@Heather - danke für den Kommentar. Ich möchte hier wie gesagt eigentlich nicht die konkrete Initiative diskutieren, einige Kommunikationskanäle zu schaffen, auf denen Leute aus bestimmten Kulturkreisen sich sicher davor fühlen können, mit Andersartigkeit in Verhalten und Kultur konfrontiert zu werden, die über das Maß hinaus geht, das sie in der Lage oder bereit sind, zu tolerieren. Daran ist grundsätzlich überhaupt nichts auszusetzen - und ich halte es sogar für äußerst wichtig, dass solchen Bedürfnissen Raum eingeräumt wird, solange das nicht mit totalitären Ansprüchen und Allmachtsphantasien einhergeht nach dem Muster “An unserem kulturellen Wesen soll die Welt genesen” (zum Verständnis: Ich paraphrasiere hier eine Floskel, die historisch im 19. und Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts die verbreitete Haltung deutschen Kulturimperialismus und kulturellen Exzeptionalismus wiedergibt).

Ich möchte aber zu zwei Aspekten Deines Kommentars Stellung nehmen:

Zum Einen ist die Vermischung von OSM and OSMF unangemessen und gefährlich. Die OSMF ist eine (auch nach eigenem Selbstverständnis) massiv englischsprachig dominierte und damit kulturell aus englischsprachigen Kulturkreisen (primär angloamerikanisch) dominierte Organisation. OpenStreetMap ist hingegen ein soziales Projekt der egalitären kulturübergreifenden und Sprachgrenzen überwindenden Zusammenarbeit für und durch das gemeinsame Ziel der Sammlung lokalen geographischen Wissens. Es zeichnet sich gerade durch die weitgehende Abwesentheit gemeinsamer sozialer Normen und einer gemeinsamen Leitkultur (eine andere kulturimperialistisch und elitär konnotierte Floskel) aus und die gemeinsamen Werte beschränken sich explizit auf Grundsätze der Zusammenarbeit bei der Erfassung von Daten. Diese Besonderheit von OpenStreetMap (die wie ich bereits vielfach betont habe, z.B. hier) ist kein Konstruktionsfehler, den es zu korrigieren gilt, sondern die zentrale Idee hinter dem sozialen Projekt OpenStreetMap. Eine Abkehr von diesem Prinzip (dass das, was OpenStreetMap zusammenhält nicht eine zentral codifizierte Leitkultur ist, sondern ausschließlich das gemeinsame Ziel der dezentralen Sammlung lokalen geographischen Wissens) würde, wie oben dargelegt, das Ende von OpenStreetMap als sozialem Projekt bedeuten und langfristig würde das daraus übrig bleibende zentralistische Projekt der Datensammlung durch Crowdsourcing wie die erwähnte Internationalen Weltkarte an seiner eigenen Hybris scheitern.

Zum Anderen: Die Aussage “We are simply stating that the project needs to be more open, healthy and inclusive.” “open” und “healthy” sind hier hochgradig subjektive Begriffe, die ohne eine Klärung, was damit gemeint sein soll, nicht wirklich eine substantielle Aussage darstellen. Aber das Ziel der Inklusivität ist ja wohl in Bezug auf einen Regelwerks-Entwurf, der zumindest zu einem Drittel seiner Länge Ideen der Exklusivität und Intoleranz artikuliert, nicht wirklich einsichtig. Wie bereits oben gesagt: Es spricht nichts dagegen, Kommunikationskanäle zu schaffen, auf denen ein solches Regelwerk gilt. Aber dies als Mittel der Inklusivität zu präsentieren, ist bestenfalls ziemlich unterkomplex.

English translation from deepl:

@Heather - thanks for the comment. As I said, I don’t actually want to discuss here the specific initiative of creating some channels of communication where people from certain cultural backgrounds can feel safe from being confronted with otherness in behavior and culture that goes beyond what they are able or willing to tolerate. In principle, there is nothing wrong with that at all - and I even consider it extremely important that such needs are given space, as long as this is not accompanied by totalitarian claims and fantasies of omnipotence along the lines of “Let the world be healed by our cultural essence” (for the sake of understanding: I am paraphrasing here a phrase, which historically reflects the widespread attitude of German cultural imperialism and cultural exceptionalism in the 19th and early 20th century).

