Decide on our response to the moderation subcommittee report (“Diversity”/feedback from LCCWG/Code of Conduct issues)

Notes by participants. Might be enriched. Some points were not included, after request.

This session took place in parallel with "Strategic plan - Agree on "plan for the plan"". A summary was provided to the other group.

Background

On the 9th of December 2020 a group of community members sent to the osmf-talk* mailing list a statement Calling People to Take Action and Confront Systemic Offensive Behavior in the OSM Community (.pdf on the wiki, Gdoc here) asking amongst others: people to support the statement, help co-write and translate it and OSMF to implement the suggested changes. The content of the statement was locked on December 16th and it includes the names of 310 community members and 47 organisations in support. The board had asked the Local Chapters and Communities Working Group (LCCWG) to work with other parts of the community and come back with a suggested course of action. The LCCWG subcommittee which was formed for this task presented its report during the January board meeting (notes and discussion with the board, guest comment). Related discussions: Messages on the osmf-talk mailing list. December 10th board meeting: Question by Rebecca Firth (guest), as a representative of the group that has drafted the call to action. December 18th board meeting: comment by Nicolas and comment by Pierre Béland (guests). * osmf-talk is the mailing list for OSMF members (Join). All past messages are available here.

Board members

The rest of the board members participated in the parallel session.

Also present: Dorothea Kazazi (administrative assistant)

Could use more detail on timeline and process -- understand that will be part of consultation.
Not clear why they address points of Call to Action letter, even though say it's not in scope. Board wants to focus on communication channel.
- We did ask Local Chapters and Communities Working Group (LCCWG) to do this in response to the letter.
Could prioritize moderation before guidelines review, to get some more early wins.
- prioritize immediate possible actions.
Don't want to micromanage LCCWG subcommittee, but as long as it's aligned to our intentions, it's good.
want to get more participation into that group.
re-emphasize scope.
this group is not intended to be the long term moderation group.
- The LCCWG report specifically says: "This group of volunteers is not the moderation team that the Board has asked for, instead we have committed to help set it up."
composition should broaden.
moderation includes but more than diversity. helpful to reach out to existing moderators and get input.

The report was light on details, and we expected something more concrete by January meeting.
Scope is just the 2 mailing lists (osmf-talk and talk). At this time, Local Chapter (LCs) & communities get to set their own moderation rules.
Focus starting moderation sooner rather than later.

Endorse LCCWG report and recommendations. [Allan drafted email].
- Support the call for new members joining (the subcommittee).
- Ask subcommittee for implementation plan. Include mechanism.

Self-selection of people that will participate in moderation (zealous people joining).
Scope creep.

What is bad behaviour? Is there an expectation of no criticism?