Has the OSMF Board seen all this legal advice?
2 Likes
I was not going to reply to any of this but I do want to say that the work done by Joost on this has been absolutely exemplary and under very difficult circumstances.
He (and one other) have taken their responsibilities as board members of both OKBe and OSM Belgium and then some. They have made sure OKBe still exists, have safeguarded the (limited) OSM Belgium assets at same time and helped make sure we had a SOTM-eu we could all attend.
On top of that replying here to questions and being scrutinized like this and taking it gracefully is above and beyond!
I really cannot fathom what else could possibly be expected from someone to make you happy Simon. Also, I understand some of the concerns around all that has happened but since when did all this become part of the local chapter application?
5 Likes
The Board does these consultations for a reason. I did explicitly let Arnalie know that if they like such a reconfirmation from OKBE that they’re still happy to see OSM.be go, that I can work on that.
I literally pointed out above what would have/would made/make me happy; a short paragraph or two on what happend and how you got from, A to B. Which given the extraordinary events of this summer is really not to much to ask. If the information had been provided up front I doubt that anybody would have bothered to ask for further details in the 1st place.
Trying to make it look as an over the top demand, instead of what we would have expected from every single other non-entitled LC candidate, is exactlly the reason for my issues with OSM BE. I didn’t gloss over the events and pretend nothing happened, you, collectively, did, nobody else.
1 Like
@SimonPoole, you are calling into doubt the trustworthiness of the OSM BE leadership, but it’s not clear to me if you mean to imply either bad faith or incompetence, since it could easily mean either. Which is it? I think the next step in this debate would depend on this.
I’ve been meaning to read through this thread, and my initial reaction is to agree wholeheartedly with Allan’s sentiment:
There’s no question that the Belgium local chapter has been quite active and contributes a great deal of value globally (and, I presume, within the country).
Yet reading through this thread, I have to admit I’m thoroughly confused and endorse Simon’s fundamental request (minus the snarky bits and cross-examination, which I reserve for non-serious threads that deserve it) for:
I think if the board of OSM US – an organization with paid staff, corporate donors, and a non-trivial budget – were to suddenly announce that we were forming a new organization called OSM America and were applying for local chapter status, there would quite rightly be a bunch of questions about just what the heck is going on here. The dialogue in this thread doesn’t really answer that for me, and I like to think that I’m not completely incompetent in my ability to summarize a discussion thread.
What I’ve been able to piece together so far is something? like this:
- OSM Belgium (OSM BE) used to be a part of Open Knowledge Forum Belgium (OKF BE), and that parent organization was registered as a local chapter.
- There were problems (?) with this arrangement that were detrimental to OSM BE
- There was significant overlap between the membership of the boards of directors of OKF BE and OS BE
- To solve these problems, the two organizations wish to separate but with the same people at the helm of both groups
Given this line of thinking, I’m curious but don’t particularly care about what disagreements or palace intrigue caused the desire to split, other than perhaps as lessons learned for other local chapters that we can all benefit from.
However, if OKF BE is still registered as a local chapter in Belgium, and they are involved in…whatever this is…then I think it’s fair to ask for some kind of official statement from their board which concurs with this new arrangement and whether they are also voluntarily abandoning their local chapter status in favor of OSM BE – or will there now be two local chapters in Belgium? That alone would go a long way towards convincing me that this is just a no-impact paper reorganization. Is the new arrangement mutually desired or are we looking at a messy divorce?
From a more practical matter, presumably OKF BE / OSM BE in their current arrangement has assets and employees and some set of program and activities that serve the OSM community in that country. If I were sitting on the OSMF board considering this application, the number one thing I would want to know is that their interests are appropriately looked after. Will the new OSM BE have all the same resources (people, money, etc) they currently have under their present parent organization? There is some discussion above about bank accounts and transferring money so I think then answer is yes, but these are pretty important corporate governance concerns that I think the OSMF board should have clear answers to before giving their endorsement.
To be clear, I don’t think anyone is acting in bad faith here, and as a local chapter board member myself, I wholeheartedly embrace the struggles of volunteerism. However, I do have to agree that given the unusual nature of this application that asking for additional information seems quite fair game. If this has exposed a gap in the local chapter application process that needs to be corrected, then that’s something the OSMF board should consider addressing.
