Let's close this LatAm community

Communities LATAM
1

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 opportunity to become a moderator to anyone was left open; in the end, I am not the one who assigns the moderators, and anyone can still be part of it.

One of the initial purposes of having a LatAm community is to integrate the different countries because we share many things from the mapping perspective (similar architecture, natural places, languages, and history). Also, by having a community, one can find similar mapping interests, like the initiative to map trees we have discovered. At the time, I wanted to create a good and friendly environment around OSM.

Some months have passed since the Latam community was created, and the only topics in this community are related to the 6th bimonthly junta and all the disagreements that this caused. However, no one has contributed to the thread I created asking for someone to lead the 7th bimonthly junta that will take place on January 2023. That reflects that a few people is trying to create events, contribute, engage, and enlarge the Latam community, and probably those few users are not regular users on this platform. Still, the most visible topics are the ones that demotivate people to continue helping, and I could feel that the only important thing is to complain. I don’t see any topic really related to mapping or explanations about tagging.

One of the principles I am very attached to is this:
“OSM is powered by its Community. Engage positively with the Community, be a good and respectful neighbour and assume good intent.”. But I see people’s allegations are completely against this, pointing out that everything was done with a bad purpose.

If Communities continues like that, I will use other official channels, like Wiki and OSMVideo, for conferences and other unofficial channels like Telegram. But I won’t invite Latam people to use/join communities until the moderators are respected, and the threads follow the OSM principles. I normally interact with new users, but I won’t tell them to come here to this battlefield and be accused of making mistakes and not allowing them to learn.

Finally, I don’t work for any organization related to OSM, and all my contributions are as a volunteer, but I don’t want to spend my time in tedious conversations. I ask for respect about the generic accusations when mentioning “some” moderators (at the time, I was one of them) because that is unclear, and it allows misinterpretation that could affect my name. To conclude, if I did wrong by requesting the creation of this Latam community, let us close it. It seems other volunteers see this without any purpose, whose original objective is not followed, and the moderators are “abusing” its huge power given.

4 Likes
2

dear fellow mapper @AngocA, when I hinted @nukeador at inviting the Latam communities to start this latam space, I did so because our forum site was scheduled for shut down. You can imagine, or so I hope, my disappointment for how things developed. However things went, our need for a common space where to import smaller Latin American fora is still best answered through a common, recognizable Latin American space.

I do not see how closing this space is going to help the community.

3

I have the same feeling as you, @AngocA, I have left the OSM Latam telegram group because, for a long time, it’s quite rare to find any productive conversation happening there.

2 Likes
4

Many of us, when being aware of this new forum, thought it could be a space with a stronger code of conduct and moderation system to avoid contaminations that kill all desire to be part of it. But sadly, since we are the same people, in my case with some reserve to apply strong moderation myself, we are at exactly the same point. For my sake, I won’t continue. And I still sadly think that except Geochicas there’s no space to be in peace and in the community at the same time, in healthy existence, always due to a very low number of people.

3 Likes
5

If the important thing is to have a channel to import smaller Latin American communities (I suppose from forum.osm.org), let’s ask @nukeador to create a space with a specific name for that. A channel called “LatAm community” for only small communities can be misunderstood. So, let’s close this community and let’s wait for another channel to be opened with this specific purpose (“import small Latin American”). I hope you will be that channel’s moderator to prevent further disagreement as we already faced.
Otherwise, if we keep this name as it is (LatAm communities), we are misleading newcomers to this space. They will think they will write to a channel involving all LatAm countries from Mexico to Argentina, but most have their own channels.
I propose a specific channel for Panama, whose members have created more entries in this platform than the entire LatAm community. That shows the importance of this country in OSM, and dedicated space will bring many benefits to all.

2 Likes
6

I am from North America (USA, California, Santa Cruz, and San Diego before there) y soy un poquito bilingüe, también. I hope I am not seen as an outsider as I say this. Though, I have been an enthusiastic OSM Contributor since 2009.

