tagging

A debate is going on (latest) about standardising tagging and whether that is good or bad.

Do you agree/disagree that creating tagging standards would improve the ability for OpenStreetMap data consumers to create apps and services. Would you charge a new or existing OSMF working group to work on the issue?

OSMF ... and SOTM conferences

It has been decided not to hold a global State of the Map in 2023. What should OSM’s strategy for holding conferences be in the future?

OSMF ... and Local communities

How will you support the development of OSM's local communities? What would you like to say to local communities who are considering an application for local chapter status?

OSMF ... and HOT (Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team)

Do you have any thoughts on our relationship with HOT? At the board level, how would you handle any perceived conflict of interest between the two organisations, particularly as regards protection of the name "OpenStreetMap"?

Should there be a paid OSMF Executive Director ?

Many not-for-profit organisations, including OpenStreetMap US and HOT, have a paid position usually called the Executive Director. Should OSMF already have one or not yet? If yes, what should that person be doing compared to the Board?

Conflict, Etiquette and Etiquette Guidelines

OpenStreetMap depends on courteous participation and cooperation by global and very diverse folks for its very existence. Contributor's abusive or uncooperative behaviour in community spaces discourages participation. What are your thoughts?:

  • Is this enough? What is the OSMF role in making the community more accessible to newcomers and marginalised groups?
  • There have sometimes been complaints about people posting excessively on contact channels. How would you ensure that other voices aren’t drowned out?
  • Helps the community to resolve conflicts is part of the OSMF mission statement. Are you willing to get involved and do you have a favourite conflict management method?

Community questions to OSMF board candidates, upon which the official set will be based

Submission of community questions to the board candidates closed on the 1st of November at 23:59 UTC.

Here are the questions from the OSM community to the candidates for the OpenStreetMap Foundation (OSMF) board elections. An official set of questions - based on the questions below - will be published on November 6.

Asking questions? You are kindly asked to be respectful in your tone and try to phrase questions in an open way without already implying a certain answer or trick questions which are superficially about something else than what you want to know. Also you should give enough context to your questions, possibly with links, so they can be understood by any interested community member and not just insiders familiar with the specific subject and by any candidate so both long term active members and newcomers have an equal chance of giving you an accurate and honest answer.

The questions from 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016 etc. might still be relevant for inspiration.

Questions from non English speaking community members

  • We invite local communities to get together, discuss and add their questions. If you do not feel comfortable in asking your questions in English, feel free to add them in your native language.
  • We invite other community members who can help, to add translations above of the non-EN questions. In case no-one reading this page can help, the Communication Working Group (CWG) will try to find people to translate the questions.
  • Please note that -depending on the language and date- the CWG cannot guarantee translation of all non-EN questions. So, we kindly ask you to add any non-EN questions as soon as possible.

Are you a candidate? In advance thanks to all candidates for standing for election. You are kindly asked to wait for the official set of questions, which will be published on November 6th, on this page. Submit your answers to the official questions and your manifestos directly to the facilitator Mike Collinson and cc our administrative assistant (mike@ayeltd.biz, dorothea@osmfoundation.org). Please view the official questions as a possibility to articulate your views on matters that might be important for OSM community members. State freely if you have not formed an opinion on a question or are unable to answer it based on your current knowledge. Please also feel encouraged to state if your position on a question is a firm conviction or if what you say is just an opinion. If English is not your native language and you feel you cannot properly express your ideas on a certain question in English, feel free to answer in your native language.