13 Likes
I don’t believe being trustworthy or not is relevant in this context. I just invoked a “trust me” in my original posting as a figure of speech because the application was missing any relevant information on the events discussed at all.
The people formally running a local chapter can change at the drop of a hat and typically only the members of the LC will have a say in that. The due-dilligence process is there to assure that the organisation is set up in a way that structurally member control is guaranteed, it is able to sustain its operations, and that there are no known or knowable skeletons in the closet that would endanger that.
The later has mostly not been a thing because the applicants have had a straightforward history, and, contrary to the Belgium application, nobody has, figuratively spoken, just gone missing in their neighbourhood.
@SK53 posted two links to relevant OSMF board minutes here OSMF Local Chapter re-application - OSM Belgium - #23 by SK53 These are the last things that were communicated before the application.
As I pointed out I wasn’t out for a cross examination here, and as you can see for yourself if I had wanted to make Joosts life miserable there’s a lot more there, but I’m writing that down to general chaos trying to save SOTM-EU.
Reading this, it seems to me that at least some of Simon’s critique should be directed toward the foundation. If the standard application doesn’t ask the right questions, that’s the responsibility of the OSMF, not the Belgian community (or any community). Joost is being very forthcoming on any questions, so if there is still a problem the responsibility lies with the process, not the applicant.
@SimonPoole I understand your questions and the concerns, especially with @ZeLonewolf 's analogy to help me, but you do seem quite accusatory. Maybe it’s something that’s getting lost in translation, but to say the Belgian community is getting a “free pass” seems kind of unfair, especially as it seems to me like they had a nightmare year of admin headaches and have followed the process correctly.
And, in at least one instance you do seem to be accusing Joost, personally, of vague things which seems inappropriate in this context and, more importantly, makes it harder to track the answers and concerns for the relevant questions. But again, maybe this is a matter of translation or culture.
11 Likes
It’s quite reasonable to ask additional questions not on the application, as you can’t anticipate all questions that are relevant for all local chapters. That’s one of the purposes of the consultation period.
I’m not sure why people seem to be surprised that there are questions about the OSM Belgium finances, given the recent financial failure of OKF BE, money transfer, and related people.
6 Likes
As Paul points out it isn’t practically possible to enumerate all possible points that should lead to additional documentation being included, more on that below. Not to mention that one would hope that extraordinary circumstances as in this case remain rare.
There is the point that has cropped up for past applications that they should be better vetted before being published and potentially problematic points delt with beforehand. That has reasonable expectations of working for “new” organisations but not in this, rather special, case.
As to the ‘vague’ accusations: Joost immediately tried to frame my questions as a personal attack, given that I couldn’t have known who was going to respond a bit far fetched, I did reference Joost as a potential victim of the circumstances though. So I gave a pointer to the conflict of interest situation that was discovered after the fact during the microgrant project, given that it is well documented no need to repeat things here, but it doesn’t inspire confidence that we get the whole story when dealing with OSM-BE.
But I would argue that the aspect that caused the upset was more of a technicality than the real problem, which was that the relevant projects were eligible for grants in the 1st place because nobody had considered adding conflict of interest avoidance terms to the already quite complicated participation rules.
Which brings us back to the case at hand: if the OSMF is going to have to assume that it has to always explicitly ask for any relevant non-obvious information for its processes there’s going to be a lot more paperwork going forward.
In any case I find Joosts version of the events reasonably plausible and the articles of the new organisation address issues such as publication of general assembly minutes.
The OSMF board will need to decide if the whole complex around the OSgeo-BE transactions needs a post-mortem, but I expect that will wait till the SOTM-EU accounts have been finalised.
Yes, this is what I mean:
"There is the point that has cropped up for past applications that they should be better vetted before being published and potentially problematic points delt with beforehand. "
Of course the community consultation is useful and needed for a certain kind of question, no one is disputing this, including Joost, who has answered many.
But this one seems like something the OSMF or LCCWG should have vetted.
Further, I don’t think that asking for a layer of good faith analysis before going to community consultation is the same thing as coming up with every single question that could ever be asked, ad infinitum. Instead, why not amend the process to require the board or WG to do an extra layer of due diligence if there’s a governance or fiduciary element that is non standard.
