Working Group Minutes/DWG 2018 01 11

From OpenStreetMap Foundation

DWG Meeting on Thursday 11 January 2018, IRC #osm-dwg, at 22:00 UTC

DWG members present:

  • Ethan Nelson (FTA)
  • Vladimir Marshinin (mavl)
  • Peter Barth (peda)
  • Paul Norman (pnorman)
  • Andy Townsend (SomeoneElse)
  • Guillaume Rischard (Stereo) (had previously sent apologies for lateness, joins 22:25)
  • Toby Murray (ToeBee)
  • Frederik Ramm (woodpeck)
  • Sidorela Uku (sidorelauku)
  • Nelson A. De Oliveira (naoliv) (had previously sent apologies for absence, joins 0:05)

DMCA (and non-DMCA) takedown policy

LWG have told us that they're making revisions to the DMCA takedown policy, and also suggested a shared effort to write up a policy that covers non-copyright takedown notices. They are asking for one of us to provide input to the DMCA takedown policy, and whether we'd be interested in helping to draw up the general takedown policy.

We decide to ask Paul (who is also on LWG) to help with the DMCA stuff where necessary. As far as the general takedown policy goes, we'll suggest to LWG that we draft a small document about what we currently/usually do, and send it to them for comment/input.

New DWG member onboarding, and general ticket work

We discuss the availability of documentation and tools in DWG, and how easy or difficult it is for new DWG members to find what they need. We discuss the current ticket workflow. No changes or concrete action items are decided.

Chairperson

We discuss whether we should have a chairperson. We agree that we don't really need a chairperson for everyday work but it would be good to have someone run the meetings, and perhaps pick up the occasional organisational ticket. Andy Townsend is elected by universal acclaim.

Directed Editing Policy

After releasing our draft in November 2017 we've had many comments, mostly from parties currently involved in directed editing or from people who were unsure if the suggested policy affected them. We had detailed input from

  • the OSMF advisory board which represents Apple, Bing, Esri, Facebook, Mapbox, Mapzen, and a couple of OSMF local chapters;
  • the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap team via their board of directors;
  • Telenav, whom we contacted individually because they do a lot of directed editing and are not represented on the advisory board.

There were also about 25 community members involved in discussions on the osmf-talk mailing list.

The feedback we've received has been useful and constructive. Much of it can be merged with our policy without too much conflict.

The biggest issue is determining to whom the policy should apply. For some use cases it is simply not clear, and can be cleared up; for some use cases there is disagreement about whether this (or indeed any) policy should apply. Finding consensus on this is the biggest challenge we're facing.

We have started compiling the feedback onto an internal document, grouping similar concerns and devising recommended actions. This process will requrie more work. From there, we'll develop a new version of the policy and pass it by an editor, and either do another round of public feedback or pass it on to the board for adoption.

Policy on DWG signup

The OWG and sysadmin group have a public document that explains who is eligible to sign up for their respective groups and what the process is. (https://operations.osmfoundation.org/policies/owg-membership/ and https://operations.osmfoundation.org/policies/sysadmin-membership). We discuss whether we should have something like that on a public site to better shape expectations of people who apply. We agree that it would be good to have better guidance but we don't want to appear too restrictive. We'll have further discussion on the mailing list, with low priority.

Any Other Business

None.

Next Meeting

Tue March 13th, at 20:00 UTC (subject to confirmation closer to the date).

End of Meeting

Meeting ends after 2h 20min, at 0:20 UTC.