The “keep them separate” approach (deprecate the existing one here, “gather consensus” to build a newer, different one…) I see here seems like it can work, and I sincerely hope it does. I say this in the interests of “building community” in OSM, which is something I have found both can have challenges, and also take time (years, in many cases). That’s all: sometimes it takes time and “the right” or “a certain” mix of people to “blend up a new pitcher” of something like a community space, especially as you get the mix just right so everybody likes the way it tastes. And that’s not only OK, it’s something that needs to be “said out loud” (or typed into and read from someplace like this) every once in a while. So here we are.

Happy mapping, happy community-building, everyone.

3 Likes
7

just linking a petition to the smaller communities, I sent to talk-latam:

https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-latam/2022-September/001110.html

8

Hola,

Por lo que leo hay varias cosas a destacar de lo que se está comentando:

  • La categoría no ha tenido mucha actividad de momento.
  • Algunas conversaciones se han creado desde una óptica negativa o han evolucionado a ella.
  • Los moderadores no quieren lidiar con conflicto constante y acusaciones sobre su rol.

Escribo esto con el sombrero de forums-governance quitado, en base a mi experiencia con comunidades de software libre desde hace casi 20 años:

  • Las nuevas plataformas llevan tiempo, normalmente es ideal tener un grupo de colaboradores que puedan publicar de forma rotativa temas interesantes de debate, aunque sea una vez cada semana, esto ayuda a empezar a dinamizar las conversaciones y a que otros se animen.
  • También es bueno si alguien (o un grupo) tiene tiempo, publicar resúmenes breves de las conversaciones en los grupos de chats de forma regular.
  • Cuando las conversaciones empiezan con una crítica o de forma antagonista, es fundamental que el resto de la comunidad lo señale de forma de no confrontamiento y se redirija a cómo se puede mejorar.
  • Las normas de convivencia acordadas por la comunidad están para garantizar un espacio saludable, deben recordarse y aplicarse cuando no hay voluntad de cumplirlas.
  • Los moderadores deben ser respetados y apoyados por toda la comunidad en su rol, incluso cuando se equivocan (todos lo hacemos), ayudarles a mejorar.
  • Cada uno debe hacer reflexión personal de qué está aportando a la comunidad, y si tus contribuciones son principalmente de queja, crítica o pelea, es un buen momento para que te tomes un tiempo de reflexión personal y descanso de la comunidad, para que puedas volver aportando valor.

Dicho todo esto y con mi sombrero de @forums-governance puesto, los moderadores de LATAM tienen todo el apoyo para aplicar las normas de convivencia acordadas y desde el @forums-governance les apoyaremos en sus decisiones como ya hemos hecho con otros moderadores de otras comunidades. No es agradable ver que se quiere cerrar un espacio porque no hay un ambiente sano de discusión.

Un saludo.

6 Likes
9

No dudo de que Geochicas sea un espacio donde uno puede comunicarse en paz, pero es manifiestamente falso que sea el único.

Recuperando el tema principal del hilo, me parece razonable la propuesta de cerrar o, si se prefiere, dejar inactivo un grupo de discusión hasta que alguien pueda hacerse cargo de su moderación. No porque en él tengan cabida discusiones controvertidas, sino porque nadie esté interesado en mantenerlo abierto. Siendo la misma persona que solicitó su creación la que ahora propone su cierre, con más motivos.

Agradecer a @AngocA su iniciativa y pedirle que no se desanime.

10

Don’t worry. I created the request to create a community dedicated to Central America and the Caribbean. With this request, it is no longer necessary to have Latam.

I hope you, Mario, become moderator of that community.

1 Like
12

I didn’t read all that, but jesus, @fititnt, we get it. You don’t like paid mapping and especially not HOT, fine. But at this point, seeing that it is pretty much your only topic on this forum, and you do not fail to seize for your agenda even any slightly related topic, it looks like you are on some kind of crusade.

What you are doing is not productive or constructive at all. You are actively damaging the discussion culture here with your behavior, antagonizing, demanding, calling names, making accusations. If you reject to be told off by any mod on the basis that they are employed at the org your are critizicing, then let me tell you:

Your behavior is not okay.

I have not been involved in this so far and I do not intend to, but from the outside it surely looks like that you are the one that is out of line and must be called to order. Whatever your point may be, it somewhat gets lost in all the personal attacks and cynicism in your posts.

