Board/Minutes/2021-12

Date and time: Wednesday 15 December 2021, 15:00 UTC - Countdown

Location: Video room https://osmvideo.cloud68.co/user/ror-nt7-6tu
using BigBlueButton.

Acronyms

Participants

Board members

• Amanda McCann (chaired the meeting till the election of the Chairperson)
• Eugene Alvin Villar
• Guillaume Rischard
• Jean-Marc Liotier (technical issues, was able to participate properly from 30' after the start of the meeting)
• Mikel Maron
• Tobias Knerr

Officers and board
Biographies

Minutes by Dorothea Kazazi.

Absent

• Roland Olbricht (Apologies)

Guests

• 17 guests, including members of the Local Chapters and Communities Working Group moderation subcommittee

Open to all OSMF members.

You are welcome to ask questions or to comment (via voice or on the chat) at the end of the meeting.

• Please mute your microphone when you join, and to preserve bandwidth, refrain from turning on your webcam.
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Election of officers

Voting for Chairperson

Nominee for Chairperson: Guillaume Rischard

Guillaume Rischard was elected as the Chairperson with 5 votes in favour: Amanda McCann, Eugene Alvin Villar, Guillaume Rischard, Mikel Maron, Tobias Knerr. 2 not voted: Roland Olbricht (absent), Jean-Marc Liotier (technical issues)

Other points mentioned during discussion

• It had been suggested (on the board chat channel) to split the role of the Chairperson, with one board member doing the public communication and the other chairing the meetings.
• Guillaume is ok with doing both the Chairpersons main and public communication roles and the Treasurer transition.
• Roland had mentioned via email that he support's Guillaume's candidacy as a Chairperson.

Guillaume chaired the rest of the meeting.

Voting for Treasurer

Nominee for Treasurer: Roland Olbricht (expressed candidacy via email)

Roland Olbricht was elected as the Treasurer with 5 votes in favour: Amanda McCann, Eugene Alvin Villar, Guillaume Rischard, Mikel Maron, Tobias Knerr. 2 not voted: Roland Olbricht (absent), Jean-Marc Liotier (technical issues)

• Comment that if due to formality this vote is considered to not be valid, the board can confirm the election of the Treasurer at the next meeting.

Voting for Secretary

Nominee for Secretary: Amanda McCann

Amanda McCann was elected as the Secretary with 5 votes in favour: Amanda McCann, Eugene Alvin Villar, Guillaume Rischard, Mikel Maron, Tobias Knerr. 2 not voted: Roland Olbricht (absent), Jean-Marc Liotier (technical issues)

Administrative

Previous minutes

• 2021-11-26 Accepted

Circular Resolutions

• About circular resolutions
• Board conflict of interest policy

2021/Res45 Approve active contributor membership application 2021120610000079

The Board currently decides on active contributor membership applications based on non-mapping contributions on a case-by-case basis.

Not passed on 2021-12-22 with 2 votes against: Amanda McCann (This current application is incomplete, and does not provide any details on their recent contributions. I am voting “no, not yet”, and recommend they reapply with more details) Tobias Knerr (Needs more detail on non-mapping activities if they are to be the basis of the Active Contributor Membership). 3 abstained: Mikel Maron (Needs more specifics on activities over past year) Roland Olbricht (Too few information to make a substantiated decision) Eugene Alvin Villar (Seems to be a trusted member of a local chapter, but with barely any mapping activity, the submitted info is not enough to properly gauge the applicant's contributions to OSM. Recommend that the applicant re-apply with more details). 2 not voted: Guillaume Rischard, Jean-Marc Liotier,

Application initially processed by the Membership Working Group.

2021/Res46 Approve active contributor membership application 2021120510000197

The Board currently decides on active contributor membership applications based on non-mapping contributions on a case-by-case basis.

Accepted on 2021-12-22 with 6 votes in favour: Roland Olbricht (Looks like OSM [country] has indeed the size where a treasurer has substantial work to do). Mikel Maron Amanda McCann (I didn't if “does paperwork” counts as “contributing to OSM”, however, I also know that it's a type of thankless boring work that keeps the groups functioning). Eugene Alvin Villar Jean-Marc Liotier (Good [person] all around, comes recommended by Openstreetmap [other country]) Tobias Knerr (A treasurer role in a national community seems sufficient for Active Contributor Membership). 1 not voted: Guillaume Rischard

Application initially processed by the Membership Working Group. Words in brackets have been changed, to avoid identification of the applicant.