Thank you all for participating in this procedure.

information sign

Please add your questions below.
Please sign and date your questions by typing four tildes ~~~~ at the end of your messages. Thanks :)

Question : Personal achievements

What would you personally like to achieve when on the board? Do you have a focus?
Rtnf (talk) 12:56, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

Question: Future relevance of OSM

What do you think OSMF should start doing differently now to keep the OSM project relevant in the next 10 years?
Nukeador (talk) 18:30, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Question: Non-mapping contributions

Please tell us a little bit about your non-mapping contributions to OpenStreetMap and why you think those are important.
Martijn van Exel (talk) 03:22, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Question: Experience running organisations

I'm active in a local sports club, and I can see so many similarities with OSM(&F) (both groups rely on a lot of volunteer labour & time for things people enjoy). Do you have any experience like that, and how do you think it could help?
Amᵃᵖanda (talk) 08:05, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Question: Executive Director position

Many not-for-profit organisations, including OpenStreetMap US and HOT, have a paid position usually called the Executive Director. Should OSMF already have one or not yet? If yes, what should that person be doing compared to the Board?
seav (talk) 05:11, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

Question: Ensuring technical relevance

While minor, non-breaking changes have been made over time, the last significant change to the OSM API was over thirteen years ago with the release of API_v0.6. In 2022, an OSMF working group commisioned a study to examine the OSM data model. That study highlighted a long list of identified issues, possible solutions, and a phased strategy for implementing changes. However, since the study was published in June, there has been has been no significant movement towards modernizing either the API or the underlying data model.[1] Given this history, do you feel that the core infrastructure (API, data model) meets the needs of OSM users today and into the future? If yes, is the Engineering Working Group wasting their time in commissioning studies such as the one cited here? If no, what do you intend to do to make sure that OSM remains technically relevant into the future if elected to the OSMF board?

ZeLonewolf (talk) 19:48, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

Question: Abusive Behavior

Over the last few years, community members have suggested that some contributors' abusive behavior in unmoderated community spaces discourages participation. Examples often cited include obscene remarks on OSMF-hosted mailing lists, abrasive responses on OSM software repositories, or bigoted comments on OSMF-hosted forums. Do you agree that these and other actions of a subset of contributors are a barrier to diverse participation? If so, what is the OSMF's role in making the community more accessible to newcomers and marginalized groups?

ZeLonewolf (talk) 22:41, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Question: Focus and Work approach

Opinions and positions don’t have much practical impact once on the Board. Through strategic discussion, we largely agree on what needs to get done. Doing the work is what counts, and that’s what we need in Board candidates.

What are 1 or 2 discreet areas you are going to focus on when on the Board? How specifically are you going to work to achieve goals for those areas?

Mikel (talk) 17:42, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Question: Continuing SOTM conferences

Following the decision not to hold a global State of the Map in 2023, what should OSM’s strategy for holding conferences be in the future? Andrew (talk) 16:49, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Question: SotM Safety Policy

What do you think about the SotM Safety Policy? Would you vote to repeal it?
Amᵃᵖanda (talk) 11:42, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Question: Etiqutte Guidelines

If you are elected, you will have to vote shortly on whether to continue new Etiquette Guidelines on the talk@ & osmf-talk@ mailing list. How do you think this experience? How do you think you will vote? What facts are influencing you?
Amᵃᵖanda (talk) 11:42, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

What do you think of the etiquette handling experience on the community.openstreetmap discussion website ?
pierzen (talk) 21:13, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Question: Future of OSM, robots & craft mappers

Several years ago, someone wrote that "OSM is at crossroads", where machine learning/AI data is an "exciting future" and craft mappers could "doom [OSM] to irrelevant". What do you think about this, about that prediction, about what the future of OSM could have, or should have?
Amᵃᵖanda (talk) 12:03, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Question: Language

🇮🇪 English is the lingua franca in OpenStreetMap. What language do you know? What do you think about the current status of the English language in OSM & OSMF? Should anything be done differently?

🇩🇪 Englische ist die Lingua Franca in OSM. Welche Sprache kennst du? Was denkst du úber die aktuallue position von die englische Sparche in OSM & OSMF? Sollen wir etwas anders machen?
Amᵃᵖanda (talk) 12:11, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Question: Excessive posting controls

There have sometimes been complaints about people posting excessively on contact channels. How would you ensure that other voices aren’t drowned out? Andrew (talk) 13:45, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Question: Conflict Resolution

What conflicts have you identified in the OSM community and which of these are the most important? And what is your favourite conflict management method? If you do not want to participate in Conflict Resolution, please let me know!

