Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] [OSGeo-Conf] Fwd: FOSS4G 2025 stage 2 vote results
Hi List, Moving this across from the conference list as it seems like a broader OSGeo question about how FOSS4G proposals are selected. My question: do we know *why* Auckland, New Zealand won? As in, /*why*/ they got the votes they did? If both proposals were excellent, as everyone has said, then in this era of an ever worsening climate, and explicit and repeated warnings from the likes of the IPCC for decades now, surely the one that's not several thousand km from any real population should have won? As I've stated a few times over the past decade: this is a remarkably closed process for an organisation that's built around the concept of open-ness. Surely a more transparent option is to use a public scoring mechanism for the proposals? As my internet is still broken, I can only google around a little, but there are a few scoring spreadsheets out there. An example: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1j1sV1iHfV0b2ZYZbyzdquXIIjFp7LHyLNiRtw3mIdPg/edit - and have the conference committee put their scores into the respective boxes, the spreadsheets does some maths and a few milliseconds later you have a score. I presume other open-source conferences have solved this problem too; anyone know how? Cheers, Jonathan (Disclosure: I have no oar in any conference proposal; just a concerned citizen of the Earth, aghast at another couple thousand tons of CO2e being needlessly emitted.) On 2024-06-04 06:23, Vasile Craciunescu via Conference_dev wrote: Dear all, After one of the most competitive bids in our history, we have a winner for FOSS4G 2025. The conference will go to Auckland, New Zealand. Auckland LOC did great and the Conference Committee decided to entrust them with responsibility of organizing the most important event in our community. But, as you can see below, the vote was very tight! Both proposals were amazingly good. It's such a pity to have just one winner. The voter's opinion in this matter was already highlighted by Codrina. As a Conference Committee, let's have a discussion with the Hiroshima LOC as soon as possible, not to lose such great quality work. One may say, it was a competition and we have a winner. True, but, in reality, it is quite complicated to have a better proposal in 2026. Let's discuss this. To conclude, huge congratulations to both LOCs! Much appreciated! Auckland, you did great and you have the floor now! Warm regards, Vasile & Msilikale Forwarded Message Subject: FOSS4G 2025 stage 2 vote results Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2024 11:50:56 +0300 Dear Vasile, dear Msilikale, FOSS4G 2025 will be in Auckland, New Zealand! The voting was very tight, the Hiroshima LOC lost to just one vote. We have received 11 votes in total, 6 for Auckland and 5 for Hiroshima. Many votes were accompanied by messages of encouragement for either team to propose for FOSS4G 2026, as both bids were very good! Warm regards, Codrina and Till ___ Conference_dev mailing list conference_...@lists.osgeo.org https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/conference_dev___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Conference selection transparency (Was Announcement: Call for Location global FOSS4G 2023)
> And cognitive bias suddenly does not play a role anymore when you
score a good friend vs a hated enemy against a "list of
requirements"? It might look transparent but is not the tiniest bit
more fair.
Sure the biases will still be there, but the justification for the score
is written down for all to see. Hence: Transparent. It'll be available
for the entire community to then read; if it's a rationalisation it'll
be there for all to see (and call out).
Suggestions for even more fairness are welcome.
On 2022-01-13 14:25, Kobben, Barend (UT-ITC) wrote:
Quoting "To work around this, with public sector contracts in the
western world you have a list of requirements and then all the bids
are scored against those requirements. The one with the highest score
wins the contract. *That* is transparent. "
Really...? And cognitive bias suddenly does not play a role anymore
when you score a good friend vs a hated enemy against a "list of
requirements"? It might look transparent but is not the tiniest
bit more fair.
/-- /
/Barend Köbben/
*From: *Discuss on behalf of
Jonathan Moules via Discuss
*Organisation: *LightPear
*Reply to: *"jonathan-li...@lightpear.com"
*Date: *Thursday, 13 January 2022 at 13:13
*To: *Bruce Bannerman
*Cc: *"discuss@lists.osgeo.org"
*Subject: *Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Conference selection transparency (Was
Announcement: Call for Location global FOSS4G 2023)
Excellent question Bruce!
