Just to be clear, I’m not saying “pick a scapegoat” to blame this on. I am just agreeing with the point some people are making that the fact that there is no SotM this year is a sign that something is failing in the OSMF+WG structure we have at present. I am pleased to see improvement suggestions coming from the OSMF and also alternative ideas from others. I see good bits and bad bits in both official and alternative proposals. I worry that all this is too late and has created space for something like Overture Maps which arguably OSM/OSMF should have been doing ourselves/themselves.
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Just a reminder: The SotM WG is currently accepting bids for SotM 2024. 
If you want there to be more events like SotM, one can propose them!
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It would be nice if SotM WG would at least clarify exactly what they’re looking for (and much nicer if they actually admitting the mistake and though it over). Current state of that SotM 2024 wiki (and in accordance with their “no SotM 2023”) seems to (still) say they don’t want anyone from Europe to apply, but I’m not at all sure from the wording (and reasoning given for 2023) if that is really the only requirement (i.e. if that “not diverse enough from last few SotMs” would disqualify Kosovo, it would surely also disqualify e.g. Australia or North America too) ?
Instead of “Meh, not enough diversity, most of the Europe is the same anyway” one could as well have said “Well, North and South Americas are connected, so they’re probably the same culturally too”. Such sweeping generalizations “because geography” are sooo wrong, it cannot be overemphasized.
Jumping from “Few of the lasts SotM were in Italy and Germany, and they are in Europe and somewhat similar, and we’d prefer some more diversity” to “…and thus next SotM must not be in Europe” conclusion is a huge (and completely unfounded) leap of generalization.
There is waay less diversity (in culture, language, religion, architecture, customs, etc. and yes even geography) between e.g. London vs. Toronto vs. Sydney (different continents notwithstanding) then between London (or any last recent European SotM cities) and Prizren (even if they are technically situated in the same continent - that’s completely unrelated technicality!)
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Maybe they could rotate through the continents every year (except Australia and Antarctica obviously), with it being clear that in a given year a specific continent will receive some level of preference. I’m certain that many local chapters in Europe, especially Eastern Europe and the Eurasian region will be dissuaded or not even consider applying this year, and that is sad.
The point that @Matija_Nalis is making is that pretending every location within a continent is the same is simply wrong. I agree.
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Yes. When I ran for the OSMF board, I made the same point and repeated it earlier in this thread.
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What’s wrong with us? 
& just maybe, that rotation could also include Oceania? (either together with Australia or as a separate “continent”?) 
Yeah that confused me too. I assumed that was some autocorrect changing “Arctic and Antarctica obviously”, because otherwise that “obviously” is not at all obvious to me.
(I mean, as an European, I’ve been to equally many conferences in USA as in Australia, and reaching either sound equally problematic to me)
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Diversity and inclusion is not only “everyone is welcome to attend” or “everyone can access and edit the map” but also addressing barriers and finding ways to solve them.
Until we recognize and acknowledge the barriers that hinders majority of people to participate (in this case, the systematic disadvantage of holding a “global” conference in one continent for years), then you can understand why, in my opinion, this decision is a win and has broken the status quo.
If anyone would like to take action and help, express your interest to join SotM WG by emailing sotm@openstreetmap.org. Thanks!
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I think it’s clearly written; that in the first round, they only expect an African bid in 2024.
I hope that everything goes according to plan and that no alternative plan is needed.
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Exactly, doesn’t make sense ‘rotating through the continents’ when Australia is a continent unto itself. It would be ‘Oceania’ @Matija_Nalis Also, nothing’s wrong with Australia. I have always wanted to visit, and have even dreamed of living there in the past. Absolutely gorgeous.
Um, which “majority” are we talking about here? I’d use term “significant minority” there if we are talking about African mappers (while it might be that that my estimate of community is completely off and USA+Eurasia are actually a minority of mappers, I sincerely doubt that). Or is it about some other community which is unable to visit Europe, but can quite easily visit Africa, and which represents majority of the “people” (OSM mappers?) at the same time?
