Board/Minutes/2022-04-14

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Draft minutes. Please note that these minutes do not go through the formal acceptance process and this video chat was not open to observers.

Location: Video room at https://osmvideo.cloud68.co
using BigBlueButton.

Date and time: Thursday, 14 April 2022 at 13:00 UTC - Countdown
Acronyms

Participants

Board members and stats

["talk" time*] Name (role, notes)

  • [26'] Amanda McCann (chairing after 85')
  • [09'] Eugene Alvin Villar
  • [27'] Guillaume Rischard (Chairing, signed-off 85' after start)
  • [11'] Jean-Marc Liotier (Joined 15' after start)
  • [06'] Roland Olbricht (Signed off 35' after start)
  • [12'] Tobias Knerr

*Includes time when the microphone was activated due to noises.

Officers and board
Biographies

Not Present

  • Mikel Maron (apologies)

Guests

Not open to observers.

New action items

Bank account access details and financial updates

Suggested by Amanda McCann.

donate.osm.org

  • Guillaume has SSH access and can manually add entries to the donor list.

Bank of Ireland

  • Card: Michelle tried to pay something with the Bank of Ireland card but it didn't work.
  • Access:
    • Guillaume - to restore his bank access with his new phone.
    • Roland - no access yet. Is in contact with bank representative who has incompatible meeting times.
  • Users and administrators: It seems we can have three users but two administrators.
  • Bank statements: Roland could not check the bank entries while Michelle was on leave.

Triodos bank

Action item: Guillaume to inform Triodos about the new Treasurer.

Fire.com

Paypal

Suggestions

  • Keep Guillaume's name on the account.
  • Provide access to Roland.

Suggestions

  • Physical meeting
    • in Karlsruhe (during May hack-weekend): Roland, Guillaume, Amanda, Tobias and potentially Michelle, and/or
    • in London: Roland, Guillaume and Michelle.
  • Payments: sort them with Michelle and make sure that they are made on time.

Action item

  • Guillaume to set up online meetings with Roland about accounts' access.

Moderation team candidates

  • Amanda, representing the board, sent an email to the moderation team candidates asking for some information from each and has been collecting their responses on the board Gitlab issue tracker.
  • The LCCWG moderation subcommittee said they were working on a governance document and a document on conflicts of interest, but the board has not heard from them yet.
  • Amanda provided a status update to Allan Mustard.

On responses of the moderation team candidates

  • Not all candidates have responded to the board's request for information yet.
  • A lot of questions have not been answered.
  • One moderation team candidate pulled out.

Jean-Marc Liotier joined 15' after the start of the meeting.

On moderation team's conflicts of interest (CoIs)

  • One candidate has self-reported conflicts of interest.
  • Policy:
    • The board has not heard back about the moderation team's conflict of interest policy.
    • The board Conflict of Interest policy is applied by default on the moderation team.
  • Handling conflicts:
    • If a moderator has a CoI, the other moderators will get involved.
    • How a team deals with conflicts of interest is what matters.
    • Conflict of Interest issues will be under Allan Mustard's supervision.

Suggestion: Chat to the moderation team candidate with self-reported conflicts of interest and make them aware of the board Conflict of Interest policy.

Suggested requirements for moderators on the two mailing lists hosted by OSMF

  • Good communicators.
  • Act in good faith.
  • Respect for individuals.
  • Part of the OSM community.
  • Understanding of the channels to be moderated.

General moderation goals

  • Ensure non-violence.
  • Ensure law and order.

Concerns

  • Conflict of Interest policy of the moderation team.
    • The moderators are going to be volunteers and it is easy to drown in formalities.
    • The board does not require this from the Working Groups (The Data Working Group has a policy that they created themselves).
  • Governance of the moderation team.
    • Sounds like micromanaging - working groups decide themselves how they work - usually rough consensus.
  • Candidates do not seem ingrained to OSM community.
    • Some candidates mentioned that they are loosely connected to OSM.
    • One political activist who does not seem part of the community.
  • LGBTQIA issues - no mention of the candidates' views on them.
    • The phrasing of the LGBTQIA point on the board's email would not prompt a response from the candidates.
    • The absence of any mentions about such issues, even if not explicitly asked, does not inspire confidence.
  • The candidates have not replied to any of the questions on the board's email - does not inspire confidence regarding their communication.
  • The process has taken a long time.

Roland had to disconnect 35' after the start of the meeting.

General suggestions

  • Move osmf-talk* to community.osm.org (Discourse).
    • Attachments in Discourse do not travel well over email, so blocker for move (the allowed size of attachments in mailing lists is small anyway).
    • etiquette guidelines will be the default guidelines in community.osm.org channels, if the communities do not adopth others.
  • Bring etiquette guidelines and suggested moderation process to all OSM spaces (as suggested by the LCCWG moderation subcommittee), including HOT and OSMUS. Appeals about moderation would be voted by the OSMF board.
    • Later comment that it was not a serious suggestion and would not be possible.
    • Could still ask people if they want to adopt the etiquette guidelines in their OSM communication channels.
    • Not a good message to Local Chapters - the Foundation does not get involved with them.
  • Ask Maggie Cawley (LCCWG moderation subcommittee) to share the full list of people who have applied to be moderators.
  • Talk with Allan Mustard, including on what he thinks of coordinating the moderation team.

