Talk:Foundation/AGM18/Election to Board

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Candidates' answers and manifestos

Please see candidates' answers and manifestos

Official set of questions

The deadline for members to post questions for the candidates -upon which the official questions will be based- has been reached. Thanks to all that have participated. Our election facilitator, Michael Collinson has organised the community questions and here is the official set. Candidates are now kindly asked to submit their answers to the official questions and manifestos -before 30 November- directly to Michael Collinson and cc our administrative assistant (mike@ayeltd.biz, dorothea@osmfoundation.org). It's up to the candidates to answer all the questions or just a few of them. Our suggestion is to answer all of them. The official answers and questions thereof should be what voters use to judge.

Tell us a little about 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?
  • Where do you map?
  • Are you/have you been a member of any OSMF working groups?
  • Do you participate with other OSM mappers, for example in a local chapter or in social meet ups?
  • Have you run anything yourself, such as an OSM-newbie event?
  • Do you contribute as a software developer?
  • Have you attended board meetings as a guest?

What do you think qualifies you for a position on the board of the OSMF?

The values and goals of the OpenStreetMap project

For example in the OSMF mission statement and on the wiki?

  • Are they good? Would you want to change anything?

Mappers, Mappers, Lots of Happy Mappers

How do you think OpenStreetMap can embrace all kinds of mappers, from those who map for fun, to volunteers to company mapping teams to students and others? For example:

  • How do you think OpenStreetMap can better welcome new mappers and encourage them to keep mapping, and to grow as mappers?
  • Any opinions on diversity and how we can improve, (geographic, rich/poor, female/male, LGBT, ...)?
  • The role of the OSMF in regulating behavior of OSM community members. Should the OSMF define behavior rules of the OSM community?
  • What do you intend to do about improving the infrastructure for contributors, specifically the OSM website?

You & the other candidates

How well do you know the other candidates or board members? Can you say something nice about each of them?

Board diversity

OSMF Board members thus far have either been from or are based in Europe, Canada, and the United States. What is your view regarding this lack of geographic diversity in the members of the Board? And if you think this is something that we should improve on, what do you think the Foundation could do to address this (probably not during this election but maybe in the future)?

Conflicts of interest

What, if any, conflicts of interest do you have that would affect you if you were on the board? Are you an employee of, member of, or otherwise affiliated with a company, government organization or non-profit that does work in OSM?

Your opinion on Term limits for board members?

Discussed plenty of times, non-binding vote from the members with 56% majority for term limits in 2014, expressed intend of the board to act on this but with no results.

Your opinion on Paid staff

Currently we have only part time admin assistent and accounting. - Do you want to keep this? Hire more people? If yes for what? Or reduce paid work again in favour of volunteer work?

Your opinion on Organized editing

Do you think the OSMF should regulate this and if yes what do you think should a regulation look like? What do you think of the approach the OSMF has taken on the matter so far? (Background: see history and recent developments here and here)

Deciding on who gets grants

While the details remain unclear, sometime during the upcoming year the OSMF will start distributing "micro-grants" (which may be will not be so micro relative to local purchasing power).

- What kind of projects and topics should be supported in such a programme (please as concrete as possible)? - Who (as in which body of the OSMF) should determine who receives the grants?

Due diligence reverting edits

How much due diligence should OSM expect from mappers before they revert additions to the map?

Criticism on social media

How would you respond to sustained criticism of OSM on Twitter or other social media? How would you support anyone targeted by the criticism?

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

Here are questions from the OSM community to the candidates for the OSMF board elections. An official set of questions -based on the questions below- will be published on November 17th.

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.

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 17th. Please submit your answers to the official questions and your manifestos directly to the facilitator Michael Collinson (mike@ayeltd.biz) and cc our administrative assistant (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. And please 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. Also 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.

Ok, i will make the start here. Apologies to Michael if the style of question makes aggregation difficult. I tried to find a compromise between asking atomic questions and explaining the context clearly to candidates to avoid misunderstandings (which is particularly important this year due to the restricted dialogue).

General statement: I value clarity and precision in answers. Vague answers or answers that intentionally sidestep the question to me are a strong negative. If you don't have an opinion on a certain matter it is therefore better to openly state so.

