Board/Minutes/2023-08-10

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Draft minutes.

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

Date and time: Thursday 10 August, 15:00 UTC - Countdown

Please note that this board video chat is not open to observers.

Acronyms

Participants

Board members

  • Craig Allan
  • Guillaume Rischard
  • Mateusz Konieczny
  • Mikel Maron
  • Roland Olbricht
  • Sarah Hoffmann

Not Present

  • Arnalie Vicario

Officers and board
Biographies

Minutes by Dorothea Kazazi.

Guests

Not open to observers.

Fundraising

  • There are a couple of big donors, e.g. EUR 750, EUR 500.
  • Currently reaching to people whose work is related to OpenStreetMap and could give a bit more.

Improving board responsiveness and decision making in high-pressure situations

Suggested by Mikel Maron.

The situation of figuring out the details with OSM Belgium and State of the Map (SotM) EU 2023 was a high pressure situation.

On the case of the SotM EU 2023 organising team loan requesting a loan

The OSMF board was responsive, but there were information gaps.

On timing and pace

  • We tend to create high-pressure situations by addressing matters late.
    • Example, late addition of mid-month chat topics to the agenda.
    • The moderation case arose due to a decision made by moderators just yesterday.
  • Discussions were done into a 2-3 day period.
  • More time was required to reach a shared understanding.
  • We couldn't have done things faster.
    • We could have. Maybe not getting the agreement in place.
  • The State of the Map (SotM) EU team discovered in June that the venue wouldn't be paid as previously arranged.
  • This situation wasn't an emergency, as we had a full month to address it.

Recommendations for improvement

  • Ensure availability of information in advance.
  • Provide additional documentation detailing the current state of affairs.
  • The board could have talked with Ben Abelshausen and Joost Schouppe directly.
    • Guillaume had a call with Ben to finalise the document details.
  • If OSM Belgium had approached OSMF earlier, we could have contacted FOSSGIS (German OSMF Local Chapter) and OSM France (French OSMF Local Chapter).

Other points mentioned during discussion

  • Minimal changes were made during the July board meeting, primarily involving the addition of one clause and the correction of typos.
  • There are different high-pressure situations: planned and unplanned.
  • The framing of the urgent cases is important, i.e. distinguishing between the need for discussion versus immediate action.
  • Each situation is unique, with varying stakes.
  • Reputation is a significant factor to be mindful of.
  • Individuals presenting tasks to the board as "urgent" may occasionally overstate their level of urgency.

On outcome

  • We did a good job.
    • Commenting on this case is premature, as its outcome is still uncertain, and there may be crucial aspects we haven't considered yet.

Previous cases

Appreciation was expressed about the flexibility and responsiveness that all exhibited.'

Suggestions:

  • More documentation.
  • Board meetings and chats: Prioritise preparation by suggesting topics in advance, allowing other board members time to consider them.

Check in on the Strategic plan draft

Sarah Hoffmann (board) and Mikel Maron (board) went through the Strategic plan draft document again and are seeking input from the board in the next days, especially on points where there is disagreement.

  • The majority of changes were made to the preamble.
  • Board members were encouraged to indicate points of disagreement and provide comments on the draft.

Suggestions on the content

  • Community development section: make the goals more clear.
  • Preamble: Clarify that the document represents the plan of the current board, subject to potential changes with the next board.
  • Preamble: Specify that the plan is forward-looking and dependent on resource availability and information prioritisation.
  • Avoid incorporating contentious points within the text.
  • Include links to the budgets for easy reference.

On specific points

  • "and the OSMF needs to look into the possibility to give financial or legal support for newly emerging communities where needed."
    • Right now we have no resources to do it at large scale - the plan is forward-looking.

Other point mentioned during discussion

  • There is greater consensus within this board compared to previous ones.

Next steps

  • Request for feedback from board members by Tuesday.
  • Will address any disagreements and subsequently seek broader feedback.

Microsoft MapBuilder

Suggested by Mikel Maron.

The board had previously expressed interest in:

  • Seeing substantial progress towards a plan for single sign-on (SSO) implementation that doesn't require creation of this type of OSM accounts.
  • Receiving a tentative timeline for when this work will take place.

The single-sign-on proposal is out - Microsoft requested to restart creation of OSM accounts for MapBuilder users.

  • Tom Hughes and Andy Allan (both maintainers of www.osm.org, Tom is also on the OWG) are engaged.
  • Timeline: 6-8 months to complete everything.

On automatic account creation

  • The Operations Working Group (OWG) has banned automatic creation of accounts and are discussing the implementation of Captchas.
    • We could ask Tom Hughes and Andy Allan to create 1000 OSM accounts for Microsoft and whitelist them.