However, I would like to comment on two aspects of your comment:

First, the conflation of OSM and OSMF is inappropriate and dangerous. OSMF is a (also according to its own self-image) massively English-dominated and thus culturally from English-speaking cultural circles (primarily Anglo-American) dominated organization. OpenStreetMap, on the other hand, is a social project of egalitarian cross-cultural and cross-language collaboration for and through the common goal of collecting local geographic knowledge. It is characterized precisely by the virtual absence of shared social norms and a common guiding culture (another phrase with cultural imperialist and elitist connotations), and shared values are explicitly limited to principles of collaboration in the collection of data. This peculiarity of OpenStreetMap (which as I have pointed out many times, e.g. here) is not a design flaw that needs to be corrected, but the central idea behind the OpenStreetMap social project. A departure from this principle (that what holds OpenStreetMap together is not a centrally codified guiding culture, but exclusively the common goal of decentralized collection of local geographic knowledge) would, as pointed out above, mean the end of OpenStreetMap as a social project, and in the long run the centralized project of data collection through crowdsourcing that would remain from it would, like the aforementioned International World Map, fail because of its own hubris.

On the other hand: The statement “We are simply stating that the project needs to be more open, healthy and inclusive.” “open” and “healthy” here are highly subjective terms that do not really constitute a substantive statement without some clarification of what is meant by them. But the goal of inclusivity is, after all, not really plausible in relation to a draft rules that articulates ideas of exclusivity and intolerance for at least a third of its length. As stated above, there is nothing wrong with creating channels of communication where such a set of rules applies. But presenting this as a means of inclusivity is, at best, rather undercomplex.

Bitte behaupte nicht, dass die Probleme, die ich angesprochen habe, lediglich theoretische, abstrakte Bedenken wären, nur weil Du ihre praktische Relevanz nicht erkennst. Ich habe ganz bewusst davon gesprochen, dass hier die konkrete Notwendigkeit für die OSMF besteht, substantiell umzusteuern (falls das nicht klar wurde: indem man den totalitären und kultur-imperialistischen Tendenzen, die im Rahmen dieser Initiative artikuliert werden, eine klare Absage erteilt und sich kritisch mit solchen in den eigenen Reihen auseinander setzt). Du bist frei darin, diesem Ratschlag nicht zu folgen, aber behaupte später bitte nicht, dass wenn die von mir vorhergesagten konkreten praktischen Konsequenzen eintreten, das käme ganz unerwartet und das hätte ja niemand vorhersehen können.

Danke für den Verweis auf “rule of law”. Das ist zwar nicht wirklich ein Pendant zur Normenklarheit, aber die Wikipedia-Seite verweist auf einige andere Konzepte, die dem etwas näher kommen, insbesondere:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_certainty

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vagueness_doctrine

English translation from deepl:

Please do not claim that the problems I have raised are merely theoretical, abstract concerns, just because you do not see their practical relevance. I deliberately spoke of the concrete need here for OSMF to substantially change course (in case that was not clear: by clearly rejecting the totalitarian and cultural-imperialist tendencies articulated in the context of this initiative and critically engaging with such within its own ranks). You are free not to follow this advice, but please do not claim later that if the concrete practical consequences I predicted come to pass, it would be quite unexpected and no one could have foreseen that.

Thank you for the reference to “rule of law.” That’s not really a counterpart to clarity of norms, but the Wikipedia page points to some other concepts that are a bit closer to it, esp:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_certainty

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vagueness_doctrine

Da ist nichts theoretisches in meinen Erläuterungen und den geäußerten Sorgen, die totalitären und und kultur-imperialistischen Tendenzen sind ganz konkret und ich habe die entsprechenden Dokumente, die dies belegen, auch verlinkt.

