Handling of conflicts of interest

Matija_Nalis · 2022-10-28T03:04:45.800Z

fititnt:

Going in public outside here about one moderator sponsored (paid, an employeer) by external organization acting in obvious conflict of interest against the OpenStreetMap Foundation by not reverting an action is something that is worth to be assertive if necessary.

Um, isn’t the whole point of “not using superpowers when one is in COI” that one shouldn’t be using superpowers when one is in COI? The COI has been identified and acknowledged/explained by the person doing it, as I understand.
Thus, no more usage of superpowers by that person should be acceptable in this topic, period. Insisting that someone does another wrong in order to right the initial wrong is not good idea at all, for all sorts of reasons.

So, IMHO, any and all (possibly needed) corrections requiring superpowers should absolutely be done by other moderators/admins (preferably after conferring between themselves), and definitely not by the one who is in alleged Conflict of Interest.

mariotomo · 2022-10-30T04:03:11.431Z

(I’ve read this thread only up to post #10)

Tordanik:

as @nukeador has explained, there just aren’t that many other people

in my experience (with LATAM), there has been no effort to find other moderators before creating the community, four people selected themselves and that was it, at least for the time being. and here again hot, or hot-friendly.

nukeador · 2022-11-02T10:56:04.131Z

mariotomo:

in my experience (with LATAM), there has been no effort to find other moderators before creating the community, four people selected themselves and that was it

Note that for all communities created before the moderator selection criteria was agreed, there is a process to discuss, validate and renew moderators in 1 month period (December 10th)

Moderator selection criteria This Site Feedback

This document was created by the @forums-governance team as a result of the identified need of providing transparency and clarity on how decisions around the selection of moderators are made. It aims to summarize the process and requirements for the community to suggest and validate new moderators on these forums. This is version 1.1. It was approved on 2023-11-30. Note: The intention is to come up with good-enough guidelines that have general consensus and that are expected to keep improving…

fititnt · 2022-11-02T20:48:26.333Z

mariotomo:

in my experience (with LATAM), there has been no effort to find other moderators before creating the community, four people selected themselves and that was it, at least for the time being. and here again hot, or hot-friendly.

Your feedback is eye opening to me. I wasn’t aware of the LATAM moderators are this level of conflict of interest. Making 1 person on global moderation is not even a problem.

Just pinging @forums-governance to check this comment 6ta reunión bimestral de OSM Latinoamérica - #2 by mariotomo as a starting point. The current moderators from Latam (not sure if have any exception, but if have, so is the majority of moderators there) are not just from Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team United States Inc, but actually are from same group that at least attempted to create entire communities on telegram to replace existing ones (some Telegram groups already are deleted), but most @mariotomo evidence still feasible to check.

And yes, this is a serious problem, and is related to conflict of interest. It’s not just that most moderators are there are HOT, but most users’ posts sort of are related to HOT projects (just there’s no affiliation disclosure) or someone like @mariotomo. I can’t say about Asia or Africa where HOT is also active, but the LATAM does not have the existing groups you @forums-governance think you have to build a healthy community. Whatever short period of time to “revalidate” current Latam moderators is sort of a joke considering most people are not here. What are you gonna do to not accidentally endorse de facto community splitting?

Matija_Nalis · 2022-11-02T21:11:23.682Z

fititnt:

Whatever short period of time to “revalidate” current Latam moderators is sort of a joke considering most people are not here

Hmmm, I’m confused. The period before the new voting should be used by proponents/wannabe-moderators of both (or however many) groups to rally the people to come here and vote (with usual lobbying why people should vote for them, and not for the others).

Because, if the “people are not here” and do not plan on being here (on community.openstreetmap.org), than anything that happens “here” is not relevant to them, is it? Or what am I missing?

It’s not just that most moderators are there are HOT, but most users’ posts sort of are related to HOT projects (just there’s no affiliation disclosure)

I think that moderators should be required to disclose their involvements that might lead to conflict-of-interest when using their superpowers. For regular users, not really - there are just regular users. The fact that some of them might also be involved in HOT (or any other project) is not really relevant if they don’t have any extraordinary powers - after all, I assume anybody can take part in communications there regardless of their country of origin (or gender or race or religion or whatever), provided they follow the same rules as the others, right?

davidoskky · 2022-11-03T22:56:21.568Z

Matija_Nalis:

Because, if the “people are not here” and do not plan on being here (on community.openstreetmap.org), than anything that happens “here” is not relevant to them, is it?

I don’t think this will be a problem at all, but just to be critical.
This forum is being pushed to be the main place where to announce tagging proposals and maybe also to discuss them. While people are currently not here, it may be very possible that this forum becomes relevant to them once this forum will assume such importance. The moderators in the forum will not have been selected by them because they weren’t here at the time of the selection as they didn’t care about this forum when it had no official importance.