Context:

In the "Mission Statement/Scope of the OSMF" there is a task:

  • Helps the community to resolve conflicts

--ImreSamu (talk) 13:02, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Question: Tagging Standards

Recently, community members have called for creating tagging standards by identifying and codifying a core set of curated tags. Supporters of standardizing on tagging have included a current OSMF board member[2] and its former chair[3]. Do you agree that creating tagging standards would improve the ability for OpenStreetMap data consumers to create apps and services, and if so, would you charge a new or existing OSMF working group to tackle the problem?
ZeLonewolf (talk) 16:44, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Question: Intervening in working groups

When would you consider intervening in the activities of a working group as a board member? What do you consider the proper way of going about it? Andrew (talk) 21:45, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Question: Local community relations

How will you support the development of OSM's local communities? What would you like to say to local communities who are considering an application for local chapter status? – Minh Nguyễn 💬 02:08, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Question: Strategic plan

Last year, the board approved a "Strategic Plan Outline". Based on the priorities outlined in your position statement, do you believe the Strategic Plan Outline needs any adjustments? – Minh Nguyễn 💬 02:08, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Question: Employment

1. Who is your employer?

2. Is a member of your family employed by OSM partners? If yes, who is this partner company?

3. Describe any conflicts of interest that may arise.

4. Will you be released by your employer to work in the OSMF or will you have to do it in your spare time?

5. Will your employer remunerate you in any way for your work for OSMF. If yes - in what way?

Fredao (talk) 18:49, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Question: OpenStreetMap Takeover

The OpenStreetMap Foundation ("OSMF") already had discussions and even a committee on takeover mitigation and this question focuses on this topic. The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team United States Inc ("HOTUSI"), which it's grow up over 100x OSMF budget (using 2020 as year, 26,562,141 USD vs 226,273 GBP ), on its board minutes date 2022-01-24 (archived version here) already admitted interest on trademark agreement "with clear, irrevocable rights to the name" as option to "Ensure that the HOT Brand name is not in danger and is formerly in HOT’s hands", however this explicitly require OpenStreetMap Foundation approval at least once in its history. Already before this election, the new discourse community, which is public know have receive support from HOTUSI, had a paid HOTUSI employee closing a discussion about HOTUSI which also asked why the site redesign still being delayed to a point of know to not happens before the OpenStreetMap Foundation election, even if this already was asked on OSMF mail lists, and the incident sparked a discussion on handling conflict of interest on moderation channels. At this very moment of the history of OpenStreetMap, majority of candidates in this election do have links with HOTUSI, so it is viable that the result will allow a single corporation to make decisions in self interest against OSMF, in which you hopefully will win as a candidate. So the question to you is: how will you handle conflicts of interest in the OpenStreetMap Foundation board itself under this challenging context?

EmericusPetro (talk) 22:00, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

General Election to Board Wiki-Discussion:

This space is for discussing the page in a normal wiki talk page like style. For substantial election discussions the osmf-talk mailing list is probably a more suitable place. Subscription to osmf-talk is available to members of the OpenStreetMap Foundation, using the same email-address they have registered as OSMF members. You can join the OpenStreetMap Foundation at https://join.osmfoundation.org/ You can view all emails here.

Link answers?

Maybe link also Foundation/AGM2022/Election to Board/Answers and manifestos page with answers? It was surprisingly hard to find Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 13:16, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

I guess next year it could be a good idea Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 18:35, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
  1. ↑ https://github.com/osmlab/osm-data-model/discussions/
  2. ↑ https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/tagging/2022-October/066238.html
  3. ↑ https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/osmf-talk/2022-October/008464.html
Retrieved from "https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Foundation/AGM2022/Election_to_Board&oldid=2619400"