Der Vorwurf, dass ich über das Thema nicht genug nachgedacht habe, ist hier wirklich unangemessen. Ich habe wie ja erwähnt und verlinkt, über das Thema der inter-kulturellen Kommunikation und über die sozialen Mechanismen und Regeln in OpenStreetMap über die Jahre viel nachgedacht und Leuten aus verschiedenen Kulturkreisen zugehört und mit ihnen gesprochen und bin auch für neue, ergebnisoffene Diskussionen zu dem Thema immer zu haben.

Was mich interessieren würde, falls jemand hier mitliest, der/die entsprechende Kenntnis hat: Gibt es in Ländern mit “common law”-Rechtstradition eine analoges Prinzip zur Normenklarheit, also eine analoge Anforderung an Rechtsnormen bezüglich der Verständlichkeit in ihrer praktischen Bedeutung?

English translation from deepl:

There is nothing theoretical in my explanations and the concerns expressed, the totalitarian and and cultural-imperialist tendencies are quite concrete and I have also linked the relevant documents that prove this.

The accusation that I have not thought enough about the subject is really inappropriate here. I have, as mentioned and linked, thought a lot about the topic of inter-cultural communication and about the social mechanisms and rules in OpenStreetMap over the years and have listened to and talked with people from different cultural backgrounds and am also always open to new, open-ended discussions on the topic.

What I would be interested in, if anyone is reading along here who has relevant knowledge: Is there an analogous principle to clarity of norms in countries with “common law” legal traditions, i.e., an analogous requirement for legal norms in terms of comprehensibility in their practical meaning?

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Ich denke, dass ich recht klar (und mit meiner Antwort auf Dich in einigen zentralen Punkten sogar zweifach) deutlich gemacht habe, was mir Sorgen bereitet. Wenn das von einem Mitglied des OSMF-Vorstands trotz meiner ja doch recht umfassenden Erläuterungen zu dem Thema aus der Vergangenheit, die ich verlinkt habe, überhaupt nicht mehr nachvollzogen werden kann (und ich rede hier von reinem nachvollziehen einer anderen Sichtweise, nicht von Zustimmung zu meiner Argumentation und Schlussfolgerungen), ist das Problem natürlich noch grundsätzlicher als angenommen. Wie soll eigentlich, wenn jemand wie ich, der sich ja doch glaube ich recht leidlich öffentlich in zwei in der OSM-Community verbreiteten Sprachen artikulieren kann und der kulturell Dir und den meisten übrigen Mitgliedern des Vorstands letztendlich im globalen Vergleich recht nahe steht, so fundamentale Schwierigkeiten hat, seine Sichtweise auf OpenStreetMap-Themen für den Vorstand nachvollziehbar zu artikulieren, das Gros der globalen OSM-Community auch nur eine Chance haben, dass ihre Perspektive bei der Policy-Entwicklung und im zugehörigen Diskurs angemessen repräsentiert wird?

Ich sehe natürlich schon auch, dass historisch bedingt die Sensibilität gegenüber totalitären Tendenzen in Kontinental-Europa vermutlich stärker ausgeprägt ist als im anglo-amerikanischen Kulturkreis. Deshalb möchte ich noch mal explizit deutlich machen: Ich möchte hier niemandem individuell einen Vorwurf machen, dass er oder sie diese Tendenzen bis jetzt nicht erkannt hat. Dass ich meine Sorgen über diese Tendenzen hier artikuliere soll vor allem auch dazu dienen, dass Andere auf das Problem aufmerksam werden.

Wenn allerdings jetzt diejenigen, die an dieser Initiative in der OSMF beteiligt sind, derartige Hinweise substantiell unberücksichtigt lassen (und ich rede hier nicht nur über das, was ich geäußert habe, es gab in dem Treffen am 21. August wie auch in Wiki eine Menge wohl durchdachte - aber teils natürlich in nicht perfektem Englisch vorgebrachte - kritische Äußerungen) dann erwächst daraus natürlich schon ein massiver Vorwurf.