* osmf-talk is the mailing list for OpenStreetMap Foundation members (Join the Foundation). All past messages are available here.

Suggestions related to voting

  • Approve the candidates and the board to add a few more moderators who are not on the list.
    • The moderation subcommittee probably had a hard time to find suitable people, so it might be difficult to find more volunteers.
      • We don't know the initial list of moderator candidates, which has been filtered by the subcommittee.
  • Ask the candidates about conflicts of interest and approve those who answer.
    • Does not address concern regarding the culture of the proposed moderators.
  • Approve from the candidates who have answered to the board's email about request of information and also Allan Mustard.
    • A lot of candidates do not seem qualified.
  • Decline candidacies.

Other points mentioned

  • Wondering about importance of the two mailing lists, now that the community.osm.org platform (Discourse) is live.
  • Problem with candidates paid by big companies involved in OSM.
  • Difficult to get candidates with moderation experience - they might still do a great job.
  • People will be unhappy either if the candidates are approved or not.
  • Moderation sets the tone for the communication channels - heavily cultural and opinionated.
  • No-one will ever be happy with any moderation.
  • Tagging mailing list probably needs the most moderation.
  • The board does not know the full list of people who wanted to be moderators.
  • The moderation team doesn't have to be big as the mailing lists are low traffic - but there are usually people who leave.

Pending issues

Action items

  • Guillaume to talk with Maggie Cawley (LCCWG moderation subcommittee) and ask her to share the full list of people who have applied to be moderators.
  • Guillaume to talk with Allan Mustard and ask for advice.

OSM Austria Local Chapter application

Decision

Action item

  • Tobias to contact OpenStreetMap Austria and:
    • invite them to the April board meeting, where there will be a vote on their Local Chapter application.
    • ask them to do a community presentation during the May board meeting.
    • ask them whether they prefer the signing of the local chapter agreement, if the application is approved, to take place during an event in Austria or during State of the Map 2022.

OSM Gambia Local Chapter application

  • New organisation.
  • They don't have a website.
  • Not clear how one joins the organisation.
  • Have submitted most of the required information for their Local Chapter application.

Suggestions

  • Notify OSM Gambia that signing the Local Chapter agreement imposes limitations on commercial activities.
  • Suggestion by Jean-Marc Liotier to publish his research regarding guidelines about commercial activities of non-governmental organisations, in the context of the local chapter agreement.
  • Hear what the French group of professionals will say during the April board meeting.

Other points mentioned

  • Make it clear that we consider their application seriously.
  • The problem with MapUganda for Amanda was that they were collecting proprietary geodata.

On draft "OpenStreetMap Foundation Local Chapter acceptability guidelines"

Draft by Jean-Marc Liotier shared with the board, on suggested Local Chapter acceptability guidelines, which includes his research regarding guidelines about commercial activities of non-governmental organisations.

  • Good tool to support decision-making on Local Chapter applications.
  • "The goal of the commercial activity has to be the support of the non-profit goals (such as outreach and promotion of OSM), not of renumerating the members".

Feedback on the draft

  • The point if a local chapter is comfortable to have another organisation be granted local chapter status for the same area can't be used to distinguish problematic local chapter applications, as most local chapters would feel uncomfortable in this situation.
  • Suggestions:
    • Make clear which part of the draft is intended to be proposed OSMF policy and which part is background information.
    • Make a diff. of the new version with the old content.

Other points mentioned

Eugene has volunteered to help with the draft.

Action item

  • Jean-Marc to split the draft "OpenStreetMap Foundation Local Chapter acceptability guidelines" to create a proposal for a formal policy.

Membership prerequisites – send email to membership

Action item

Windsor Hackforge Local Chapter application

  • They seem to want recognition to approach local government agencies, mostly in relation to cycling activities.
  • Could be a very localised local chapter.

Concerns

  • Area: They are applying to be a local chapter for a small area
    • They have previously said that they are willing to expand the area covered by the application, to include 2.5 million people.
    • Brief discussion of minimum geographical scope of local chapters during February screen-to-screen board meeting (Collaborative notes)
    • There seemed to be consensus that the area is not a problem, as long as they represent local mappers.
  • OSM activities: More research needed.

Guillaume had to disconnect 1hr25' after the start of the meeting. Amanda was chairing the rest of the meeting.

Suggestions

  • Discussion on mailing list.
  • Consultation of local community.
    • It is usually a later stage in the processing of the application.
  • Ensure they do OSM activities.
    • In the past Amanda checked mapping of local area and sent messages to people.

Action item

  • Eugene to contact local mappers regarding the Windsor Hackforge Local Chapter application and update the board Gitlab ticket.

Screen-to-screen follow-up tasks: Turn the identified goals into action items

Suggestion: Submit a board "ask me anything" session for State of the Map 2022.

Decision: Board members to look at the list individually and suggest action items asynchronously.

Need lawyer?

Deferred to email.

Meeting adjourned 95' after start.

Public meeting on Thursday 28 April 2022, 13:00 UTC - Countdown.

Acronyms

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