Next step: Guillaume Rischard (board) to talk to Tom Hughes and email Mikel Maron (board).

Other points mentioned during discussion

  • Branko was on OSM before joining Microsoft and has been very helpful.
  • The Microsoft team is showing good faith.
  • We're demonstrating that people can communicate with us.
  • Microsoft has a new representative on the OSMF Advisory Board.

On a tangent

  • There is a risk associated with allowing vandals to create multiple accounts.
    • There are distinct risks from vandalism in this case.

Moderation issues

Suggested by Guillaume Rischard. Related to a recent block of a user by the moderation team1.

On whether it should be possible to ban OSM users project-wide

  • Guillaume Rischard (board) discussed with Allan Mustard1 about whether there should be a global ban.
  • Gave heads up to the community.osm.org governance team2 that this proposal will be discussed with the board.

1 Board-appointed moderation team for talk and osmf-talk mailing lists and 3 categories on community.osm.org
2 Self-appointed governance team on community.osm.org

The OSM community member has:

  • 3 blocks over the years, which have ended.
    • blocked temporarily by DWG from editing OSM.
    • blocked temporarily from editing the OSM Wiki.
    • blocked by administrators on community.osm.org.
  • Banned from the Ukrainian subsection on community.osm.org.
  • Over 20,000 map edits, most of them have not been vandalism.

Suggestions

  • Framework: Set a formal framework for moderators to escalate matters to the board, For instance, if an individual gets banned on three different channels, it should automatically be brought to the board with a vote for a project-wide ban.
  • No action: Consider refraining from immediate action, and instead, trust the working groups and committees to address issues, unless they expressly request assistance.
  • Notify Working Groups that a project-wide ban is an option.
  • Dashboard: Implement a dashboard for Working Groups, to keep track of individuals who are known for disruptive behavior on their respective channels, providing a broader perspective.
    • The different moderation groups are probably quite aware who is channel hopping, as the groups have overlapping people.
    • Different teams are probably not talking to each other - the individuals are talking, the groups are not.
  • Direct formal requests to the entire board, rather than to individual board members.

Other points mentioned during discussion

  • We have not received any requests for action from committees or Working Groups (WGs).
  • Taking action is micromanagement by the board.
    • The project overview falls under the purview of the board.

Next step: Guillaume Rischard to talk to Allan Mustard and suggest writing a proposal for project-wide bans of users.

Fundraising update

  • EUR 2,644.00 raised in past 36 hrs.
  • Some big donors (EUR 750, EUR 500).
  • Social media communication plan to continue over the next days - aligning with OSM's birthday celebration.
  • A major company has confirmed their commitment to a Platinum Corporate Membership, along with various sponsorships for State of the Map (SotM) conferences.

Technical

  • There were a few bugs; the majority have been resolved.
  • A report detailing donations and their accompanying messages will be generated.

Suggestions

  • For the future: It would be nice to have a broader range of payment providers available.
  • Have a banner on www.osm.org
    • It's being created.
  • Message on osmf-talk. (osmf-talk is the mailing list for OpenStreetMap Foundation members (Join the Foundation). All past messages are available here.)
  • JOSM message of the day.

Next steps

  • Engage in direct outreach to individuals who have the potential to contribute more and are involved in OSM-related work.
  • Ensure clear communication about the commitments made by Corporate Members.

Other point mentioned during discussion

  • Individuals who are not active on social media may have not noticed the campaign.

SotM EU 2023 update

A recent sponsorship will enable the SotM EU 2023 organising team to cover the cost of the conference venue for two days - which was also the first sponsorship milestone.

Agreements will be n place between:

  • The organisers and OSMF
  • The organisers and sponsors

There will also be an addendum, detailing the sponsorships and the levels.

On agreement between the local organiser and OSMF

  • Mikel to put together a document for OSMF facilitating SotM EU sponsorships as a financial intermediary.
  • There was feedback from Ben.

Next steps

  • Get feedback from the board members on the draft document.
  • Get the document signed by OSGeo.
  • Get invoice from the organisers.

Any Other Business

OSM's 20th birthday

Suggestion to start thinking about OSM's 20th birthday (August 2024).

SotM 2024

There were two bids for the country which will host the international State of the Map conference next year and the State of the Map organising committee has decided. There will be an announcement soon. (Post-meeting announcement)

SotM Nigeria 2023

The board received a request from the organisers of SotM Nigeria 2023 for the keynote talk and both Mikel and Guillaume expressed interest.

Chat ended 65' after start.

Next meeting

Public board meeting on Thursday 24 August 2023, 15:00 UTC

Open to OSMF members.

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. The dates of public board meetings are also added to https://osmcal.org/

Acronyms

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