Your view of yourself as an OSMF board member

  • What do you think qualifies you for a position on the board of the OSMF?
  • In September this year Frederik Ramm indicated that the OSMF will need a new treasurer when he retires from the board in either 2019 or 2020. Do you intend to volunteer for this role and if yes what are your qualifications specifically for this?
  • What is your view of the balance and distribution of skills, experiences and personal backgrounds desirable or required for the OSMF board? Do you think the other board members should ideally have similar abilities and qualifications as you or do you think there is need to supplement your skills with abilities you do not provide. If yes please list the skills, experiences and personal backgrounds you consider important to be present on the board that you do not provide.

Immutable values of the OpenStreetMap project

The OpenStreetMap project has over the past years attracted a large variety of contributors, both individuals and as part of organizations, with in part very different and sometimes conflicting interests.

  • How do you think this relates to the values and goals of the OpenStreetMap project (as for example formulated on the wiki and in the OSMF mission)? Do you think OpenStreetMap should adjust to the interests of the currently active contributors independent of what these are or do you think there are certain immutable values of OpenStreetMap that are not to be changed according to changing interests of the currently active contributors? In the latter case what are these values and how do you want to ensure these are maintained as a board member?

Conflicts of interest

Conflicts of interest (See Wikipedia - suggestion to read carefully the first paragraphs to make sure we are talking about the same thing) have been a significant topic of discourse and a source of controversies in the OSMF for quite some time. Since in the past answers of candidates to this topic have often been very vague and of little use for members i have the following very specific questions for the candidates:

  • Are there any conflict of interest related criteria that you think should disqualify a person from serving on the OSMF board? If yes please list those criteria. If yes please also state if you would be in favour of changing the rules of board elections to exclude people falling under those criteria as candidates.
  • Do you consider it a possibility worth considering that a conflict of interest disqualifies a board member from participating in specific activities of the board? If yes, what are these activities? (Background: in the past board members have expressed that they think conflicts of interest can disqualify them from participating in formal votes but cannot disqualify them from participating in the discussion leading up to the decision. Not everyone shares this opinion though).
  • Who do you think should be tasked with identifying a conflict of interest of a board member. Should there be codified rules how this assessment is to be performed? Do you think there should be some sort of supervision of this assessment and if yes how do you think this should look like?

The role of proprietary communication channels in community discourse

Over the past 1-2 years we have seen a strong increase in use of proprietary communication channels for OSM related discussion. I am thinking in particular of use of github to perform tagging discussion or planning and discussion of imports and organized edits. (see here for some discussion).

  • What is your opinion of this development? Do you think collective decision making of the OSM community can be made on such platforms? What are the criteria for this in your opinion? Do you think the OSMF should become active on this matter - either through regulation or by providing new communication channels for the OSM community?

Other questions of OSMF politics

Various specific policy decisions of the OSMF have been discussed during the last year and the years before, many without a definitive outcome. I would like to know for each of them what your position is on the matter and if you plan to actively work towards it during your term as a board member.

  • Term limits for board members (discussed plenty of times, non-binding vote from the members with 56% majority for term limits in 2014, expressed intend of the board to act on this but with no results)
  • Paid staff (currently part time admin assistent and accounting) - Do you want to keep this? Hire more people? If yes for what? Or reduce paid work again in favour of volunteer work?
  • Organized editing: Do you think the OSMF should regulate this and if yes what do you think should a regulation look like? What do you think of the approach the OSMF has taken on the matter so far? (Background: see history and recent developments here and here)
  • Member recruitment: The lack of proportional representation of the OSM community in the OSMF membership has been discussed frequently and is at least in parts an increasing problem (w.r.t. geographic distribution). Do you consider this a problem and if yes what specific plans to address this do you have or support?
  • Larger financial contributions: What is your standpoint on the OSMF accepting larger financial contributions? Do you think the OSMF should accept contributions that depend on a certain use of the money? If yes what should be the criteria for that? What kind of transparency do you consider appropriate for this kind of process?
  • Behavior regulation/codes of conduct: What is your opinion on the role of the OSMF in regulating behavior of OSM community members. Should the OSMF define behavior rules of the OSM community? If yes in what kind of process should such rules be developed? Where and to whom should such rules apply? Should the OSMF enforce such rules and if yes how should such enforcement happen? How would OSMF rules relate to other rules of the OSM community?
I would replace the question "Where and to whom should such rules apply." by the following: "Where (both country and communication channels) and to whom should such rules apply?" I think that "where" is an ambiguous term in this context. --Nakaner (talk) 20:38, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
I want to ask an open question here and not imply a limited set of possibilities for distinguishing application of rules. I could have made it even more generic by asking On what conditions should the application of rules depend? but i think where and to whom is better understandable while essentially saying the same. --Imagico (talk) 21:03, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Policy making in OpenStreetMap in general: What do you think should be the roles of the OSMF board, the working groups, the local OSMF chapters, the local mapper communities and the global OSM community in defining processes and policy in OpenStreetMap. Which of these entities and groups should in your opinion have authority over others w.r.t. defining processes and policy? To what extent would you consider decisions of these entities and groups to be binding for others and where do you consider them to be non-binding?

