Listing the OSM XMPP community on the OSM Community Index

I have been co-maintaining the OSM channel on XMPP for some time. It has grown from roughly 5 users (at the time of creation) to around 80 - and since I constantly onboard people to XMPP at my OSM events, I expect the number to keep growing.

Those unaware of XMPP should see The Quick and Easy Guide to Jabber/XMPP

In February, I added the channel to the OSM Community Index, but it was subsequently removed by @bhousel, stating that it needs discussion with the OSMF or the CWG.

Before anybody assumes malicious intent and thinks I tried to “slip the channel past the maintainer” because my PR did not mention the global resource being added - it was simply an oversight on my part. Also, the OCI’s policy on unofficial global channels is undocumented, so I was not aware that it was a problem when I made the PR.

As @mikelmaron points out in the linked page above, the CWG “[does] not have a basis for recommending inclusion and [does not] have a timeline for consideration.”

Thus, I bring this issue to the OSMF, and I hope that the channel will be given the go-ahead for inclusion into the OCI.

Post script

I’m not sure if the following is relevant to the OSMF, but it does affect what is shown on osm.org - thus, it may be considered important.

The OCI contains a number of unofficial global channels on proprietary platforms. Were all of these channels really subjected to the same requirements of getting the go-ahead from the OSMF or CWG?

If not, I urge the OCI to act fairly and consistently, either by applying the same restrictions to all global channels (and removing those which have not been vetted), or by doing away with the restrictions entirely (and re-adding those who were previously excluded).

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For what it’s worth, the project’s maintainers previously used the same rationale to decline at least two other proposed worldwide resources, one of which would have reflected quite poorly on both the OSMF and the OSM project had new users been presented with it. So they are at least being consistent. But you’re right that it should be a guideline and not just precedent.

At a glance, I think it would make a lot of sense for the CWG to be involved in the decision to add anything that would be perceived as a social media account, but maybe a community space could get more leeway as long as it clearly doesn’t “speak for” the project. If nothing else, the OSM community needs to be judicious about which social media accounts we promote in order to protect the OSM trademark.

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It may help to “unofficial” in the title or do not use OpenStreetMap in the name or otherwise clearly indicate status.

Note that by posting on this forum you are bringing it to the general OSM community.

Though I admit I am not sure where and how such endorsement from osmf would happen.

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That would seem to disadvantage those that play by rules, and give those that don’t a thumbs up (OSM World anybody?).

Description of process for being included and applying it in general would be likely a good idea.

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Why are we discussing adding an India channel on the global listing rather than the India section? From the PR linked above, these are India-focused communication spaces. I realize anyone can join any communication space, but this feels a bit aspirational?

@ZeLonewolf This thread is not about India-specific channels - those are still present in OCI. This thread is about the global OSM XMPP channel (with the address openstreetmap@conference.macaw.me), which was removed from OCI by @bhousel .

The CWG has discussed lightly but hasn’t prioritized coming up with a rule. We do think it could be appropriate for CWG to be involved in coming up with rules and assess – we do track and monitor the discussion channels across the community because it’s important for getting the word out and drawing on content. It’s certainly good to have something besides one person’s judgment.

One rule for a global channel to be listed on the OCI should be a critical mass of engagement. While I see a description of growth here, my personal opinion is that it needs to be at another scale for consideration. The purpose of the OCI is not to advertise new channels, but to direct users to a curated list of places where there is pretty active engagement.

Seems important to @contrapunctus that there be a conclusive answer sooner than later. CWG could take this up, but it’s taking away from other priorities. My hunch is that in the near term, it would not end up with a different result for this particular case.

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I’ll also note to clarify, the CWG is a working group of the OSMF. This discussion space is appropriate since it’s about Foundation topics. I’m happy if another OSMF body wants to take up the charge to put together a policy.

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I would further note that the OCI is not an OSMF project (maybe it should have been but it isn’t), and it is not clear where Mikel is taking the authority from to grab control of it.

So far, the only authority that has been exercised has been by @bhousel, as project maintainer, in declining to promote this privately hosted chatroom, a different chat platform, and a niche social media account to every mapper globally, pending further discussion. As I understand it, he has expressed an interest in somehow involving the CWG or OSMF in these cases instead of having to making the call on his own. That is currently stated as a matter of precedent, but perhaps it could be framed instead as a guideline for the repository, so that new contributors don’t get a crash course in OSM politics.

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… including the addition of the precursor to this forum back in 2021 :slight_smile:

Joking apart, it does make perfect sense to ask for a CWG steer before adding more global resources. There are already (/me checks https://openstreetmap.community/) 8 of them, including a number not really designed for interaction or external commercial sites closed to those without a third-party login. In places where there are local groups, especially nested ones, it’s a lot for someone seeing the list for the first time to take in.

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I’m the secret boss, remember?

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It is indeed important, thanks for understanding.

I was expecting an inclusion criteria to be things like “must adhere to the OSM Etiquette Guidelines” and such. (The OSM XMPP channel already has rules almost identical in intent to the Guidelines, and we are also willing to adopt the Etiquette Guidelines directly.)