I don't think there's any need to reinvent the wheel here; a number of
open-source initiatives seem to use scoring for evaluating proposals.
Chances are something from one of them can be borrowed.
Apache use it for scoring mentee proposals for GSOC:
https://community.apache.org/mentee-ranking-process.html
Linux Foundation scores their conference proposals for example:
https://events.linuxfoundation.org/kubecon-cloudnativecon-europe/program/scoring-guidelines/
A comprehensive web-page with tons of suggestions and guidance for how
to do it: https://rfp360.com/rfp-weighted-scoring/
Best,
Jonathan
On 2022-01-13 11:43, Bruce Bannerman wrote:
Jonathan,
Do you have a suggestion as to how the process can be improved?
Kind regards,
Bruce
Disclosure:
I was a member of the LOC for FOSS4G-2009.
I personally don’t have a problem with the process as is, but it
may be possible to improve things. That is, provided that we don’t
make the job of our volunteers more difficult than it needs to be.
In the end the people who have stepped up to do the work will need
to make the call. We may not like the outcome, but we need to
trust that they are acting in OSGeo’s best interest and respect
their decision.
On 13 Jan 2022, at 20:58, Jonathan Moules via Discuss
<mailto:discuss@lists.osgeo.org> wrote:
> Anyone can ask questions to the candidates.
Yes, they can (and yes, I have asked questions), but here's
the thing: The only people who actually matter are the people
who vote. And we have no idea what they vote (for the valid
reason stated) or what their criteria are for their vote
(which is a problem). If the committee don't read and/or care
about the questions asked/answered then said questions/answers
are meaningless.
> The only two things that are not public are:
I disagree, the third thing that's not public, and by far the
most important, is the actual scoring criteria. Each committee
member is a black-box in this regard. Not only do we not find
out *what* they voted (fine), we also never know *why* they
voted a specific way.
Did Buenos Aires win because:
* it had the shiniest brochure?
* it was cheapest?
* that's where the committee members wanted to go on holiday?
* nepotism?
* the region seemed like it'd benefit the most?
* they were feeling grumpy at the chair of the other RfP that day?
* they had the "best" bid?
... etc
Disclosure: I am definitely **NOT** stating those are the
reasons it was chosen!!! I'm highlighting them because the
lack of transparency means we can't know what the actual
reasons were. Frankly, given the absolutely huge list of
cognitive biases that exist, there's a reasonable chance that
the voters aren't voting why they think they're voting either.
That's just the human condition; we're great at deceiving
ourselves and rationalisations (me included).
To work around this, with public sector contracts in the
western world you have a list of requirements and then all the
bids are scored against those requirements. The one with the
highest score wins the contract. *That* is transparent.
TL;DR: We
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Conference selection transparency (Was Announcement: Call for Location global FOSS4G 2023)
Excellent question Bruce! I don't think there's any need to reinvent the wheel here; a number of open-source initiatives seem to use scoring for evaluating proposals. Chances are something from one of them can be borrowed. Apache use it for scoring mentee proposals for GSOC: https://community.apache.org/mentee-ranking-process.html Linux Foundation scores their conference proposals for example: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/kubecon-cloudnativecon-europe/program/scoring-guidelines/ A comprehensive web-page with tons of suggestions and guidance for how to do it: https://rfp360.com/rfp-weighted-scoring/ Best, Jonathan On 2022-01-13 11:43, Bruce Bannerman wrote: Jonathan, Do you have a suggestion as to how the process can be improved? Kind regards, Bruce Disclosure: I was a member of the LOC for FOSS4G-2009. I personally don’t have a problem with the process as is, but it may be possible to improve things. That is, provided that we don’t make the job of our volunteers more difficult than it needs to be. In the end the people who have stepped up to do the work will need to make the call. We may not like the outcome, but we need to trust that they are acting in OSGeo’s best interest and respect their decision. On 13 Jan 2022, at 20:58, Jonathan Moules via Discuss wrote: > Anyone can ask questions to the candidates. Yes, they can (and yes, I have asked questions), but here's the thing: The only people who actually matter are the people who vote. And we have no idea what they vote (for the valid reason stated) or what their criteria are for their vote (which is a problem). If the committee don't read and/or care about the questions asked/answered then said questions/answers are meaningless. > The only two things that are