To the OSM and OSMF communities:

I convey the following information on behalf of the Board of Directors of the OpenStreetMap Foundation.

An outcome of the current controversy on the osmf-talk mailing list over misogynistic language is a decision by the Board as follows:

The Board will find partners to help instate a moderator team for the OSMF-talk and talk mailing lists. 
These moderators need to have the trust of the community subject to the moderation (consent of the governed) by some kind of approval mechanism. 
This moderator team will start to work on enforcing the current Etiquette guidelines as soon as possible. We will also start work on updating/replacing our Etiquette rules, which must focus on balancing all participants' interests.

We have asked the Local Chapters and Communities Working Group (LCCWG) to take the lead on this and to work with signatories of the open letter to the Board as well as members of the Diversity and Inclusion Special Committee to produce proposals for the Board to consider at its January meeting. The LCCWG has accepted this task. This issue will be on the agenda of the January meeting of the Board of Directors, exact time and date yet to be determined, though as is customary it will be posted to the Foundation’s website well in advance.

Members of the OSM community are, as always, welcome to share their opinions and any relevant information on this matter, either publicly via osmf-talk, or privately in direct communications to the LCCWG. I feel compelled to remind all members of the community that a Code of Etiquette has existed since June 2011 and shall be observed by all community members.

Very best regards to all, apm

I read the document titled A Call to Take Action and Confront Systemic Offensive Behaviour in the OSM Community and it gave me a flashback to several conversations with our colleagues and team members about the situation in the OSM community, especially the OSMF Board member. I remember asking why no board member from Asia while we know Asia is one of the active regions on OSM and there are a lot of OSM contributions from there both from individuals and organizations. It has been 13 years since the first OSMF board was established yet there is still no representative from Asia.

For me this is the problem that has been laid for a long time and we are all aware about it but so far there are little efforts to solve it. Personally, I don’t really know why this problem still exists while there are many ideas or promotions from OSMF and the community about the diversity and inclusive community. Moreover, the OSMF board that has been dominated by a certain group of people, for me, indirectly gives intimidation to others to give their opinions into the community through mailing lists or even the OSM user diary or even nominate themselves to become OSMF Board. I think because we are afraid to receive offensive feedback/comments. We afraid to receive opinion such as:

• ‘she is not capable to run OSMF Board’
• ‘he is from Asia, his English is not good, his communication to the community would not be effective’
• ‘she is working on company/organization that use OSM, absolutely she only wants to bring her company/organization agenda to the board and OSM community and not really care about OSM as an individual’
• ‘he doesn’t have master/phd degree and his academic background seems low, I am not sure * he will bring any value to the board’ etc

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Hi,

I’ve recently got some flak about a mailing list post that I wrote opposing a candidate for the OSMF board election. I felt that this candidate and their employer, Facebook, were getting away with too many things that would be inacceptable from anyone else.

Because the candidate and his employer steadfastly claim that the attribution they provide was in accordance with the license, I saw an analogy with Donald Trump claiming stuff that was obviously not true, like “I had the greatest crowd in my inauguration” or so. And getting away with it.

To make this point as drastically as possible, I used a quote from Trump from before the 2016 election, the infamous “Access Hollywood Tape”. I still remember when that - deeply misogynistic - claim of getting away with sexual assault hit the press. I was sure: This man is never going to be elected; it is just not possible. I was proven wrong. That’s why the quote stuck in my head, as the eternal conundrum of why so many people can vote for a politician who says such deplorable things. (There are other examples in history books; but this one I lived through.) When I wrote the mailing list post, I felt that, in terms of the values we have as OSM, claiming that you can simply ignore our attribution requirements and hoping get away with it, was equally impossible.

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I would like to share a previous talk and an experience to relate WHY women are pushing for a safe and inclusive space in OSM, as well as a strong and enforceable Code of Conduct (CoC).

We all love maps right? Ok, here is a map for you showing two (2) routes.