I understand “engagement” to mean…

  • “on average, how quickly questions get a response and from how many people”, and/or
  • “how many people are actively participating”,

…and other similar metrics. By those metrics, the XMPP channel fits the description of “pretty active engagement” - it is almost as active as the #osm IRC channel.

However, I suspect you really mean “number of members”. There are a number of issues with the latter as a metric -

  1. It unduly favors those already on the OCI, who will be advertised more and will have more people joining them.

  2. It also unduly favors protocols like Matrix, which is infamous for lying about the actual number of participants (by showing people as joined even long after they have left; a.k.a. the Hotel California problem - “You can check out any time you like/But you can’t ever leave.”).

  3. It also favors bridged rooms, especially those bridged to Matrix, whereas this community has by consensus decided not to bridge to centralized or proprietary networks (for reasons of privacy, and retention and sharing of history), including Matrix (which is decentralized in theory but centralized in practice), Telegram, and Discord.

In addition to the merits described above, the XMPP channel covers a unique space in terms of software freedom and privacy. If it were up to me, federated, free software, standardized, and sustainable solutions like XMPP would be closer to the top of the OCI, and proprietary platforms like Discord and Telegram would be demoted or removed.

To sum, the OSM XMPP channel has “pretty active engagement” in every meaningful sense of the phrase.

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I have included my Jabber ID in almost every e-mail I’ve sent for the past 20 years, so I certainly understand where you’re coming from.[1] However, I see a disconnect between this statement and the actual purpose of the osm-community-index repository. Whether one experiences the index through iD’s post-save screen or the openstreetmap.community map, the focus should be on enabling mappers to find and connect with other mappers, follow OSM current events, and find relevant local documentation. This is a screen that mappers often rush past on their way to the Close Tab button, so if a link doesn’t catch their attention and make sense without any research, then it’s just taking up space.

Ease of use is an important consideration, because many of these mappers have chosen to use iD instead of JOSM based on their limited technical proficiency. Federation and sustainability are important, but the screen would likely need to be redesigned from the ground up in order to effectively make a case for XMPP based on these principles and overcome the technical barriers to entry. At the very least, the important messages on that xmpp.link landing page would need to be translated into other languages. On the other hand, the main IRC channel is listed globally, but it’s at the very bottom of the list, in part due to similar technical barriers.

Beyond ergonomics, there are other reasons why someone needs to be able to exercise discretion when a global resource is proposed. The rejected social media account I keep alluding to would conceivably have caused immediate political repercussions for OSM – negative headlines, boycotts, mappers leaving the project – even though that platform runs on FOSS. Fortunately, this XMPP server has no contentious ideological stances that I know of. However, your guide to XMPP raises the specter of an operator shutting down – is that not a risk with this server, which is operated by an individual? I suppose you can always fall back to my XMPP server as a last resort. :sweat_smile:


  1. Except when posting to an NNTP newsgroup. I fear the Internet would short-circuit if I were to bridge these two worlds. ↩︎

As I understand CWG authority become involved on request of the maintainer of that project, see We don't add unofficial worldwide resources without discussion · osmlab/osm-community-index@24364be · GitHub

Also, if I understood correctly Mikel mentioned discussing it at CWG meeting, rather than taking decision in some personal authority. As far as I am aware other CWG members also can raise issues at this meeting.

CWG
EWG
PC
FC
AB

Nobody said it was secret.

Nice! I hope to see you in the channel! :smiley:

That’s exactly what the OSM XMPP channel does, so I’m not sure what you mean here… :sweat_smile:

You’d be surprised to learn that the OSM India XMPP channel and the OSM West Bengal XMPP channel have attracted users through the OCI. There’s a certain level of technical proficiency required to contribute to OSM, so the obstacle to XMPP is actually no bar to contributors.

Based on my experiences in telling people about OSM at FOSS conferences (and inviting them to our OSM communities), a surprisingly large number of people (at least in India) aren’t aware of IRC or Matrix, either. Thus, if the IRC and Matrix channels are listed, the XMPP channel should be too.

Speaking of the OSM India and OSM West Bengal XMPP channels, I’m also wondering if this distinction between local and global channels is needed at all. The reasons given for requiring vetting of global channels also apply to local channels…perhaps the guidelines should apply to all communities on OCI…or to none of them. :thinking: (…and I say that very seriously.)

It’s easy to move to another server, or set up a backup server in advance. (It doesn’t quite need the nuclear option of using a distributed channel architecture like Matrix, but XMPP has the option of federating a channel to multiple servers.)

In fact, the OSM XMPP channel earlier raised the possibility of the OSMF running their own XMPP server, allowing any OSM user to chat using their OSM account. Heck, now that I’ve written this, the idea sounds exciting and I’m willing to do it with the help of the OSM XMPP community. Maybe the OSMF can start supporting this server later, similar to the OSM Mastodon server.

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I am also concerned that macaw.me explicitly states a bus factor of one. I would be very happy to help setting up a community run XMPP server for OSM. Beginners could join using an off-the-shelf web interface for XMPP, similar to the Chat with us button on https://joinjabber.org/ .

It’s a shame that in the global community index, users are primarily presented with chat rooms on walled garden services like Discord or Telegram. We should do more to promote the possibility to connect with the OSM community using internet standards such as XMPP.

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