--Imagico (talk) 16:14, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Your activities for OSM

It is sometimes difficult to get an overview over the activities of someone you don't know. That's why I ask you, the candidates, to tell us, the members how you contributed the project you want to represent. If you have answered these questions in your manifesto, just drop a short notice as your answer.

  • What is your OSM user name?
  • Do you have any other OSM accounts you don't want to reveal for privacy reasons?
  • Please give me a short list of your contributions to OSM as software developer.
  • Which OSMF working groups do or did you belong to? When did you join them? When did you leave them? What did you do in these working groups?
  • Are you a member of any officially recognised local chapter of the OSMF?
  • If yes, are there any activites in that local chaper(s) you would like to see appreciated?
  • Are you a member of any other de-facto local chapter or thematic chapter?
  • If yes, are there any activites in that organisations you would like to see appreciated?

--Nakaner (talk) 20:49, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Collaboration across timezones

There have been complaints from mappers east of the present board that meetings are held at a time when they cannot easily join in. How would you seek to remedy this?

--Andrew (talk) 21:35, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Some questions about you:

I have offered to translate questions from the German community and got a few ones from Manfred Reiter:

  • Please give us a link to your How did you contribute page (Remark: If you want to you can make this publicly accessible without an OSM login by adding a link to your OSM user page - see here).
  • What OSMF working groups are you a member of?
  • What other work do you perform for the community?
  • Who is your employer?
  • Does your employer reimburse you for your OSMF membership fee?
  • What is the price of a Hamburger (or comparable fast food) in your country in USD or EUR? (serious question, to get an idea of pricing and living cost disparities)
See also: Big Mac Index on Wikipedia

--Imagico (talk) 13:58, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Some simple yes/no questions

(i) Are trans women women? (ii) Should same sex marriage be legal and treated the same as different-sex marriage in law? (iii) Should a organization or employee with sincerely held religious beliefs be allowed to treat LGBTQ people worse than cis-het people? (iv) Should abortion be legal, or should it be banned in all cases to "protect the life of the unborn"?

Rorym (talk) 17:45, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

CoI/contract Qs

(i) What, if any, conflicts of interest do you have that would affect you if you were on the board? (ii) Are they any previous board decisions which you would have had a conflict of interest? (iii) Are there any contracts (employment or otherwise) which would limit what you can say in public that are relevant to OSM? eg a non-disparaging 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"? (I had an employment contract like that)

Rorym (talk) 17:45, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

General Questions

  • What brought you to OSM and why are you (still) part of it now?
  • Assume a fairy granted you an OSM related wish. What would you choose?
  • If you join the five existing board members, what would be the topics you think are most likely to produce disagreement or a desire to debate?
  • Are you an employee of, member of, or otherwise affiliated with a company, government organization or non-profit that does work in OSM?
  • In addition to Nakaner's questions I think there are many more ways to participate to OSM and bring the project forward. 
  • How many hours per week do you spend on unpaid OSM work? 
  • What are your other contributions:
  • What/How much do you contribute to the wiki?
  • Which mailing lists or forums do you participate in, what's your reputation on help?
  • Do you take part in conferences or local regular social meet ups? ("regular tables" / "Stammtisch")?
  • Did you ever run OSM newbie-events?
  • How often do you use GoogleMaps e.g. for routing?

Working Mode

  • The members of the current board highly differ in their working hours (weekends, only evenings, only mornings, 1h/week, 10h/week,...). How flexible would you be with working for OSMF and with meetings? Is there a special day or time of day where you can or can't work? How many hours do you plan to spend on board work per week?

Conflicts of interest

My questions would be in a very similar vein as those of Christoph but I have an additional one:

  • Can you think of topics (and name them) where you have a potential CoI? Would you participate in discussions and/or voting?

FOSS

--Peda (talk) 19:05, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

You & the other candidates

How well do you know the other candidates? Can you say something nice about each of them?

Rorym (talk) 08:34, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Improving the infrastructure for contributors

What do you intend to do about improving the infrastructure for contributors, specifically the OSM website?