Imagine this scenario: It’s late at night and you’re walking home from point A point B. I would like to ask you, which route will you choose?

Is it Route 1 - a sidewalk outside a University Campus, along the road, with no lamp posts along the way, straight forward, and is a shorter walk

Or Route 2 - a footway inside the University Campus, with lamp posts along the way, have a bit of left and right turns, and is a bit longer compared to Route 1

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My report for 2020 has been posted here: https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Annual_General_Meetings/2020/Chairperson%E2%80%99s_report#OSMF_Chairperson.27s_Annual_Report_for_2020

Here we are again - OSMF election season. A comment on our OSMF-talk governance mailing list caused many OSM communities and individuals to join up for the purpose of the following statement .Signatories and translations are most welcome. See the full document with footnotes and signatories here Let’s do better as a community, project and network.

Summary

The OSMF and OSM need to prioritize diversity and inclusion in positions of power and governance. We recommend a renewal and implementation of an OSM Code of Conduct and deliver on the next recommended stages for a diverse and inclusive OSM and OSMF. We want the OSMF to ask itself: who does it exist to serve? How can we be more open? If you would like to sign this statement, you can do so here and your name will be added to the document:

sign the statement here

Background

We write this statement as OSM community groups, contributors and members, in response to systemic aggressive behaviour that demotivates and excludes participation by women and minority groups in OSM, as well as some men and non-binary genders. This behaviour degrades the spirit of open community culture, and damages the OpenStreetMap reputation. The catalyst for statement was the offensive message sent to the OSM-talk list [], but the systemic behaviours described span many years and many people.”

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Thank you for your patience! :)

For this year’s Pista Ng Mapa (PnM), or Festival of Maps, Geoladies PH with the Ministry of Mapping (MoM) led a workshop on co-creating a Code of Conduct (CoC) for OpenStreetMap Philippines (OSM PH).

The Workshop aimed to gather and engage local community members of OSM and/or other open geospatial communities in the Philippines in co-creating a safe space for learning and collaborating, and the OSM PH CoC.

Background/Why form CoC?

Geoladies PH advocates for community diversity, collaborative participation, and affirmative spaces especially for women and under-represented communities in OSM and the local geospatial community/field. To achieve this, we believe that we should have a strong and enforceable guidelines or Code of Conduct in place; and we noticed that OSM PH or the local mapping community doesn’t have one yet. We were inspired by the MoM’s Code of Conduct and Kindness #Caretography and PnM’s Code of Conduct, as well as the works of GeochicasOSM, specifically @mapeadora’s talk/workshop at State of the Map 2018.

Initially, we applied for a 2-day or 2-sessions workshop, but there were lots of amazing talks and workshops. We were accepted for a 1-day workshop and were able to conduct Session 1; thank you Pista Ng Mapa for the opportunity!

Session 1 (during Pista Ng Mapa 2020): Building an inclusive/collaborative space for the OSM PH Community

In this session, we brainstormed on how to have a safe space for learning and collaboration in the OSM PH local community, either it be online or physical, through a participatory workshop using Miro and/or Google forms.

The Program was divided in three (3) parts:

A. 7 minute pre-recorded talk/presentation from Leigh (Feminist 101) and Hannah (Caretography)

B. 20 minutes interactive workshop via Miro with Cham

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Just a quick note to mark my 1000th openstreetmap changeset.

Changeset #95516937 marked the occasion.

The 14th Annual General Meeting of the OpenStreetMap Foundation will be held online in the IRC chat room #osmf-gm on the IRC network irc.oftc.net, at 1600 UTC on Saturday, 12 December 2020. If you are a member of the Foundation, you are encouraged to log in.

Please see the following wiki page close to the AGM date for information on how to connect to IRC: osm.wiki/IRC You will also be able to join via your browser: https://webchat.oftc.net/?channels=osmf-gm

Agenda

• Apologies for Absence
• Minutes of the last Meeting
• Chairperson’s report
• Treasurer’s Report
• Election to Board
• Results of voting on the special resolution and the other suggested resolutions
• Any other business

The agenda can also be viewed at https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Annual_General_Meetings/2020, where links to the reports will be available before the meeting.