I am not sure if this reaches you, but, just a word of advice. You are new in OpenStreetMap, you have practically not made any edits and have no reputation. Now, think how it comes across to readers if seemingly all you do is to discredit others you have a beef with on some other channel:

It reflects back to you. That’s how it [humans] work.

As said, maybe you have some point, I don’t know, but you will not make any friends (anywhere) if the only thing you contribute is negativity.

4 Likes
13

I would welcome anyone to point out peer-reviewed research on direct financial incentives actually being better on retention of volunteers than placebo.

Motivational “crowding out”, “Overjustification effect”, etc, are examples of keywords. Go out there. And let’s remember that OpenStreetMap is a reference of Volunteer Geographic Information, so the very effectiveness of this is relevant when money is used to bring new mappers fast. This logic does not apply to everything (obviously there’s things that badly need money to keep running or are explicitly not related with volunteering), but that for mapping where people do because they find fun, building community around payments is unstable, worst than do nothing, and if exist something else in place, the likelihood of let it worse is realistic.

@westnordost I actually do read every criticism. Might be not clear because I will not try to appear to agree with something that makes no sense (at that point in time) to me. However, like anyone else, I’m more than what is on this forum. About the reputation, under the do-ocracy idea, beyond the obviously new (now just over 2 months) mapper account, I’m a team player, and looking ahead: without taking in account countries, Brazil alone is over 80% of Europe. So I’m going after how to make stricter data interoperability and validation. However this is not trivial, needs deep understanding not just data model, but tagging, so I prefer to be low profile and avoid promising something I wouldn’t be able to deliver. Anyway, sort to medium term, client-side semantic reasoning seems more viable than server-side (OSM full data in expanded form would be larger than Wikidata, which is already having issues with its triplestore, so we’re limited by tech of our time). But as an example, things with medium complexity like rules for default maxspeed varying by context would be an example use case for SHACL, but OSM have much more (even if by converting validation types of files). Anyway, I’m a public domain person, even for code. But yes, I have no reputation on the date, but even if I had, you’re obliviously free to make criticisms about my behavior.

14

something I’m not so sure I follow. @AngocA and all other moderators of the LATAM have announced renouncing their role. in particular @AngocA has asked his immediate removal. why should you now request closing this space? why not purge it, and keep it for latam related mapping questions? like the ones appearing in the various fora, like the one now running, on public transport?

1 Like
15

A community called Latam could be understood as a space to discuss about inter-communities, multinational things. But you are giving an example a clear example that this Latam community is only being used for Panama related things. That’s why I asked to create a request for a dedicated community only for you, Panama or the area.

2 Likes
16

Porque nadie está interesado en moderar esta comunidad en particular y las únicas personas que hemos intentado hacerlo han sido atacadas sistemáticamente, sin proponer ninguna acción de cambio o contribución positiva a mejorar este espacio. Todo esto bajo el entendido por parte de las personas que nos atacaron, de que nuestro rol era temporal y una re-validación del mismo se llevaría a cabo, para elegir nuevos moderadores. Incluso hemos cedido a las demandas de renunciar al rol de moderación, respetando la insistencia de 1-3 personas que se pronunciaron al respecto.

A pesar de lo anterior, debo confesar que yo no estoy de acuerdo con cerrar LATAM, sino en buscar nuevos moderadores que sustituyan por completo la moderación actual. Esto, incluso, lo sugerí de manera privada al resto de moderadores justo cuando surgió el primer conflicto en torno a la moderación, precisamente por un espíritu de transparencia y para propiciar un modelo más horizontal en la toma de decisiones sobre dichos roles.

Pero a la fecha, de las personas propuestas para moderar este espacio, una de ellas ni siquiera tiene cuenta en esta instancia, y las otras dos no se han pronunciado siquiera. Tampoco ningún otro moderador del resto de comunidades de Latam se han propuesto, ni nadie más lo ha hecho.

¿Quisiera entender mejor a qué se refiere con purgar? ¿Puede brindar detalles o ejemplos concretos sobre como visualiza esa purga?

Me parece que la intención de esta herramienta en particular ha sido no solo para sustituir el viejo foro, sino también de propiciar un espacio de encuentro del ecosistema OSM, y eso incluye la construcción de comunidad.