not public are: I disagree, the third thing that's not public, and by far the most important, is the actual scoring criteria. Each committee member is a black-box in this regard. Not only do we not find out *what* they voted (fine), we also never know *why* they voted a specific way. Did Buenos Aires win because: * it had the shiniest brochure? * it was cheapest? * that's where the committee members wanted to go on holiday? * nepotism? * the region seemed like it'd benefit the most? * they were feeling grumpy at the chair of the other RfP that day? * they had the "best" bid? ... etc Disclosure: I am definitely **NOT** stating those are the reasons it was chosen!!! I'm highlighting them because the lack of transparency means we can't know what the actual reasons were. Frankly, given the absolutely huge list of cognitive biases that exist, there's a reasonable chance that the voters aren't voting why they think they're voting either. That's just the human condition; we're great at deceiving ourselves and rationalisations (me included). To work around this, with public sector contracts in the western world you have a list of requirements and then all the bids are scored against those requirements. The one with the highest score wins the contract. *That* is transparent. TL;DR: We don't know why the voters vote as they do. The public sector solves this by requiring scoring of bids against a list of pre-published requirements. I hope that clears things up. I'm not in any way suggesting impropriety, I'm highlighting we have no way of knowing there's no impropriety. Hence my claim as to a lack of transparency; the votes are opaque. Cheers, Jonathan On 2022-01-13 07:35, María Arias de Reyna wrote: On Wed, Jan 12, 2022 at 10:50 PM Jonathan Moules via Discuss wrote: On the surface, this is a good idea, but unfortunately it has a fundamental problem: There are no "criteria for selection" of the conference beyond "the committee members voted for this proposal". There's zero transparency in the process. I can't let this serious accusation go unanswered. All the process is done via public mailing lists. All the criteria is published on the Request For Proposals. Anyone on the community can review the RFP and propose changes to it. Anyone on the community can read the proposals and interact with the candidatures. The only two things that are not public are: * Confidentiality issues with the proposals. For example sometimes providers give you huge discounts in exchange of not making that discount public. So you can't show the budget publicly, unless you are willing to not use the discount. * What each member of the committee votes. And this is to ensure they can freely vote without fearing consequences. Which are two very reasonable exceptions. Anyone can ask questions to the candidates. If I am right, you yourself have been very active on this process for the past years. Were you not the one that asked what a GeoChica is or am I confusing you with some other Jonathan? If I am confusing you with some other Jonathan, my mistake. Maybe you are not aware of the trans
[OSGeo-Discuss] Conference selection transparency (Was Announcement: Call for Location global FOSS4G 2023)
> Anyone can ask questions to the candidates. Yes, they can (and yes, I have asked questions), but here's the thing: The only people who actually matter are the people who vote. And we have no idea what they vote (for the valid reason stated) or what their criteria are for their vote (which is a problem). If the committee don't read and/or care about the questions asked/answered then said questions/answers are meaningless. > The only two things that are not public are: I disagree, the third thing that's not public, and by far the most important, is the actual scoring criteria. Each committee member is a black-box in this regard. Not only do we not find out *what* they voted (fine), we also never know *why* they voted a specific way. Did Buenos Aires win because: * it had the shiniest brochure? * it was cheapest? * that's where the committee members wanted to go on holiday? * nepotism? * the region seemed like it'd benefit the most? * they were feeling grumpy at the chair of the other RfP that day? * they had the "best" bid? ... etc Disclosure: I am definitely **NOT** stating those are the reasons it was chosen!!! I'm highlighting them because the lack of transparency means we can't know what the actual reasons were. Frankly, given the absolutely huge list of cognitive biases that exist, there's a reasonable chance that the voters aren't voting why they think they're voting either. That's just the human condition; we're great at deceiving ourselves and rationalisations (me included). To work around this, with public sector contracts in the western world you have a list of requirements and then all the bids are scored against those requirements. The one with the highest score wins the contract. *That* is transparent. TL;DR: We don't know why the voters vote as they do. The public sector solves this by requiring scoring of bids against a list of pre-published requirements. I hope that clears things up. I'm not in any way suggesting impropriety, I'm highlighting we have no way of knowing there's no impropriety. Hence my claim as to a lack of transparency; the votes are opaque. Cheers, Jonathan On 2022-01-13 07:35, María Arias de Reyna wrote: On Wed, Jan 12, 2022 at 10:50 PM Jonathan Moules via Discuss wrote: On the surface, this is a good idea, but unfortunately it has a fundamental problem: There are no "criteria for selection" of the conference beyond "the committee members voted for this proposal". There's zero transparency in the process. I can't let this serious accusation go unanswered. All the process is done via public mailing lists. All the criteria is published on the Request For Proposals. Anyone on the community can review the RFP and propose changes to it. Anyone on the community can read the proposals and interact with the candidatures. The only two things that are not public are: * Confidentiality issues with the proposals. For example sometimes providers give you huge discounts in exchange of not making that discount public. So you can't show the budget publicly, unless you are willing to not use the discount. * What each member of the committee votes. And this is to ensure they can freely vote without fearing consequences. Which are two very reasonable exceptions. Anyone can ask questions to the candidates. If I am right, you yourself have been very active on this process for the past years. Were you not the one that asked what a GeoChica is or am I confusing you with some other Jonathan? If I am confusing you with some other Jonathan, my mistake. Maybe you are not aware of the transparency of the process. The process is transparent and public except on those two exceptions that warrantee the process is going to be safe.___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Announcement: Call for Location global FOSS4G 2023
The problem with the social interaction arguments is the massive environmental cost. It's about 22,000 km round trip from either NW USA or West Europe to Buenos Aires, Argentina for example. Depending on the calculator you use, that's about 4 tonnes of CO2 for the round trip. The world target by 2030 is 2.1 tonnes per capita (Page XXV - UN Environment Programme report - https://wedocs.unep.org/xmlui/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/34426/EGR20.pdf?sequence=1=y ). So that's about two-person years of CO2 emissions for a ~4 day conference. This is why I ask what actual benefits "networking" provides. It's not part of an anti-social crusade, it's because "business as usual" for us means "our grandparents screwed everything up for us" in a few generations. Jetting around the planet has a real-world cost even if it's one that's invisible to most of us right now. We take our ability to jet around the globe by air for granted but forget that just 90 years ago it was impossible. Literally. The (turbo) jet hadn't been invented. And even today, the vast vast majority (> 90%, probably much higher) of the world's population never fly in a given year ( https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/how-much-worlds-population-has-flown-airplane-180957719/ ). > I think if a group of individuals[1], or several groups, want to put forward proposals for the conference to be located in "Cyberspace"[2] then that should not be disallowed, and then its up to the conference committee to consider it fairly according to the criteria for selection. On the surface, this is a good idea, but unfortunately it has a fundamental problem: There are no "criteria for selection" of the conference beyond "the committee members voted for this proposal". There's zero transparency in the process. It strikes me that there is another advantage to the online setup, one that solves a very real recurring problem of the in-person conferences: Repeatability. Currently every conference starts from scratch; the new LOC has to figure everything out for themselves and all the knowledge from the old LOC is lost (although they do usually try to help with the transition). However, with an online conference, once the tooling is setup for the first one it would seem the burden to create the later ones would be much lower, and you'd benefit from possibly having some LOC members do it multiple times allowing the transfer for institutional knowledge. (And no, for a whole host of reasons, I'm not the person to put forth any formal proposal) On 2022-01-12 15:52, Barry Rowlingson via Discuss wrote: I think if a group of individuals[1], or several groups, want to put forward proposals for the conference to be located in "Cyberspace"[2] then that should not be disallowed, and then its up to the conference committee to consider it fairly according to the criteria for selection. Barry [1] Not me [2] But not "the metaverse". Just No. On Wed, Jan 12, 2022 at 3:45 PM Michael Smith via Discuss wrote: This email originated outside the University. Check before clicking links or attachments. I would say that its probably best to think about Hybrid, as this is what is happening for 2022. Essentially you are both right, there are pluses and minuses to each. And we want to support both going forward as there isn’t going to be an approach that works for everyone. Future FOSS4Gs will probably all part virtual and in-person. Note this is my personal opinion. Mike -- Michael Smith US Army Corps / Remote Sensing GIS Center On 1/12/22, 10:28 AM, "Discuss on behalf of Iván Sánchez Ortega via Discuss" wrote: El miércoles, 12 de enero de 2022 15:26:05 (CET) Jonathan Moules via Discuss escribió: > > we really hope that FOSS4G2023 can be safely > > organized in physical format. > > Why? Because we humans are social animals; and people like me, who are almost completely burnt out by not having been outside of their houses for nearly two years, could really use an in-person event to see their friends and their personal heroes. I'm not gonna attack Jonathan's points (or even reply to them, risking an episode of sealioning to erode my patience), but I want to make one of my own: It's good for our collective mental health. We *want* an in person event, we *hope* for it; which for me is a sign our brains have some demand for it, even if it's intangible. -- Iván Sánchez Ortega https://ivan.sanchezortega.es ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] [OSGeo-Conf] Announcement: Call for Location global FOSS4G 2023
Hi Vasile, > 2021 was the proof that a successful FOSS4G can be organized in virtual form as well. Which is great to hear! But in that case, the following statements raises a question > we really hope that FOSS4G2023 can be safely organized in physical format. Why? If it can be held in a virtual format then surely that's better than an in-person event? Online is more accessible, cheaper, and the massive environmental impact of several hundred people flying to an arbitrary point on the globe to watch/participate in something that can be done online doesn't seem warranted if, as you say, it works well in a virtual form. I appreciate that someone is going to say "in-person is better for networking opportunities", but has anyone ever actually quantified these nebulous benefits? For any conference, doesn't even have to just be FOSS4G? Or is it merely a rationalisation? A quick literature search (not my area) suggests there's very little work been done in this area, and even less to objectively quantify the outcomes. Now is a good opportunity to re-evaluate the need for it to be in-person given the evident success of 2021's online event. It strikes me that online has numerous advantages: * Cheaper to attend * Cheaper to organise * Easier to organise (? a supposition) * Open to many more delegates (several billion) * Open to many more disadvantaged delegates * Much lower environmental impact Whereas the benefits for the in-person are: * More money for OSGeo * More networking opportunities * (Personal level) A work paid for junket It is true that some of the online benefits can be transferred to an in-person event by filming/streaming as FOSS4G does, but that doesn't obviate the very real environmental costs. Seems like something worth discussing, Cheers, Jonathan On 2022-01-12 12:57, Vasile Craciunescu wrote: Dear OSGeo/FOSS4G Community, Although the fight against COVID-19 is not over yet, we need to think and act to keep the FOSS4G spirit alive and to have our beloved global conference hosted in 2023. That's why OSGeo's Conference Committee is happy to announce that the call for location for the "Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial Conference 2023" is open. This year we accept bids from any region of the globe. 2021 was the proof that a successful FOSS4G can be organized in virtual form as well. With the mankind understanding more and more about the coronavirus, we really hope that FOSS4G2023 can be safely organized in physical format. And OSGeo is committed to stand by the hard working LOCs to provide all the needed support. Please find all details on our wiki page [1]. In case that you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask the Conference Committee [2]! May the FOSS4G be with everyone, Vasile & Msilikale, on behalf of OSGeo's Conference Committee [1] https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2023_Bid_Process [2] https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Conference_Committee ___ Conference_dev mailing list conference_...@lists.osgeo.org https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/conference_dev ___ Conference_dev mailing list conference_...@lists.osgeo.org https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/conference_dev ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