Thus, if this forum actually assumes some official valence; such as requiring the RFC and votations to be announced here; it might be sensible to hold a new round of elections to allow the interested people that will come to choose their moderators.
This I would do after (if that happens) the mailing list loses such role.

Matija_Nalis · 2022-11-05T22:50:02.639Z

davidoskky:

While people are currently not here, it may be very possible that this forum becomes relevant to them once this forum will assume such importance

True, and it may happen even in cases where users are here, but their structure and moderation preference changes with time. But that should be handled sufficiently with current rules of periodic moderators re-evaluation, as well as other methods mentioned in Moderator selection criteria, or don’t you agree?

davidoskky · 2022-11-06T22:20:07.749Z

I do agree, as I said I don’t think we are discussing about any real and concrete problem.
I was just pointing out that it’s not really true that just because people are not on the forum, what is going on in the forum and how it is moderated is not relevant to them.
It may become very relevant in the future.

No, I do not think there is any problem or that big problems will arise with moderators in the future.
I do not think any corrective action is needed.

Interpret the message above as: you wrote something that makes completely sense but is based on a slightly faulty assumption. Since people are discussing about it I’ll be extremely pedantic and point out that slight inconsistency even though it has no real relevance on the outcome.

dcapillae · 2022-11-06T22:31:56.268Z

nukeador:

I agree that having me handling/closing that topic was not ideal.

Tordanik:

The way this was handled is not good practice.

The explanation that the action was not ideal or that it was not best practice or that it could have been done better or any other such explanation is not valid for the case we discuss here. If it has been done wrong, it must be recognized and rectified. Not to do so is to persevere in error and injustice.

One should not be particularly harsh on someone who simply made a mistake. We are human and we all make mistakes. We must be understanding in this.

However, if you make a mistake, are unable to recognize it and do nothing to rectify it, you should not expect others to trust you.

dcapillae · 2022-11-07T00:09:04.781Z

SimonPoole:

I think we need to be clear that there was nothing that wasn’t factual in that thread, and contrary to the other “anti-HOT” thread opened by @fititnt there was no obvious OSM Etiquette Guidelines violation. I would consider morphing the guidelines to cover legal entities and to include tone policing to be way outside of their intended scope.

I did not find any violation of the guidelines. A rectification would be appropriate and welcome.

Etiquette guidelines should be minimum standards of behavior. Transforming them into something else to regulate the controversial content or its “tone” is a poor way to go if we want an open and free communication channel.

Tordanik · 2022-12-12T10:03:40.865Z

11 posts were split to a new topic: Trust on moderation of LATAM

porfiriopaiz · 2022-11-08T05:49:05.481Z

nukeador:

I agree that having me handling/closing that topic was not ideal.

Then why that topic is still closed (does not accept more replies) and still unlisted?

westnordost · 2022-11-08T10:11:40.544Z

porfiriopaiz:

hen why that topic is still closed (does not accept more replies) and still unlisted?

This is off-topic here. The reason for the closing was given in the mentioned topic.

Tordanik · 2022-11-08T11:10:56.399Z

porfiriopaiz:

Then why that topic is still closed (does not accept more replies) and still unlisted?

Because while we agree that it was wrong for nukeador to lock the thread, the decision itself is perfectly defensible.

I’ve considered whether it would make sense that @nukeador unlocks the thread and some other moderator without a conflict of interest locks it again, but that felt like a charade. Would it really change anything?

dcapillae · 2022-11-08T11:27:32.658Z

Tordanik:

Would it really change anything?

Absolutely yes. When it has been recognized that there was malpractice, that it was not ideal or that it could have been done better, refusing to review the decision by a third party without a conflict of interest is absolutely relevant. As I have commented before, to do otherwise is to persevere in error and injustice. A bad precedent if we are to trust the work of the moderators.

fititnt · 2022-12-13T05:26:51.526Z

2 out 4 LATAM moderators voluntarily decided to not run again. Unsure about the others.

The issue (now moved into another thread) still ongoing , so this case seems complicated, I will escalate it as an email to OSMF-talk, and everyone else interested will be free to comment. I do have the draft, but still unsure if I will necessarily go with this point, because it will damage the perception.

