The last few mails on this thread have highlighted a few good points to me.
I think that OSM has a problem in that it has no processes for making decisions - we have wiki votes, mailing list 'discussions', IRC, Forums, OSMF committees, OSMF board meetings, plus some 'do whatever you want' views. This leads to endless 'discussions' which go around in circles for a long time but fizzle out rather than reaching a conclusion. The ideal outcome would be that we could have these discussions and reach a consensus that everyone accepts (even if they are not particularly happy with it). In my experience, getting a lot of different people with different views to reach a consensus is very difficult, and it takes leadership - it does not happen by itself. In my day job I look after quite a few decision making processes to help our organisation make difficult decisions. I always say that I will have failed if at the end of the day we have to resort to a vote to decide what to do - I aim for a consensus where I can go around the room and everyone says 'yes' to the proposed solution. This would not happen if you just locked 30 people in a room for a day and waited for them to agree an outcome - we do it by letting everyone have their say, then summarising the pros and cons of each option and looking to agree where the balance between the pros and cons lies to help us choose the correct way forwards. Sometimes we see that the balance is not obvious and we have to go away and do some more work to understand some of the issues, then try again. Mailing list debates do the first part of the process - everyone can have their say....and many do, over and over again.... What we seem to lack are people prepared to take the lead to bring the discussion to a consensus, by summarising the discussion and taking on the opinions expressed. Probably because some of our 'discussions' get so heated. This is one area where I can see OSMF providing a valuable contribution - to set down the processes by which the community makes decisions - not necessarily making the decision, but helping to manage the process. I would hope that that would reduce the amount of repetitive discussions, and the accusations that OSMF are in some way dictating things to the community. You can imagine different processes for decisions of varying significance to the community (something simple for agreeing how to tag widget XXX, to something more involved for more significant issues where you have a discussion by mailing list, and summarise it with pros and cons on a wiki page etc.). I was hoping to make it to London tomorrow to discuss this, but will not be able to get there unfortunately. Regards Graham. On 11 June 2011 13:52, Dermot McNally <derm...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 11 June 2011 13:21, TimSC <mappingli...@sheerman-chase.org.uk> wrote: > > > 4) Join the OSMF as a member (people keep suggesting this but I don't > > actually agree!) > > This might be a good point for you to outline how you think important > stuff should be organised - how to ensure servers are bought and stay > up, how to watch over issues of licence and how decisions should be > taken. A difficulty with any status quo is that dissenting opinions > tend to be expressed in terms relative to that status quo, which can > seem negative. > > What's the better way? > > Dermot > > -- > -------------------------------------- > Igaühel on siin oma laul > ja ma oma ei leiagi üles > > _______________________________________________ > talk mailing list > talk@openstreetmap.org > http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk > -- Graham Jones Hartlepool, UK.
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