Thank you for a thought-provoking reply. I am neither a HOT voting
member nor an OSMF voting member, so I'm probably unaware of any
internal politics that are going on. I do chair the HOT Training WG,
which I see as an attempt to solve a problem: hundreds or thousands of
volunteers who want to contribute and have to be made capable of doing
so in a very short time. And I do see a general trend toward
professionalization of HOT operations, more or less for the same reasons.
As a naive lurker on the lists, I took the announced candidacies at face
value. That is, committed individuals decided individually to run for
office. I agree that if all of them got elected, HOT would dominate the
Board, but that is surely not a foregone conclusion. But do you really
have evidence of a HOT conspiracy as opposed to a set of committed
individuals?
I note the references to Kate Chapman as representative of HOT. She is
no longer executive director there. Is she not up for re-election?
Tom Taylor
TomT5454
On 27/11/2015 6:27 PM, augustindo...@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Dave,
Your question is not adressed to me but I'd like to participate here.
My name is Augustin Doury, I've been active in OpenStreetMap since end
2012 as a daily commitment to sustain the growth of OSM communities in
West Africa, especially on the field in Senegal where I've been a HOT
volunteer for 5 months and last year as a Projet Espace OpenStreetMap
Francophone volunteer in Burkina Faso for 1 year, plus missions in Ivory
Coast (volunteer) and Togo (paid). I'm a HOT US Inc member since 2013.
Because I've seen what HOT became this last 3 years, I don't want to see
OSM project suffering the same problems as the HOT project.
As others, I think that HOT is a project about using OSM in humanitarian
and development fields, and as any open/free project, everybody should
be able to choose his/her approach within the HOT concept but what
occurs now is that choices are more and more restricted, less choices
for individuals and collectives.
Because HOT US Inc, with its specific vision, has almost monopolized the
HOT project in terms of communication&tools (the logo, the communication
channels, the lists, the story/reputation, the Tasking Manager, the HOT
Exports ...), I fear that a position at the OSMF board reinforce its
influence.
During the two pasts HOT US Inc elections, I tried as others to give
this point of view and advocate for the definition of a HOT Project with
a HOT Charter and HOT Commons that any individual or organization could
concur with and even officially join and/or fund, as explained by
Severin Menard on his diary [1]. It's for us, in our diversity, the good
way to maintain diversity in the HOT Project, respecting minorities.
I've seen how the HOT US board rejected this approach, saying that there
is not HOT US Inc, there is just HOT and HOT US Inc is HOT and should
not be called « US Inc » because it creates dividness within the HOT
community. I've seen the level of violence some HOT US Inc people were
able to trigger to close the debate without respect for those who work
hard everyday, especially from the field, for making what the HOT
project is now.
The concept of attribution is essential in the OSM project and I feel
like HOT US Inc, by its communication hegemony, benefits from the work
of numerous volunteers from South and North who give their time for the
HOT/OSM project, not for a NGO (which is nowadays in an active
fundraising campain).
I would not like to see this logic implements in OSMF. And simply I do
not understand the aim of the candidates from HOT US Inc to get more
seats at the OSMF board when Kate Chapman is already a board member.
In my opinion, HOT US Inc should not get more than one seat to let the 6
other seats to people who represent other aspects from the OSM ecoystem.
Have a good night from Togo and good vote,
Augustin
[1] http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/sev_hotosm/diary/21846
...
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