Considering the reaction - especially strong in the USA, and the fact
that I'm a candidate to the Board of the Openstreetmap Foundation, I
suppose I have to make a statement of my position.
In preamble, I condemn the use of sexual assault metaphor - that has no
place anywhere.
In understand that the form of assertiveness traditional in mailing
lists and forums can be off-putting. I may be part of that problem
because, even as I dislike aggressive tones, I take dealing with them as
a cost of doing business. That may be part of why different communities
have fostered their own communications channels - I can't stand a
Facebook thread, a pile of Slack channels or Discord noise for a minute
but I'm happy that each village decorates his pub in his own taste.
There is more to Openstreetmap than the @openstreetmap.org mailing
lists... I would even bet that their population is considerably smaller
nowadays than the communities that have flourished elsewhere. Users have
mitigated the problem with their feet - compounding the trend of younger
ones not even considering mailing lists as an appropriate channel at
all. Do my white hair show yet ?
On the other hand, let's not take fragmentation as an excuse for failing
to consider improvement potential. A couple of years ago, in a diary
Heather Leson posted Public Lab's code of conduct
(https://publiclab.org/conduct). My first reaction at the concept was to
consider it infantilizing - can't we all exercise common sense ? It took
me a while to connect that to my old intercultural management courses at
ESSCA: when people from different cultures interact, there is no common
sense pre-existing - it must be built. It follows that, while clumsy,
starting with explicit norms may be an an effective way to bootstrap
common sense among an highly diverse population. So count me in !
That said, I do not understand how a community where the barrier to
entry is as low as editing a node can be perceived as gatekeeping. I
never asked for anyone's permission to do anything in Openstreetmap - I
just tried things, sometimes in hilariously wrong ways... The do-ocracy
isn't a myth, everything really is up to us. And none of that requires
any specific genital configuration. So, the explanation for the male
majority in the visible Openstreetmap community has to lie elsewhere.
As I failed to answer the "What will you do to encourage more women
leaders in OSM working groups and governance?" official question (it was
an involuntary oversight, but I don't expect anyone to believe me), as a
lazy pupil I'll copy my neighbor's excellent answer - Roland Olbricht
put it better than I could have:
"As a first step, we should be bluntly honest: We as OSM have no idea
what is actually keeping people from candidating for positions. Or
electing them: all elected candidates last year were male despite at
least on female candidate. Or contributing in general.
Honestly again, I consider the lack of diversity primarily as a missed
opportunity of growth and resilience. There are probably many people out
there who both can and want to engage with OSM, even if rather as a mean
than an end. Our community probably could triple if we get those people
involved and excited.
Various things have been tried, but we have not seen any significant
progress, even after years. Again, we don't know whether we are doing
not enough of the initiatives or simply not the right things. It is time
to compare to other similar organizations and settings that attract
minorities better, and to scrutinize whether we can learn from them. The
gender ratio of math students in Germany has been eased to be almost
balanced, many years after it was discovered that school teachers
actively and massively talked down girl's math competences. In that
case, the true origin of the problem has been entirely outside the
institution where the problem has been observed"
Put it on account of my male-biased point of view if you will, but I
believe there are obstacle to participation more significant than
gender. Local communities overcome the language barrier by producing
documentation in their own idiom - but the software's world alignment on
English remains a strong barrier. In every African country I have
visited, the cost of Internet access keeps many willing souls from
taking part in Openstreetmap. Leisure time is luxury - many of my
African friends do not understand why I spend time on pursuits that do
not improve my income. So barriers to entry do exist - but they may not
be those that produce the most outrage in our circles. So I support that
statement from the call to action: "Diversity and Inclusion special
committee should actively work to consult, analyze and understand the
structural limitations of under-represented people to participate".
Finally, writing one's name in signature of a text that evolves after
you have signed it feels foolish to me - but then again, that may be
part of cultural differences...
On 12/9/20 8:34 PM, Maarten Deen wrote:
I have been silent about this but when a document is drafted where
only supporters will be heard, I have to speak out in Frederiks support.
I have seen no systemic aggressive behaviour that demotivates and
excludes participation by women and minority groups in OSM or
behaviour that degrades the spirit of open community culture, and
damages the OpenStreetMap reputation from Frederik.
If you then feel that I am part of the problem, I am saddened and hurt
by that because I do not feel myself that way. I have never been
non-supportive of anyone in this community or any other.
I feel this is more a witchhunt than anything else. If you can not
make an analogy then conversation and discussion is lost and I do not
see how this comment would degrade women. It degrades the maker of the
comment, i.e. Trump.
On 2020-12-09 20:06, Celine Jacquin wrote:
Hello everybody
I hope you are all well
We, several groups, chapters, organizations and individuals, have
reacted to the conversation in the osm-talk-list
(https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/2020-December/085692.html)
considering that it is an incident symptomatic of the problem we have
faced for many years in the community, which is one of the greatest
obstacles to diversity at all levels of OSM. Time to make a real
change.That is why we have developed a beginning of statement on the
desirable mechanisms to work solidly on the rules of coexistence and
improve diversity.
We bring it to your attention and invite anyone who feels represented
to sign it. Translations are in preparation (any help is welcome):
https://docs.google.com/document/d/130JCTX9ve4H4ORXznmIVTpXiN3TX8nRGA8ayuTZ9ECI/edit?usp=sharing
On behalf of the signatories
Best regards
Céline Jacquin
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