Deciding on who gets grants

While the details remain unclear, sometime during the upcoming year the OSMF will start distributing "micro-grants" (which may be will not be so micro relative to local purchasing power).

- What kind of projects and topics should be supported in such a programme (please as concrete as possible)? - Who (as in which body of the OSMF) should determine who receives the grants?

SimonPoole(talk) 08:53, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Criticism on social media

How would you respond to sustained criticism of OSM on Twitter or other social media? How would you support anyone targeted by the criticism?

--Andrew (talk) 21:14, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Board diversity

Aside from membership diversity, which we are already trying to address by increased membership drives and the proposal to have a membership fee waiver policy, I currently note that all of the OSMF Board members thus far have either been from or are based in Europe, Canada, and the United States. What is your view regarding this lack of geographic diversity in the members of the Board? And if you think this is something that we should improve on, what do you think the Foundation could do to address this (probably not during this election but maybe in the future)? —seav (talk) 07:24, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Board meeting attendance

  • How many board meetings did you attend (as a guest)?

--Peda (talk) 23:24, 15 November 2018‎ ‎ (UTC)

Vision of Growth

  • What’s your vision for growing OpenStreetMap as a project?
  • How do you think OpenStreetMap can embrace all kinds of mappers, from those who map for fun, to volunteers to company mapping teams to students and others?
  • How do you think OpenStreetMap can better welcome new mappers and encourage them to keep mapping, and to grow as mappers?

--Awrigh01 (talk) 03:45, 16 November 2018‎ (UTC)

Due diligence reverting edits

How much due diligence should OSM expect from mappers before they revert additions to the map?

--Andrew (talk) 08:38, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Deadline reached. The official set of questions will be based on the community questions above.

The deadline for members to post questions for the candidates -upon which the official questions will be based- has been reached. Thanks to all that have participated.

Next step
Our election facilitator, Michael Collinson will organise the community questions and will publish an official set for the candidates.

Reminder of key dates:

  • 2018-11-17: Deadline for members to put themselves forward for election by adding their information on the candidates' table of this page.
  • 2018-11-17: Deadline for members to post questions for the candidates to Talk:Foundation/AGM18/Election_to_Board.
  • 2018-11-17: Official set of questions published by the facilitator.
  • 2018-11-30: Candidates' answers and manifestos published by the facilitator or the board.
  • 2018-11-30 to 2018-12-08 16:00 UTC: Community discussion. We won't restrict members to continue to talk on our members' mailing list nor will we restrict candidates to continue discussions, but we don't encourage them to do so. The official answers and questions thereof should be what voters use to judge.
  • 2018-12-08 16:00 UTC: Voting opens (exactly 1 week before AGM).
  • 2018-12-15 16:00 UTC Start of Annual General Meeting on IRC, Deadline for voting.

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.

Suggestion: wouldn't it be nice to add another column to the table in https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Foundation/AGM18/Election_to_Board#Candidates for the link to the OSM user profile of the candidate, like openstreetmap.org/user/<person>, to see how are their histories of editions? That would be an important way to see how have been their profile of involvement in OMS. Or even add a simple link of that to each name. BTW it's the official acount an connection of each person involved with OSM. // Sergio (talk) 17:55, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Above in the questions is the suggestion for every candidate to provide links to their HDYC-page which would provide further links to user page, wiki account etc. In AGM15 and before links were on the election page.--Imagico (talk) 18:15, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
The Template:User has all that. Just enter {{User|OSM USERNAME}} and you get System-users-3.svgOSM USERNAME (on osm, edits, contrib, heatmap, chngset com.) --Rorym (talk) 19:11, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
"In AGM15 and before links were on the election page" So what's happening nowadays? How people think one can know anything about all candidates? Is information not for all? How one can get interested to join in something if can't know much about it? Broad information is basic for both transparency and expectation of more people involved. Perhaps common active mappers (the "grassroots" of OSM) would feel the wish to join in it if could see more easy communication and infos (not just "pay a simple fee and join us!"). One needs to know "why" should do it? What it benefits to me and common mapping? It can only be valued what can be known. Sergio (talk) 13:03, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
Don't complain, it's the wiki, just start adding the information you like to see. Maybe others will join you and help. If anyone had objections to the general idea i think they would have stated them by now.--Imagico (talk) 13:15, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
Ok, partially done. But I can't add information I don't know ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Sergio (talk) 15:11, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
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