English translation from deepl:

I think that I have made quite clear (and with my answer to you in some central points even twice) what worries me. If a member of the OSMF board, despite my quite comprehensive explanations on the subject from the past, which I have linked, can no longer comprehend this at all (and I am talking here about purely comprehending another point of view, not about agreeing with my argumentation and conclusions), the problem is of course even more fundamental than assumed. If someone like me, who I think is quite capable of articulating publicly in two languages widely spoken in the OSM community and who is culturally quite close to you and most of the other members of the board, has such fundamental difficulties in articulating his perspective on OpenStreetMap issues in a way that is comprehensible to the board, how should the bulk of the global OSM community even have a chance to have their perspective adequately represented in policy development and related discourse?

Of course, I also see that, for historical reasons, sensitivity to totalitarian tendencies is probably more pronounced in continental Europe than in the Anglo-American cultural sphere. That is why I would like to make it explicitly clear once again: I do not want to reproach anyone individually here for not having recognized these tendencies until now. The fact that I am articulating my concerns about these tendencies here is primarily intended to make others aware of the problem.

If, however, those who are involved in this initiative in the OSMF now substantially disregard such indications (and I am not only talking about what I have expressed here, there were in the meeting on August 21 as well as in Wiki a lot of well thought-out - but of course partly in not perfect English presented - critical statements) then this naturally already grows a massive reproach.

Nein, kann ich nicht (in erster Linie aufgrund fehlender Normenklarheit). Und es geht mir wie gesagt auch nicht um den spezifischen Inhalt der Dokumente und deren Nuancen, es geht mir um das große Ganze in OpenStreetMap und wie diese Initiative da einzuordnen ist.

Vor diesem Hintergrund möchte ich Deine Frage (was ich denke dass in OpenStreetMap ganz grundsätzlich toleriert werden sollte - will heißen: Was in OSM einen Platz haben sollte) wie folgt beantworten: Jegliches Verhalten, welches irgendwo in einer Kultur oder Gesellschaft auf dieser Welt sozial akzeptiert wird, solange es mit den Grundwerten und grundsätzlichen Zielen von OpenStreetMap - Versuch der Beschreibung hier - kompatibel ist.

Und das schließt wie gesagt auch explizit das Verhalten mit ein, Kommunikationskanäle zu schaffen, auf denen Regeln gelten, die explizit intolerant sind gegenüber Andersartigkeit in Verhalten und Kultur.

Allerdings nur so lange, wie derartige Initiativen nicht versuchen, solche Regeln in totalitärer oder kultur-imperialistischer Manier anderen aufzudrücken und damit den grundsätzlichen Zielen von OpenStreetMap zu widersprechen. Dann sollten sie von allen, denen OpenStreetMap als soziales Projekt am Herzen liegt, sozusagen bis aufs Messer bekämpft werden. Und derartige totalitäre Tendenzen sind in der OSMF wie erläutert schon seit langem vorhanden und werden von den an dieser Initiative Beteiligten bis jetzt völlig kritik- und reflexionsfrei mit einbezogen - was mich zu der obigen deutlichen Warnung veranlasst hat.

Falls die OSMF hier nicht erheblich umsteuert, gibt es im Grunde nur zwei Möglichkeiten:

• die OSMF zerstört OpenStreetMap als egalitäres soziales Projekt der inter-kulturellen Zusammenarbeit (wie detaillierter oben beschrieben, eventuell eine Zeit lang weiter erfolgreich als kulturell homogenisiertes, anglo-amerikanisch dominiertes Daten-Sammel-Projekt nach dem Schema “Neuauflage der Internationalen Weltkarte im digitalen Zeitalter unter Nutzung von Crowdsourcing”)
• die OSMF scheitert und verliert jegliche Bedeutung als positive Kraft und moralische Autorität in der weltweiten OSM-Community außerhalb eines ganz engen Kulturkreises.