2 example locations: Old houses near downtown big cities. These houses have trees that grow very tall due to the time the trees have been around. It makes it harder to see the secondary buildings like garages and sheds. Sometimes it becomes harder to see the primary building of the house due to trees, or the shadows of these trees.

Big new suburb at the edge of the urban crawl. The land was stripped to the grass. The houses have been placed down. Now the satellites goes by and takes images. It is easy to see the outline of the house.

We are in a race against the trees when we map houses using Aerial Data.

Street is not being shown in, for example, Snapchat for some reason, if anyone can help.

Here in San José, we’ve begun importing tens of thousands of businesses from an official registry of South Bay businesses and other points of interest that are open during the COVID-19 pandemic. When we’re done, our POI coverage will look similar to this visualization:

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As i’m figuring out how to use this site, i’m hoping the be a really good mapper as years go by, I want to help the area of Northwest Pennsylvania since there isn’t many people from that area on this website anymore, only a couple are actually still pretty active, I also hope to improve more of Lake Erie & Crawford County since most buildings were drawn years ago on old satelites imagery and I hope to fix and reshape the buildings to fit better with the more modern satelite map imagery thats used today.

YMUP

In Panamá there’s a YouthMappers chapter, at the Universidad de Panamá. This YMUP Chapter started quite late working at its visibility here on OSM, so their first activities went mostly unnoticed. They do produce quite a bit of action and boast a remarkable access to various types of resources.

My goal in this diary page is to document the groups initial organized activities, and I’m writing in English because I hope this will help reach a wider public.

who’s who

Member composition is dynamic, but a few members are sort of “resident”, definitely the two mentors María Adames de Newbill and Humberto Smith, professors at the University of Panamá. The support by Esri is also a constant, through Manuel Quintero and Jean Felix Guevara. fanny16 is possibly also part of the Chapter through Esri, I don’t know. Two other mappers closely tied to the YMUP are Karen Martínez and Martitza Rodríguez, who have been president of the chapter respectively from October 2018 to October 2019 and from October 2019 to October 2020, confirmed for one more year.

Further membership can only be inferred based on early participation to the mapathons and HOT projects. Given the logs, few of their mappers participated to mapathons in more than one calendar year. As of January 2021, according to their mentor, it’s 12 people in the group. Here an incomplete and possibly incorrect list: fanny16, Marianne_pty, Tinago, Yarilpa, Nwalachosky18, Brenda Soto, Mafe96, Angel Ortega…

blog entries

The YouthMappers International web portal has a blog link, and I’ve collected the entries related to YMUP:

• camino de esperiencias
• Gis Day 2019
• smart campus

the projects

It’s mostly buildings that they map, and I’m focusing on that only.

2018 - Chiriquí

This was project 4917 on HOT, and this is JOSM with the buildings edited 2018-07-01/2018-07-31:

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I Just had a brief orientation with Oluwatosin and Ijeoma on OSM and how Unique Mappers contribute to OSM project . I look forward they will pick it up from there… How brief can you make an orientation about OSM? just to get newbies excited and get on board as active Local OSM Mappers?

Over the past years, the OpenStreetMap Foundation has worked hard to expand the membership. On the one hand, we want the core of the project to be run by people from all backgrounds. On the other hand, a larger membership makes it harder to buy your way into power.

Over the past year, MWG and Board worked on the implementation of the Active Contributor Membership (ACM). You no longer need to pay, or say you cannot pay to join. We now welcome anyone who is contributing significantly to the project by mapping or in other ways. The project was launched by the end of August 2020, and has already had a significant impact. A previous iteration of this was “the fee waiver program”. It was only available for people for whom the subscription cost of 15 pound is very high, or for whom making the payment is difficult (because of international banking issues). This program was launched around new years 2018.