Using forum threads to debate things never, ever works. there’s way too much nuance. And, I worry that this is bruising for Joost and the community. Is this what we want to do to people? Intentions are good, I am certain, but I don’t like seeing people who are good hearted and committed volunteers experience discomfort simply because the issue is too nuanced to adjucate in a discourse forum.
If the core questions still stands, I recommend sending this back to Arnalie to be looked into, instead of doing more debate and meta debate.
@arnalielsewhere could you or another member of the board step in and help move this forward?
10 Likes
I don’t think we should ever discourage discussion of such things in the community thread. It might be uncomfortable in the short term, but by engaging in this discussion we are avoiding the birth of a festering needless suspicion that would fall on the involved parties. As long as they don’t violate the etiquette guidelines, Simon and Joost should be applauded for engaging with each other on this topic.
I do believe it would be helpful to have one or two members of the OSMF board to chime in on occasion to confirm points, especially for nuanced topics like this.
8 Likes
Happy new year, everyone! Just read the thread where I left of.
To be clear, OSMF Board is handling the re-application. I have flagged this to the board@ after Joost emailed on 22 Dec. However, due to the holiday break, there has been no discussions within the board until today (3 January).
We will have a mid-month board chat next week and this is part of the agenda.
4 Likes
I proposed adding catchall point that would ask for all relevant and important information not covered by previous points.
It will not help in this specific case but has chance to make handling future applications a bit better.
6 Likes
Hey all— I get to read this as a non board member which is great for me personally! No responsibility.
I had been involved of course last year as a board member when a lot of this transpired. Everything Joost shares matches what was under discussion between OSM be and osmf. I’ll also echo Ben’s message about the heroic effort to keep OSM BE strong through a turbulent time. Belgium community and OSM as a whole are in a better place due to the personal passion of dedicated volunteers. Thank you.
The board didn’t get into every detail on what transpired with okbe and I think the application is stronger after the substantive questions in the consultation. After this consultation it will be up to the osmf board to make the final determination. My opinion is that OSM BE should be a local chapter.
I think there’s a few concrete learnings as well about the LC process. The LCCWG has renewed effort to examine and evolve that process. I expect they’ll take points easier here into account at some point.
I find it really frustrating when good substantive content is wrapped up in a communication style that feels wrong. My technique is to rewrite those kinds of messages in my mind in a way that retains the content but doesn’t give me an ulcer. This feels like routing around damage in our community, but given the nature of human beings, it may be the best option. Just remember everyone here is an individual and being loud doesn’t equate being powerful.
Mikel
ps There was a reference to microgrants and conflict of interest. Myself and Joost were on the board and were part of a unanimous vote which approved a dozen or so microgrants recommended by the microgrants committee. A couple were from orgs we had involvement in, and properly should have separated out the vote on them. When this innocent oversight was discovered, we made a public statement apologizing for it. My opinion was the way it was handled should be a point of more trust in us personally.
7 Likes
5 posts were merged into an existing topic: Retrospective - 2020 Microgrant Ethics Issues Discussion
There were problems (?) with this arrangement that were detrimental to OSM BE
It’s more that the cost-benefit changed; when OKBE was thriving, we at OSM.be had significant benefit from being part of OKBE. When it was failing, Jonathan and I were among the only ones left to make sure there would be no violent crash. We’d rather run our own small organisation than having to run something much bigger than we need. Both of us are leaving OKBE now that the rescue is complete & there are some new folks interested to run it.
OKBE never saw itself as the local chapter, it was always OSM.be within OKBE that was the chapter, in their eyes. So of course they were happy let both the Chapter status and the Activity go. In fact, I found it a little confusing that we had to cancel and re-apply, as for everyone involved locally, it is the same OSM.be that is a member, just now with a different vehicle.
Will the new OSM BE have all the same resources (people, money, etc) they currently have under their present parent organization?
Yes. There are no employees anymore though.
2 Likes
That’s not what’s happening. Simon accused me of being sneaky for not having disclosed some information BEFORE the community consultation. To which my reply was “nobody asked”. And then came the suggestion “right, maybe this kind of question should be asked before the community consultation”.
1 Like