The @Matija_Nalis asked for clarification about the level of corruption, but when I wrote, was focused on just on the way to them, supposing at worst case would be a mistake or not understanding the problem to not take action. But then I found this, which seems ring me a bell about people not by meritocracy/do-ocracy, but pay-to-win gaining power, and how conflict of interest is also side by side with corruption:

imagico.de

Corruption and OpenStreetMap | Imagico.de

Like I said previously, while I’m new to OpenStreetMap (yet quite active, and 100% pro bono volunteering) I wasn’t aware this thing has more people upset also from the more traditional side of OpenStreetMap. So, if this “imagico” person (don’t know who is, but talks a lot about OSM) is right, I could infer the following around two years after his post become real:

The global moderator most people here are complaining about being in conflict of interest actually is only in the moderator role because is corporate pay-to-win. He’s not like anyone else’s. Then the person becomes “activated” when interests of the incorporation are in danger. It was never about Etiquette.
By extension of 1, it is safe to assume that, different from my peers from Europe, previous decisions sold Latin America for the same incorporation as if it was assumed no one would complain (because it is one of the regions it operates).
Like imagico’s comments of corrupt people not seeing problems when it gets rooted, then this explains why they feel free to ignore morality and openly offer money to get validation; no surprise how many already seem cynical about their own work when not an corporate-like well-written text.

AngocA · 2022-12-13T17:38:58.085Z

Let's close this LatAm community LATAM

When Communities (Discourse) was opened for everyone, one of the initial emails invited us to request the creation of groups (communities) here; I reacted to this mail by asking for the creation of LatAm and Colombia. I think I am one of those few doers in LatAm, so that’s why I took that decision by myself. I invited other active people in different LatAm Telegram chats and Juntas (OSMVideo) to become moderators; some of them accepted the invitation, and others didn’t answer. However, the oppor…

Matija_Nalis · 2022-12-13T19:06:14.295Z

It is hard to me to follow what you propose exactly (if anything?), but I would suggest:

if you think current #latam community moderators are corrupted and evil, do nominate yourself or others you trust for that role, and vote against current moderators that you find bad. (and lobby other members of that community to do so too!)
if you think whole of OSM is corrupted but repairable, please provide (in new thread(s) - one thread per case, for easy following and closures when matters are resolved) concrete examples of corruption, how exactly they’ve hidden their affiliations and/or abused their powers and disregarding C-o-I, and suggest concrete ways to fix those examples (nobody wants to read rants without anything actionable, it only wastes time and makes things worse. OSM is supposed to be do-acracy, remember?)
if you think whole of OSM is evil and corrupted beyond redemption, then, well, there is really no point wasting your (or anyone’s) time or breath on it, is there?

dcapillae · 2022-12-13T19:40:47.327Z

Matija_Nalis:

if you think current latam community moderators are corrupted and evil, do nominate yourself or others you trust for that role, and vote against current moderators that you find bad. (and lobby other members of that community to do so too!)

Conflicts of interest are not resolved by voting or in a popularity contest. A moderator with a conflict of interest should withdraw from that role or refrain from acting in situations/discussions where his or her conflicting interests come into play.

If a candidate for moderator has conflicting interests, a prior step to being elected should be to declare them publicly. Then we would all know in which discussions their work as moderator might be problematic.

It is not a question of doubting anyone’s honesty. It is about ensuring fair play in discussions. If I were acting as moderator, I would be the first to remove myself where my impartiality could be doubted.

Matija_Nalis · 2022-12-13T23:02:53.146Z

dcapillae:

A moderator with a conflict of interest should withdraw from that role or refrain from acting in situations/discussions where his or her conflicting interests come into play.

I agree. This thread (and linked latam issue specifically) however seems to be mostly about allegations that they did not (and should have). Thus my intention of:

Conflicts of interest are not resolved by voting or in a popularity contest

was to suggest to the user who suspects that some moderator hides their affiliations and/or is not appropriately reacting (i.e. is using their powers even when they are in conflict of interest) what they should/could do themselves to effect a change (as simple “let’s sweep the problem under the rug and pretend the problem doesn’t exist” is likely to be unsatisfactory course of action for them).

Note that any of that should not to be taken as me taking any sides or accepting any allegations as valid – but instead that I (specifically as a moderator - and often in other cases) always try to put myself in shoes of each side in a conflict, and how they might view the world.

dcapillae:

If a candidate for moderator has conflicting interests, a prior step to being elected should be to declare them publicly.

Absolutely agree. See this post and below for that suggestion specifically!

It is not a question of doubting anyone’s honesty.

Perhaps it is not for you and me. Some other users have made some allegations in that direction, though, AFAICT.

If I were acting as moderator, I would be the first to remove myself where my impartiality could be doubted.

So would I. Yet, it has been alleged that some acting as moderators did not. Which is what my post was about

what to do if you suspect C-o-I protocols have been breached. (as I do not intend to invest enough of my time to examine all claims being made, and, quite selfishly, since they do not really affect me, I prefer to stay neutral on the subject. Still, giving general hints how those affected might make their voices heard - was much quicker and easier, and thus, worth some of my time).