English translation from deepl:

No, I can’t (primarily due to lack of standards clarity). And as I said, it’s not about the specific content of the documents and their nuances, it’s about the big picture in OpenStreetMap and how this initiative fits in.

Against this background I would like to answer your question (what I think should be tolerated in OpenStreetMap in general - meaning: what should have a place in OSM) as follows: Any behavior that is socially accepted somewhere in a culture or society in this world, as long as it is compatible with the basic values and fundamental goals of OpenStreetMap - Attempt to describe here.

And as said, this also explicitly includes the behavior of creating communication channels where rules apply that are explicitly intolerant of otherness in behavior and culture.

But only as long as such initiatives do not try to impose such rules on others in a totalitarian or culturally imperialistic manner, thus contradicting the fundamental goals of OpenStreetMap. Then they should be fought to the knife, so to speak, by everyone who cares about OpenStreetMap as a social project. And such totalitarian tendencies have been present in the OSMF for a long time, as explained, and have so far been included by those involved in this initiative completely without criticism or reflection - which prompted me to issue the above clear warning.

If the OSMF does not significantly change course here, there are basically only two possibilities:

• the OSMF destroys OpenStreetMap as an egalitarian social project of inter-cultural collaboration (as described in more detail above, possibly continuing to succeed for a while as a culturally homogenized Anglo-American dominated data collection project along the lines of “reimagining the International Map of the World in the digital age using crowdsourcing”).
• the OSMF fails and loses any significance as a positive force and moral authority in the worldwide OSM community outside a very narrow cultural circle.

@laznik - there are many interesting ideas in what you write but there is one fundamental flaw in your considerations IMO: You are mixing moral and economic considerations and arguments without clearly establishing how these two connect and that this connection as you see it actually exists in the real world.

Capitalist economy is an inherently amoral endeavor. There are all kinds of efforts in various parts of the world to moderate and tame capitalism with morally motivated constraints. But the idea to do this through appeal to a capitalist’s sense of fairness is just naive. The only way you can hope to impose moral constraints to economic actors is through hard rules that are enforced with zeal.

Practically this would boil down to adopting a license where the rights of the data users depend on the profitability of the data use or the wealth of the data user. Independent of the fact that it is unrealistic for the OSM community to adopt a license like that (it would be a non-open license according to the contributor terms so you would need a new contract with every single of the past OSM contributors), it would be practically unrealistic to implement it in a meaningful way. Just look at the difficulties governments have in practically taxing companies based on profit and/or wealth in a fair fashion - it would be naive to expect the OSM community with no legislative powers whatsoever to do any better.

Yes, automation of mechanical work in mapping is severely underdeveloped in OSM at the moment.

But this concerns not so much what many people think of when they hear “automation in mapping in OSM”, i.e. the large scale industrial automation with low quality results a la Facebook where the mapper - if at all - only remains as a click-monkey to mechanically confirm and take responsibility for entering the data without actually contributing local knowledge. The unused potential is IMO more on the level of micro-automation of mechanical and time consuming steps in the work of mappers. Like for example line/polygon geometry generation of individual features identified by the mapper - the iconic example would be the one click mapping of buildings from imagery.

By the way - automation of imagery alignment could in addition or instead of using GPS traces (which can be tricky because assigning a GPS trace to a feature visible in an image often requires human judgement) be based on cross correlation between different imagery sources (in particular of lower resolution imagery of vertical view satellite imagery with known and low systematic position errors).

There are quite a few interesting ideas in your suggestion worth contemplating. However what i am pretty sure about is that automatically rewarding a third party with own economic interests (like the OSMF) economically for the work of mappers is a bad idea.

I am also not sure how the whole system sketched is supposed to deal with:

• the fact that there is no objective system to quantify the relationship between the work efforts of the individual mappers and the benefit for the data user (which seems to be necessary to assign the merit reward).
• the possibility that mappers could enter work hours into the system which they have not spend - like it is meant to be - based on the intrinsic motivation of the mappers what to map and how to map but based on outside incentives (like being paid in conventional paid mapping project or also other organized and directed mapping project with non-monetary compensation).