Thanks for explanation, while it helps a little, it brings some more confusion.
I’d just state my opinion that using “continent exclusion” is rather poor proxy for “hinders majority of people to participate”.
- First, we have several different definitions of continent - and depending on which one is chosen, this planet has 4, 5, 6 or 7 continents. So, depending on the convention used, it might be instead “no SotM in Europe”, “no SotM in Eurasia”, or “no SotM in Afroeurasia”. Depending on the underlying reason, choosing which ones to exclude might depend.
- That being said, I’d much rather focus on inclusion then exclusion… People will take it better if it is presented inclusively like “We have discovered thriving yet underrepresented communities in Africa which have huge logistical problems to attend conferences far away, so we’d like SotM to be in one of those” then (paraphrasing) “Europe is all the same and boring, we don’t want no more Europe”. (yeah I know that is was more suger-coated, but that is how it translates. See below for issues using that sugar-coating speak instead of direct and blunt clarity)
- While I appreciate and fully support effort to bring SotM to Africa (or other underrepresented region), I really still do not understand why you consider it “a win”? Who won? Are African OSM mappers happy that no SotM was held anywhere, because it was not able to held that year in Cameroon? Really? Can anyone who is truly happy that there was no SotM in 2023 (and perhaps might not be in 2024 either) explain to me (like I’m 5yrs old) the reasoning why and how is that “good” / “a win” (and for whom)? Please be clear and blunt, I won’t be offended and it will hugely help me to understand.
- I’d love if SotM WG was more transparent and open. It does not cost much to bring issues to this forum and ask for feedback. People might have specific experiences and might help without accepting the burden of becoming WG member. And, if anything, direction and potential problems would be clear for everyone, so even if things don’t work out ideally, there would be no (or at least much more easily refutable) conspiracy theories (judging by past experiences, I can see them already - “it’s all HOT bribe money to override will of the people for personal financial gains blah blah”). I’d really like to avoid another round of those.
That might have been decision of 2023, but looking at call for venues for 2024 that amanda posted it does not seem to be what it is saying at the moment.
It might be my cultural background (which is much closer to German “clear and blunt and thus perhaps hurtful truth” than American “fuzzy feather-handling”) but I’d really prefer some clarity there.
Also, as noted above, it is unclear what is meant by “region” in that “country in a region which was underrepresented in the history of SotMs”? Southeastern Europe / SEE is a real region with specific cultural, historic and financial things which seems grossly underrepresented (i.e. 0) in global SotMs, yet Kosovo bid (which is situated in SEE) was rejected (for still unclear reasons to me, as it fits stated agenda perfectly and was stated as “strong bid” if official results).
I’d love it was just a confusion on the order of “USA is all the same, so EU must be all the same, and by induction all other parts of Europe are likely also all the same”, as such research negligence can be easily corrected (hopefully I just did it, if one managed to read this far 
).
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Sorry, but you’ve confused me again!
When I said that, I was suggesting that the SotM be held on a different continent each year e.g. Europe > Africa > Asia > Oceania > North America > South America.
You could then even split that up further into regions / zones e.g. Western / Central / Eastern Europe; Northern / Central / Southern Africa & so on. Just thinking about it very roughly, that comes up with ~20 “regions” worldwide.
Then schedule them in advance so 2025 SotM will be held in “Western Europe”, 2026 in “Northern Africa”, 2027 in “Western Asia” etc, so it will be up to the dozen or so countries in that area to plan things.
I mean, yeah, such policy would be clear and obviously without “playing the favourites”, so that would be plus.
I’m afraid it would however suffer from some serious issues too (e.g. what would happen if there is no local team in that region willing or able to help organize it? Would that region be skipped, thus messing up the schedule for all subsequent regions, making some of them unable to perform on new schedule, further amplifying the problem down the line?)
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Yeah, that could happen, but with a “few” up to potentially 20 years notice that it was coming to “your” area, that should be sufficient planning time?
