Proposed update to moderator selection criteria: CoI policy

[Tordanik (Tobias Knerr)]

The @forums-governance team has discussed possible updates to the Moderator selection criteria. One change we’re considering is to include a bullet item regarding the OSMF Working Group Conflict of Interest policy. This policy already applies to moderators by decision of the OSMF board, but so far this isn’t well documented.

Proposed addition to the “Requirements” section:

• Disclosure of relevant affiliations and willingness to follow the OSMF WG Conflict of Interest Policy

[Matija_Nalis]

From said document:

The secondary interest could be for example […] maintainer role in an open source project

It would be nice if some guidance / clarification was provided for mere moderators role (as the document seems somewhat geared towards OSMF board / WG roles) in there somewhere.

E.g. one might maintain few dozen open source projects (many of them OSM-related). So it seems to me that if one was e.g. making moderation decision based on post where someone critiquing said piece of OSM software, that they should exclude themselves due to CoI from voting and/or taking moderation action themselves (leaving the decision to other mods), right?

However, would one need to in advance specify their affiliations on their profile page? (e.g. employed by HOT etc?) - I don’t think the document requires that (but seems to recall previous discussions where it was called for)

[Tordanik (Tobias Knerr)]

@Matija_Nalis

It would be nice if some guidance / clarification was provided for mere moderators role

I agree. The document was clearly not written with moderators in mind, and as a result it’s not super obvious how to apply some of its rules to moderators. I’d like to note that the board decision was taken without input from the forums governance team, but we have to make sense of it to the best of our ability.

I interpret it along the following lines (quoting myself from a previous mods-only thread):

• Document your affiliations in a visible location (your user profile’s “About me” section might be a good place to do so).
• Relevant affiliations should also be mentioned when someone applies to become a moderator.
• You should not handle flags that you have a CoI on.
• If your moderation team takes a decision as a group, e.g. regarding a ban, mention to the other mods that you have a CoI and avoid participating in the vote.

So if someone critiques your open source project, leave any related moderation actions to other moderators.

@Matija_Nalis

However, would one need to in advance specify their affiliations on their profile page? (e.g. employed by HOT etc?)

Yes. The section “Process for managing a Conflict of Interest” starts with a requirement to “list employers, directorships, and other similar affiliations […] if their organisation does business related to OpenStreetMap”. That’s before the part that starts with “When a Conflict of Interest arises”, so it applies prior to and regardless of any specific CoI cases.

[Tordanik (Tobias Knerr)]

The @forums-governance team has decided to adopt an updated version of the moderator selection criteria (version 1.1) which includes the proposed reference to the CoI policy.