De hecho, para preguntas relacionadas a mapeo, ya existe Help and support, sobre la que también se propuso crear una versión en español, y cuya única respuesta fue que ya existe la función de traducción, por lo que más práctico sería que planteen ahí sus preguntas de mapeo y etiquetado. Así tampoco tendría sentido crear una categoría Centroamérica, tal vez sí de Panamá, si acaso no quieren usar la categoría mencionada arriba en este párrafo.

17

por ejemplo, hace poco tiempo, @Tordanik reorganizó unos ‘post’, quitándolos del hilo original y creando uno nuevo. esto está en las opciones abiertas en Discourse. sin borrar, pero sí reorganizando, con el resultado de hacer limpieza, como después de una suave purga.

es cierto, en público no contestaron. creo que deberíamos invitar a esta plataforma las personas más involucradas en la anterior, sin limitar la búsqueda a la plataforma Telegram.

18

Desde que anunciaron esto en telegram yo sugerí que no se “fragmentaria aún más” al reducido grupo que somos, como era de esperarse nadie consideró la propuesta de un random que está bien y todo pero, ahora tenemos este problema.

Alguien me puede explicar el drama de todo esto? En lo que va del año creo que han sido como 3 veces que alguien “desconozco si es una misma persona con varias cuentas o varias personas y la verdad ni me interesa saberlo” que han generado “conversaciones acaloradas en telegram”, son los mismo que están dando problemas aquí? entonces me pregunto yo si tanto es la gana de “molestar” por qué esos individuos no se postulan como moderadores?

En lo personal por mi que sigan los moderadores que están, no he visto que hagan algo mal, al menos no todavía.

Siendo honestos yo no estaba muy convencido con esta propuesta al inicio pero decidí darle una oportunidad a ver que tal y en mi opinión no pienso que este mal, el problema de la baja actividad creo que es el problema de la comunidad de latam en general, la mayoría de los que mapean ya saben hacerlo y dado algunas excepciones no se necesita hacer consultas.

Respecto al problema con el mapeo de Hot y Youth Mappers creo que era, si opino que deberían haber al menos un representante de esas áreas en los foros y crear un hilo donde la comunidad pueda dar feedback constructivo a las actividades que realizan, por ejemplo con cada proyecto de Hot podría algún encargado crear un hilo explicando el mismo para que la comunidad pueda dar feedback en un entorno más neutral que en los comentarios del task manager de hot.

O en caso que no quieran al menos podríamos ver la forma de mejorar la wiki en español agregando alguna sección de “mapeo basico” con videos cortos/gifs como se había propuesto un telegram o ver si se puede contribuir a LearnOSM o hacer su equivalente en la wiki o en algún otro sitio dado los problemas para subir imágenes a la wiki.

Tercera y última edición eso espero, creo que esta de más aclararlo pero por si acaso todo esto que escribí es mi opinión y no lo escribí con tal de atacar a algún grupo o persona en específico.

1 Like
19

sé que los Latam no se acostumbran hacer nombres, pero sería que por una vez puedas nombrar las personas a que te refieres? sino como deberían saber si postularse? y seguro que no lo hicieron?

20

Creo que ahí lo dejé claro, saludos.

1 Like
21

Dear @Lewatoto , if I’m asking you to quote whom you’re talking about is because I might know whom you’re talking about, but I refuse the communication style “I won’t mention them, because we all know who that is”.

The irony (sarcasm?) in my previous formulation

[quote=“Lewatoto, post:18, topic:6676”]
alguien
[/quote]

sería este?

alguien | OpenStreetMap

was flagged as off-topic by enough people in this community, same community which accepted your “I won’t make names, because we all know whom I’m referring to”.

I am repeating myself, trying to make my reasoning more explicit, hoping you get and accept the point.

you repeated yourself by quoting that very part which I considered worse than unclear. I consider that covertly offensive. offensive is my perception, as I would feel offended if I were referred to as “you know whom I’m talking about”, and covertly because the person in question does not have the chance to complain, because you reserve yourself the option to say that, should the person react, they have a straw tail.

can we stop with these covert provocation campaigns?, and focus on mapping?

this space is a useful space, but my opinion is that local leaders are sabotaging it, keeping all constructive chats on non-official platforms, and hinting at closing this space is part of it.

1 Like