User:Pnorman/OSMF 2014 Manifesto

I'm Paul Norman, OSM user pnorman. I've been mapping since 2010, and involved in other facets of OpenStreetMap since 2011. I map primarily between Vancouver and Seattle, making it to some of the Seattle local events, and I'm working at establishing a local OSM community. I've gotten to the last three SOTM-US conferences but haven't managed to get to a SOTM yet.

I help developing several core pieces of OSM infrastructure, as well as being a maintainer on the standard OpenStreetMap.org stylesheet.

For OSMF activities, I'm currently on the Data Working Group and Legal Working group.

Professionally, I am employed by MapQuest as a developer and have done past consulting work. A lot of this work is with tools used for OpenStreetMap.

Transparency

Like all of the candidates, I am interested in transparency. I think there has actually been progress made in transparency, but a lot of distance remains. Some problems are those of awareness - people aren't aware when decisions are published or minutes released. If elected, I will see that announcements are sent to OSMF-Talk after board minutes are published for increased awareness. This will allow decisions to be reviewed by the membership in a timely manner.

One transparency issue issue is simply one of insufficient capacity to release information in a timely manner.

Capacity

The capacity of the OSMF to get work done is severely limited by the number of volunteers. There have been multiple attempts to get more people involved. These have not been successful. Rather than repeat this, I want to look at why they have failed, and then target recruitment of more people.

Facilitation of board meetings

Board meetings, and by extension the board, are frequently non-productive. This is not a new issue. If this continues after the current elections, I believe professional help in the form of a facilitator should be brought in to help make the meetings more productive.