& if worse comes to worse & nowhere put’s their hand up, simply don’t hold one that year, & move on to next year’ venue as per schedule.
An oversimplification of two cultures bordering on caricature is not the reason for the lack of clarity you’re describing. Sorry to be blunt about it.
I don’t really think one plans those things 20 years ahead. Year ahead or two, maybe three for some general preparations like country/city/venue picking… but in 20 years those kids enthusiastic about OSM will have full hands with kids (or grandkids) of their own, and those of us who are not that young even now will no longer be able to bend our backs to be able to setup that local networking infrastructure (if we are lucky enough to still remember what “OSM” or “networking” is 
)
I think that overemphasized contrast there was the whole point to make it easily understandable. Nobody expects few hundred million people to be exactly described with all nuances in few pages of text
is not the reason for the lack of clarity you’re describing.
OK, sure, that was just my most benign guess. But if it is not that, then what is the reason for lack of clarity I’m describing?
Edit: But perhaps I’m asking too many questions, and all that strange fuzzyness is cultural equivalent of what we’d simply say “I really don’t want to talk about that” in my culture?
If that is indeed so, than I deeply apologize, as I attributed that fuzzyness in answers to my lack of clarity when asking questions (which I attempted to fix by asking more precise questions), instead of my asking bringing hard-working volunteers into uncomfortable situations (and my extra questions bringing extra discomfort). (as said, no ill thoughts were intended from my side, just heavy cultural differences! some things which one might take for granted are just unimaginable for someone else unless pointed exactly at)
Sorry to be blunt about it.
Why would you be sorry about “it”, if it was exactly what I asked for? But still your answer was not nearly clear/blunt enough for me to gain some extra understanding 
Yeah, not to mention cultural differences within countries. I think a lot of people confuse ‘American corporations’ with 'international or multinational corporations" because often they started out as the former and evolved into the latter as the global economy became a thing. “Fuzzy feather handling” is a necessity when your employees are scattered across the globe and can have significantly different communication styles. In many cases, Americans simply tailor their conduct to more closely resemble that of the country in which they want to do a successful business transaction, though not always successfully nor without offense. I have seen cases where a shallow understanding has resulted in offensive caricature 
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I don’t have any inside knowledge about the decisionmaking around the international State of the Map conference or the lack thereof.
In my last post, I was being salty about how an oversimplified blog post and a couple studies taken out of context seem to have taken on a life of their own lately in OSM – not your fault by any means. It’s far too easy to chalk up interpersonal communication challenges to nationality, but the biggest source of cultural clash is the fact that we’re online. I recognize much larger cultural differences between online and offline communities even here in the U.S.
States of the map help us build the aspects of community that atrophy the rest of the year when we’re stuck in our armchairs, isolated from other mappers except through impassioned forum posts and the occasional emoji. The most remote mappers probably can’t hope to get an international conference in their backyard, but anything we can do to make their journey easier would have an outsized impact on diversifying interactions.
I’d proud of my own local chapter for its consistency in organizing State of the Map U.S. over the years. We too have felt a need to spread the conference around the country, because it’s such a vast, culturally diverse country that many people find difficult to cross just for a few-day conference. This has required difficult tradeoffs every time, but the community is really committed to making the event worthwhile regardless of its location. A really frustrating thing is that people from all around the world want to come to these conferences too, but the U.S. visa process is so stringent. Even if we achieve the perfect conference, there will still be a need for similar events such as State of the Map.
Soon I’ll be taking a nearly six-hour flight to meet some mappers in Richmond, Virginia. Maybe some mapper out in Alaska or Hawaii will put my itinerary to shame. If I could’ve spared an extra week, I would’ve loved to make the same round-trip journey by Telnet on port 80 via dialup modem train!
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we have a “Bid for SotM 2024 in Nairobi, Kenya”
- “We are proposing to host the conference in September when the long rain season is over in Nairobi and the weather is good.”
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/State_of_the_Map_2024/Call_for_venues/Nairobi
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