I thank Christoph and Kathleen for obliquely raising an issue ... which
I'd crudely put as politics versus bureaucracy. It is a very important
one and touches back on the topic of modus operandi of the OSMF board.
I, perhaps in a minority, regard the entire OSMF set-up as volunteer
bureaucrats ... we are primarily helping protecting and growing a
resource, the OSM database, that is not ours. And, as I learnt during
the license change process, consensus-seeking is an e-x-t-r-e-m-e-l-y
important part of the bureaucracy role.
So, Christoph, yes, I like to see what positions candidates take, it
helps me decide who will be the best bureaucrat and thus who I will
personally vote for. And Kathleen, yes, board members should be both
seeking and forming consensus. And if one starts that as a candidate,
all the better. Just remember that consensus is not always the loudest
voices!
Mike
On 28/10/2014 11:50, Kathleen Danielson wrote:
Christoph,
If you are concerned that something might "seem harsh," perhaps you
shouldn't say it. I'm fairly certain you could have expressed your
point without telling me that I am "opportunistically doing whatever
the majority wants".
What I am doing, in fact, is gathering information. I am working to
see if there is consensus to be built. I am asking if this is
something that others would like to see pursued. I think that people
like Richard have made the case for disbanding the board beautifully,
and I don't think that I would have much to add. In fact, since
Richard specifically called me out as a part of the new generation of
leaders, it would seem rather self-serving for me to fiercely campaign
for it. I do have my own opinions about what I think we should do.
I've expressed some of them on these lists. I see a lot of merit in
the idea of restarting the board with a fresh mandate, but it's
complicated now that we have 3 seats to elect, rather than 2-- perhaps
we don't need to take such an extreme measure anymore. However, the
fact that the 3rd seat only opened up a few hours before the window to
announce candidacy closed makes this even more complicated, because I
feel confident that with more time it would have changed the field of
candidates. Finally, I would like to see an election held again soon
with a larger voting base, because the events of the past two week or
so have certainly made more people interested in voting who had never
been members before (like you, perhaps).
This is all quite complex. I am far less interested in being elected
to the board than I am interested in helping the OSM community. I
decided to run because of the trainwreck that we saw unfolding last
week on this mailing list. I only had another day or two to decide if
I was going to run, and that was the only thing I could think to do to
help. I spent the last year on the OSM-US board, so I certainly have
the credentials for it. This project is important. I can help. If the
membership agrees that I can help by being a member of the board, they
will elect me in. Great. If not, great-- I'll probably have lower
blood pressure as a result. Still, I'm not going to stop trying to
help this community, because it is a project and a group of people
that I believe in.
This email isn't a part of my "election campaign". It's just me,
asking my peers what they want, because maybe I am in a position to do
something.
On Tue, Oct 28, 2014 at 10:16 AM, Christoph Hormann
<chris_horm...@gmx.de <mailto:chris_horm...@gmx.de>> wrote:
On Tuesday 28 October 2014, Kathleen Danielson wrote:
>
> I'm curious about whether the membership is interested in us
pursuing
> some kind of "reboot". We've only heard a few voices on the topic,
> which has made me reluctant to work on organizing anything that
might
> go against the membership's wishes.
This is more or less why i added these questions to
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Foundation/AGM14/Election_to_Board
to encourange everyone - members and candidates - to make up their
mind.
To be frank - if you expect the OSMF members to have an opinion on the
matter you should as an OSMF member yourself also have an opinion.
People who have a clear stance on this will probably want to vote for
someone who shares their opinion, not for someone who - i am sorry if
this seems harsh - opportunistically will do whatever the majority
wants.
I fully understand if you or other candidates think you cannot (yet)
form a qualified opinion on this but then i think you can't expect
this
from the membership either.
Personally i would want to vote for someone who clearly states her/his
support for a restart since i find the accounts of Richard, Frederik
and others pretty convincing and supported by the observable facts
about the OSMF work. I am well aware this would also involve the risk
of the results being even worse than now (as for example indicated by
Randy Meech). But i am not an OSMF member so these thoughts are quite
academic...
Thanks by the way to you and the other candidates for answering the
questions on the wiki.
--
Christoph Hormann
http://www.imagico.de/penstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
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