@Richard - keep in mind however that the option to edit diary comments in a similar fashion as diary entries (i.e. without the edit and the edit history being transparently visible) would fundamentally change the character of the conversations because it gives participants in the conversation the possibility to freely rewrite history.

The move away from proprietary tools to open source infrastructure is commendable. People in the OSMF could use the opportunity to not only substitute proprietary tools with FOSS tools in a 1:1 replacement but also to move to work more with tools and platforms the OSM community is used to and familiar with like wikis, issue trackers and etherpads with barrierless public read access and no more than an OSM account being required to actively contribute. This could help a lot with recruitment of volunteers from the hobby mapper community.

Are there any concrete plans to also substitute Google services for email within the OSMF?

Rob, i have, and as it turned out due to the time constraints this was a good idea, made available my notes in advance, i did not see a reason to re-state everything from those notes in the meeting. And i stated there quite clearly i think that i do not feel comfortable with discussing matters i consider outside the remit of the OSMF that are traditionally discussed openly by the community and decided by broad consensus in a closed AB meeting.

It seems you might have a bit of an inaccurate translation - i am describing my observations from the meeting. The idea that everyone in such a meeting should seek confirmation for every observation they make is not really feasible. But when i describe observations about others, in particular about their motives, i am well aware that those are just subjective impressions of myself and not objective facts. You are welcome (and i encourage you to) elaborate on your motivation and reasoning behind your ideas in public discussion.

I get your point about the matter in the core not being about the specific examples (discourse, website, translations) but that you consider these to be just examples of what you perceive to be a broader issue. That already got clear in the meeting but it is good that you reaffirm this again. My answer to that is: Embrace diversity. If you are dissatisfied with the progress in some parts of the community then demonstrate how it can be done better. Set up a discourse instance for OSMUK and demonstrate to the rest of the community how useful it is. Develop improvements for the OSM website and discuss their benefits with the wider community to reach consensus to adopt them. Yes, i know this can be daunting and you often end up spending more time discussing with and convincing people of the merits of your work than on the actual work. But that is an inherent part of working in a highly diverse community. And good ideas (and i mean really objectively and sustainably good ideas) will over time always get the support they need. What really helps in that regard is having more options, more choices and more diversity that allows people to vote with their feet.

If you think that there is a systemic problem in OSM beyond the level of individual projects to make progress (and i mean objective progress and no just failure to develop in a direction one would subjectively like it to go) then you would need to provide substantial evidence for that. At the moment i don’t see this being the case. Everyday we see new projects in the OpenStreetMap world being started - from mapping and QA tools to communication platforms, from map design project to new social groups working together on things. At the same time we of course also see things reaching the end of their productive life. But not every tool or platform that has reached a state of maturity with relatively slow paced change prevailing is dead and useless and needs to be replaced by the fashion of the week.

To make sure things don’t get lost and since not everyone reading here will also be reading (or able to write) on osmf-talk here the comment i also posted there:

I think this is an important consideration and as you say in particular in light of the significantly widening economic activities of the OSMF it deserves getting priority.

However i also think that limiting these thoughts to a potential policy on “paid services” would not sufficiently address the underlying issues in terms of social dynamics within the larger OSM community.  Within today’s economic context if some activities receive direct reimbursement or not (i.e. paid vs. unpaid services) often does not make such a big difference.

My thought is that a clear and universal subsidarity principle within and among organizations in the OSM world could help addressing some of the same problems you mention in context of paid services as well as more broadly negative social and economic implications of economic activities of organizations whose primary purpose is non-economic in nature.

In a nutshell subsidarity would mean that in an organization (be that the OSMF or a local chapter or even within one of them, like in the board - working groups relationship), no one should engage in activities or aim to fulfill functions that could be or are covered by more localized activities within the community.

That would pertain to the OSMF-LC relationship just like the relationship between a local chapter and the businesses, more local organizations and individual volunteers within its realm.  In the above form the principle is too vague and abstract to be very useful, it would need to be put into more concrete practical rules, this is just meant to give an idea what i mean.