Main impact

We compare the status at the end of the year 2018, with the membership right before the launch of the ACM and a few months later - mid November. Note that with the 90 day membership requirement for voting in the AGM/Board election, no snapshot exactly represents the voting population.

According to my count, membership rose from 1503 to 1939 in the period since the introduction of ACM. That’s over 400 new members or a growth of almost 30%. In this short time, the membership has grown more than in the almost two years before.

A lot of the motivation behind ACM is increasing geographic diversity. There has in fact been a significant shift. Where Africa was virtually unrepresented back in 2018, it is now at 5,2% of the total membership. Asia shows a steady growth. South America did not profit much from the fee waiver program, but has seen a significant rise recently.

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I had been working on trails in Westwoods for years, but in 2011 we moved to Guilford adjacent to Westwoods so since then I have been doing extensive editing in Guilford Land Conservation Trust properties and also some adjoining towns.

As part of working with the Westwoods Trail Committee, I have created a display that relies on OSM maps and in particular on waymarkedtrails.org layer. In that app (based on a Leaflet map using OSM data) I have been displaying an inventory of bridges in GLCT properties. I also use it to display trail issues that need to be addressed and points of interest relevant to GLCT.

I have been paying much more attention to hiking route relations because of how well waymarkedtrails.org uses that data in its displays. In particular, I’m getting better at recording osmc symbols so that they will appear accurately on the waymarkedtrails.org map.

Apart from taking part in the OSM Ireland project to map all buildings on the island, most of my constributions are of historical features. I’m also always trying to convince other historically interested people of the merits of OSM. So when a friend and fellow member of the Kilkenny Archaeological Society asked me whether jostle stones (Wiki link) could be mapped on OSM, I said “sure”. Only slight problem being that there is no key for them - yet. So I started a proposal on the OSM wiki. Please join the discussion and the vote, once it starts.

While I was preparing the proposal, I asked around in my family if someone could send me pictures. I was 90% sure my aunt in Leipzig, Germany lives in a house with guard stones, because it used to be a printing house in the 19th century and has a huge gateway. She didn’t think so, but she checked, and there are. I just thought it was funny that I remembered them being there (I haven’t seen that house in about two years) and she has been living there for at least five years and never noticed them.

It took us a while to find out the name for them in German - there are actually a few. I put all my hopes unto my grandmother who used to work for the Heritage Council, and she did deliver. She didn’t know right away, but she knew where to look it up. It’s curious, that very few people know the name for them, even though they are omnipresent in historic town and city centres. At least that is the situation in Ireland and Germany. But raising awareness might keep the word(s) in the collective vocabulary a bit longer.

I think it would make for a nice Heritage Week project to map jostle stones (that seems to be the Hiberno-English word for it) in Kilkenny or even the whole of Ireland. It could be a way to get new mappers with a local history background. Or people who map for visually impaired map users.

It is a privilege to address 2020’s humanitarian OpenStreetMap Summit today. This year marks HOT’s 10th anniversary, and my own 5th anniversary with HOT starting from 2015. Today’s theme is the past, present and future of humanitarian OpenStreetMap and we have been thinking a lot about the future.

I wanted to share my Summit address (which you can watch here) on an OSM diary simultaneously, so that people can engage in the comments if they want to.

This is something of a statement of intent for HOT within the humanitarian and OpenStreetMap ecosystems and, while it has been shaped by many conversations with community groups, collaborators and contributors in the universe in which HOT exists, it only seeks to represent my own perspective and some of the recent thinking within HOT the NGO. Please think of it as an early draft and a contribution to a conversation.

I also acknowledge that HOT’s presentation of itself has increasingly highlighted our successes while smoothing over or not acknowledging challenges and failures. Today’s Summit features “failfest” sessions for the first time where friends and colleagues are sharing learnings from where they didn’t necessarily get it right. This statement is not about what we’ve gotten right, but about how we’d like to embrace a stronger culture of feedback and learning and hope that, by doing so, we can achieve great things, with all of you.

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