Action item updates

See Board/Action_Items.

Reportage

On hiring the Senior Site Reliability Engineer

Guillaume and Mikel edited the contract and the employee's handbook for the selected, future Senior Site Reliability Engineer (SSRE). Will get back to TimelessTime (company that is helping with drafting the contract).

Bitcoin donation

On 2021-12-09 OSMF received 1 bitcoin as a donation. OSMF has also received an email claiming that the 1 bitcoin was sent by mistake, as the specific transaction was supposed to be for 0.01 btc and a request to send "back" the amount to a different bitcoin address.

Etiquette Guidelines

Background 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 regarding moderation of the two mailing lists: osmf-talk^* (for members of the OSM Foundation) and talk^** (for all community members). The LCCWG moderation subcommittee which was formed for this task presented:

• A draft revision of the Etiquette Guidelines - (feedback was collected from August 13 to September 8, 2021).
• A suggested moderation process - (feedback was collected from July 23 to August 18, 2021).
• A draft implementation plan (March 2021).

* osmf-talk is the mailing list for OpenStreetMap Foundation members (Become a member of the OSM Foundation). All past messages are available here.
* talk is the mailing list for all OpenStreetMap community members. All past messages are available here.

Proposed moderation team
Additionally, the LCCWG moderation subcommittee introduced to the board on 2021-12-01 five OSM community members to compose the team that will moderate the two mailing lists (osmf-talk and talk). Some of the board members have asked for additional details from the subcommittee, such as:

• the OSM usernames of the five community members
• if the five persons have posted to the two mailings lists with different email addresses in the past (it seems that of the 5 people the subcommittee has proposed, none of them have posted on the talk@ list and only one of them has posted on the osmf-talk@ list (9 times over 5 years)).
• if there is any documentation of their prior moderator experience and why they were volunteering (this information was gathered by the moderation subcommittee during the application process for people interested in becoming moderators of the two mailing lists)

Related discussions:

• 2021-11-26 LCCWG Moderation Subcommittee - status update during board meeting.
• 2021-09-24 LCCWG Moderation Subcommittee - status update during board meeting.
• 2021-07-30 LCCWG Moderation Subcommittee - status update during board meeting.
• 2021-05-28 LCCWG Moderation Subcommittee - status update during board meeting.
• 2021-03-26 LCCWG Moderation Subcommittee - status update during board meeting.
• 2021-02-12 LCCWG Moderation Subcommittee (mid-month board chat, not open to observers)
• 2021-02-06 Decide on our response to the moderation subcommittee report (board screen-to-screen meeting, not open to observers)
• Discussion by OSMF members on the osmf-talk* mailing list.
• 2020-12-10 Question during board meeting by Rebecca Firth (guest), as a representative of the group that has drafted the call to action.
• 2020-12-18 comment by Nicolas and comment by Pierre Béland (guests) during board meeting.

Related document:

• LCCWG moderation subcommittee report on the 29th of January.

Suggested by Tobias Knerr.

Rejected: removal of edit-shaming

Motion to remove edit-shaming from the etiquette guidelines, see https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=User:Stereo/Etiquette_Guidelines&diff=2230765&oldid=2230764 Did not pass with 3 votes against: Eugene Alvin Villar, Mikel Maron, Tobias Knerr

• 2 votes in favour: Amanda McCann, Guillaume Rischard
• 1 abstained: Jean-Marc Liotier
• 1 not voted: Roland Olbricht (absent)

Motion suggested by Guillaume Rischard.

Points mentioned during discussion

• Concern on editing the text that the moderation subcommittee proposed. Suggestion: Offer a recommendation to the moderation team on how to interpret the edit-shaming language. (Suggested by Tobias and agreed by Eugene).
  • Might make guidelines less readable.
• We can remove edit-shaming today and add it later if needed or the other way round (Amanda).
• Edit-shaming was added late in the process of the community consultation.
• Living guidance document should be created/modified by the moderators.

Comments by members of the Local Chapters and Communities Working Group (LCCWG) moderation subcommittee

• Maggie Cawley: It was recommended to add by a community member and we did our best to honor those suggestions but agree with Tobias - all of the examples are there as examples to be interpreted in good faith by the moderators
• Steve Frield: We've also been through multiple public rounds of community input.
• Heather Leson: We have a living guidance document started. [note: for the moderators]
• Rob Nickerson: Always option to make changes after some period of time. Feels like it is best to approve the working group led draft and monitor it. Make changes later if needed.