I don’t think the OSMF should try to impose such a principle onto local chapters as a hard requirement for recognition, it would more be something that works through leading by example - the OSMF would impose such a restriction on itself (which could be a tough sell and might only work through a direct initiative from the OSMF members) and suggest to local organizations to handle things similarly.

No one is pointing fingers, i am trying to raise problem awareness - the fact that language as well as digital tools and communication platforms can be (and are used as) powerful tools of colonialism should be pretty self evident.

Since you mentioned colonial history - one thing that our European colonial history has shown us is that well meaning intentions (humanitarian motives if you want) and colonial oppression can often go hand in hand.

I don’t want to discourage anyone from discussing the topic in any constellation. But this topic in particular will always profit from engaging with viewpoints outside the cultural sphere you usually engage in (and with cultural sphere i mean more who you interact with on a day-to-day basis, like in your job, and not so much where you were born and grew up) - hence my suggestion to specifically look for panelists who don’t share some of the cultural traits and dispositions most of those already selected do.

Having an English language only panel discussion on Colonialism seems a bit like having an all male panel discuss equality of men and women.

How about inviting some people who have

• no Twitter account
• no fancy English job title?

@cbeddow - that is a broad topic a bit outside the scope here. I had tried to briefly summarize the core problems above.

In 2019 the community has quite extensively discussed the board’s plans for the microgrants program and the considerations made there were integrated into the framework the OSMF decided on then. However in 2020 the practical implementation completely reversed many of the key points of the framework - ignoring almost all of the considerations derived from the wisdom and experience of the broader community on the matter that were partly integrated into the framework.

As a result community participation in the selection process was very limited, very little broader discussion of the individual proposals happened, committee deliberation on the decision was completely closed to the public, there was obviously an ensemble selection in the process (i.e. selection was not purely based on the merits of the individual proposals - like with SotM scholarships where i discussed this in more detail) but no documentation of the criteria used for that is available. Also no documentation of conflict of interest handling is available (and we already know that at least the board completely failed in considering this problem on their side).

Finally after the selection no follow-up or critical review of the whole process is visible. There seems to have been a complete communication blackout from the commitee afterwards, no information even on what funds have been paid, what benchmarks the projects might have passed, what kind of review and reporting might have happened. Most of the project pages on the wiki have no substantial edits after the acceptance, a few project made reports on their progress from their own initiative but no overall collection or review of them is visible to me.

At the moment this is at best a waste of money. But beyond that it could also have substantially negative effects as volunteers could easily get demotivated by seeing the OSMF handing out quite significant amounts of money based on unclear and questionable criteria without meaningful followups or public discussion on the merits of these projects and the reasons for financing them instead of others.

@trial - glad to see there is inter-language communication resulting from this (which is of course helped by the OSMF board having organized translations of the survey which brought us a topic to talk about across language barriers)

@marc__marc - keep in mind the OSMF board is not the whole OSMF and the OSMF is not in any way all the OSM community. Even if you have the impression that within the OSMF on one is interested in and some people might even have and articulate a distinct dislike for outside perspectives that question already formed opinions and assumptions (which is an impression that indeed you can get quite easily these days) that does not mean there is no value in sharing and discussing your thoughts publicly in the OSM community. Us discussing our views on the OSMF board survey for example has value independent of if the OSMF board will be interested in listening to it.

Regarding language dominance - i think the most important measure for the OSMF would be to actively embrace and support language diversity and explicitly stop treating English as the default for communication - no matter how inconvenient that might seem. Several times people have already suggested that everyone should start communicating in their native language and facilitating inter-cultural communication through (automated) translation this way making diversity and the difficulties resulting from it more explicit. And of course native English speakers need to stop judging non-native English speakers for their use of English language (because it is supposedly inappropriate, rude, insulting etc.) and stop steamrolling them in discussions.

