Dec 10, 2020, 20:58 by talk@openstreetmap.org: > Underrepresentation of women and gender minorities, racial > underrepresentation, geographic underrepresentation, these are all > symptoms. If OSM did not systematically exclude these groups, these > groups would not be underrepresented. > It is not so simple.
Problem may be outside OSM. (1) Significant part of geographic underrepresentation is caused by simple fact that in many places people have simply no time for such hobby and certainly no time and resources for mailing list discussions https://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/water/ "2.2 billion people lack access to safely managed drinking water" - in such situations you are pretty unlikely to become involved in OSM Malaria alone kills 400 000 people every year, basically all of that is preventable or treatable (hopefully it is OK to plug here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Malaria_Foundation ) (2) OSM editing is illegal in China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_geographic_data_in_China If someone is going to start going against Chinese government it is unlikely that they select mapping in OSM as the top priority or even as a symbolic protest. (3) If girls are from young age discouraged from being interested in maps/geography/volunteering/etc then it is going to help in lower participation in projects for people interested in maps. And for example "women are likely to be confused by maps" stereotype is one that I encountered and it is of a kind that is self-perpetuating. (4) Mappers from North Korea are underrepresented, and in very large part it is not fault of OSM community. --------------------------- We can try to limit damage and encourage participation, but there are external factors that we will not overcome (though hopefully we can take part in reducing them). But even with OSM being 100% ideal many of mentioned groups would be still underrepresented.
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