Rejected: removal of language "for example", "such as"

Motion to remove language "for example", "such as" from the etiquette guidelines, see: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=User:Stereo/Etiquette_Guidelines&diff=2230766&oldid=2230765 Motion died as no-one seconded it. Motion suggested by Guillaume Rischard.

Decision

The board adopts the Etiquette Guidelines proposed by the LCCWG moderation subcommittee for the talk¹ and osmf talk² mailing lists. Enforcement will begin as soon as a new moderation team for these lists is affirmed by the board.

The board intends to extend the scope of the Etiquette Guidelines to all international communication channels hosted by the OSM Foundation after informal consultation with the respective communities. Regional communities, and communities on platforms not hosted by the OSM Foundation, are free to choose to use the Etiquette Guidelines for their channels as well.

Approved with 6 votes in favour: Amanda McCann, Eugene Alvin Villar, Guillaume Rischard, Jean-Marc Liotier, Mikel Maron, Tobias Knerr
1 not voted: Roland Olbricht (absent) Motion suggested by Tobias Knerr.

¹ talk@openstreetmap.org is the general OpenStreetMap mailing list. All past messages are available here.
² osmf-talk@openstreetmap.org is the mailing list for OpenStreetMap Foundation members (Join the Foundation). All past messages are available here.

Points mentioned during discussion

• Satisfied where things are at and well-formed motion.
• The LCCWG moderation subcommittee did a lot of work.

On moderation team

• The board never empowered the LCCWG moderation subcommittee to appoint the moderation team, only to make a proposal.

Screen-to-screen/face-to-face board meeting in 2022

Decisions

• The board to hold a screen-to-screen board meeting in the first quarter of 2022.
• The board to pay Allen Gunn (Gunner) as a facilitator of the next screen-to-screen board meeting.

Both motions approved with 6 votes in favour: Amanda McCann, Eugene Alvin Villar, Guillaume Rischard, Jean-Marc Liotier, Mikel Maron, Tobias Knerr
1 not voted: Roland Olbricht (absent) Main motion suggested by Tobias Knerr, amendment (to hire Allen Gunner as the facilitator) suggested by Amanda McCann.

Action item: Amanda to find suitable dates in the first quarter of 2022 for the screen-to-screen board meeting and reach out to Gunner.

Holiday circular blackout

Background There was a 2020 decision to impose a blackout period on voting on circular resolutions from December 20th to January 10th.

Circulars usually follow a board discussion by mail (except the circulars on active contributor membership applications for other contributions), and are basically a show of hands. The minimum duration of voting is seven days.

Board members who might be away during the holidays will not have the chance to ask others to give an issue another thought before voting, or provide their point of view during the internal discussion. Therefore, it has been suggested to have a black-out period for non-urgent circulars during the holidays.

Suggested by Tobias Knerr.

Decision

The board to impose a blackout period on voting on circular resolutions from 22 December 2021 to 9 January 2022.

Approved with 5 votes in favour: Amanda McCann, Eugene Alvin Villar, Jean-Marc Liotier, Mikel Maron, Tobias Knerr

• 1 abstained: Guillaume Rischard
• 1 not voted: Roland Olbricht (absent)

Any other business

None.

Guest comments or questions

Open to all OSMF members (join the OpenStreetMap Foundation).

You are welcome to ask questions or to comment (via voice or on the chat) at the end of the meeting.

• Please mute your microphone when you join, and to preserve bandwidth, refrain from turning on your webcam.
• If you are in a low-bandwidth environment, you may benefit from using BigBlueButton's low-bandwidth settings. To access them, click on the 3 dots on the top right of the black video-window.

No comments or questions during this section.

Next meeting

Action item: Amanda to find suitable recurring dates and times for board meetings and mid-month board chats before the 22nd of December 2021.

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Open board meetings take place online once a month. This was the first meeting of the board after the board election on 2021-12-11 so the recurring meeting day and time has not been set yet.

See the Monthly Board meetings page to find out where board meetings are announced and for a subscription link to have future board meetings automatically added to your calendar.

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Meeting adjourned ~43' after start.

Acronyms