Of course the ultimate goal should be that we can all choose to communicate in English when we consider it helpful to facilitate communication between people from different parts of the world with everyone having the maturity, restraint and critical self reflection to not use the language in those cases to project their cultural norms and values onto others.

@BCNorwich - misinterpretation of the results is a risk with any survey and i see no indication of intentions to do so upfront. On the contrary in many questions i see an honest attempt to gauge the sentiment of the community on the subject.

However as said i also think that drawing meaningful conclusions from the answers will likely be difficult due to the design of the survey. The first question is a good example here. If a large fraction of the respondents agree does that mean they think the board did good on the matter of diversity? Certainly not since that is not what the question was asking. If OTOH many respondents disagree, does that mean the OSM community is anti-diversity? Certainly not, because disagreeing with the specific actions of the board does not imply a specific sentiment w.r.t. the matter of diversity in the OSMF. If certain groups of people based on the demographics agree more frequently than others does this mean they are more tolerant and more pro-diversity than others? Certainly neither because again the question was on something much more specific and because of cultural differences in the way people tend to articulate disagreement more carefully and more strongly in different cultures.

As indicated in the diary i think if you don’t feel good about the survey what you should do instead of just sulkingly not taking it you should take the opportunity to formulate your views on matters the survey covers and this way give the board the opportunity to learn about how the community thinks about things despite the survey not allowing everyone to articulate that in a comprehensive manner.

@Zverik - with routinely recorded i meant there are established tags and support for them in editors and other tools. I was specifically looking for other safety relevant aspects for which we so far have no established mapping concepts.

I would probably choose route 2 under the condition that i have a reliable map that helps me avoid getting lost on one of the turns.

Which is a great demonstration i think that the core idea of OSM - to collect and openly share verifiable local geographic knowledge is a highly inclusive endeavor in its core. Anyone can map what has importance for them or for people they care about and no matter who mapped something - anyone can use that information to improve their life and their safety without restrictions - even if their use case has nothing to do with why someone mapped this in the first place.

People have different priorities and see the world through different eyes, which is why it is so important that OpenStreetMap is grounded in the knowledge of locals (and beyond that a broad and diverse cross section of locals) and that locals have and maintain ownership of their map. Reliable assessment of the safety of these routes will only be possible through documentation by local mappers, not through the work of some armchair mappers half around the world or some AI.

The question i would be interested in: Are there any verifiable safety relevant aspects of roads and paths that are not already routinely recorded in OSM like surface=*, lit=*, highway=street_lamp?

Your sarcasm is not very constructive and seems somewhat misplaced - as is the sweeping dismissal of the work of all past board members from the past ten years. You can without much doubt call me the strongest critique of the OSMF board for a large part of these ten years (and i can therefore understand and empathize if this critique occasionally feels like over the top by those whose work i criticize) but i would never characterize their work collectively as paralyzed. Not to mention it is a bit ironic that the chairman of the board that pedaled back on some of the most important progress of boards during the past ten years in terms of transparency is dismissing their collective work as paralysis.

Regarding if the Foundation strives to reflect the community - as mentioned already with the Diversity Statement the current board has at the beginning of the current term quite categorically declared the limits of such endeavors. Overall i see positive efforts in that regard (the free membership for active mappers, the virtual SotM without barrier at least for passive participation, not spending money on the highly problematic scholarship program). But i see also negative trends (like rollback on transparency, move from open argument based discourse to closed negotiations with interests, increasing focus on video meetings and proprietary channels (twitter, reddit), decrease in diversity and increasing cultural homogeneity in the working groups, overall strong centralization tendencies) and many missed opportunities at decentralization and supporting the creation and development of independent and diverse grassroots structures (like local chapters involvement, microgrants).

I understand your focus at the moment is defending your AoA change proposal and that this makes me trying to help you understand the different and critical view of me and others of this change a rather difficult endeavor. But i would invite you - when this is no more an urgent priority after next week - to revisit this conversation and re-read and think about the comments i made and maybe also think about hypothetical possibilities.