Hi all,
4) Some aspects of the diversity discussion foreground northern/western participation channels by (for example) wondering why other communities aren't participating in Talk@, SOTM, or other locations. I’m interested in trying to flip this question to ask why core board and community participants aren't showing up in forums like geographic Telegram groups or other locations called out at https://openstreetmap.community ?
I am on the German Telegram group to help keeping the community connected. Beside idealism it is quite repelling: - You need an invitation to get in at all. By contrast, one can join the mailing list in self-service. - Some new users have been greeted with questions like "Justify why you use OpenStreetMap!" (original: "Warum nutzt Du OSM?"). - citations like "Are the people too stupid to code?" (original: "Sind die Leute zu blöd zum Programmieren?") All-in-all, the group actually has a sometimes derogative tone. This is completely acceptable within German commnication styles, because messages are intended to be quick and shallow. It is more about socalizing than sorting out intricate problems. Socalizing works much better for me on local OSM meet-ups. But I can contribute to OSM conversations mostly in batches - the only reliably available time window I have to contribute is the one-hour train ride from and to work. Office time is unfortunately not OSM time for me. As I take my responsibilities on housework seriously, time at home may or may not leave spare time for OSM. Thus, opening Telegram means that one has to sift through a large pile of messages, reading 100% of the actual text, and no auxiliary tools to sort messages into threads and skip some or most of them. When I have priorized which messages may need an reply from me, half of the train ride may already have passed. By contrast, mailing lists do allow to easily skip over less interesting threads and to focus on those where my reply makes a difference. All in all, I do accept that there is a place for a communication channel that allows socalizing beyond local meet-ups. I accept that I have a certain duty to listen there for messages. I do not expect that I am ever drawing an satisfaction from that. I'm more the guy behind the screen in this cartoon: https://heeris.id.au/2013/this-is-why-you-shouldnt-interrupt-a-programmer/ On the other hand, I expect from people that if - a problem requires more than 100 words to pinpoint the subtle but important details - it is general enough to be publicly archived then put the problem on the mailing list to make it easier for fellow OSMers to answer in the necessary depth. Probably nobody has intentions to shut down on extra channels like Telegram. The problem comes from the mis-representation that those channels were preferred channels, in particular for deep and important topics. Best regards, Roland _______________________________________________ Diversity-talk mailing list Code of Conduct: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Diversity/MailingList/CodeOfConduct Contact the mods (private): diversity-talk-ow...@openstreetmap.org
