Talk:Foundation/AGM2025/Election to Board
Official set of questions
Facilitator (Brian Sperlongano): I have now added the official questions. Thanks to all that have participated! These questions are drawn from the community questions, the OSM community forum, and last year's questions. Since there was a smaller pool of questions submitted this year, there is accordingly a smaller number of official questions. Candidates: Please submit your answers and your manifestos before 2025-08-08 at 23:59 UTC directly to Dorothea ([email protected]), as OSMF administrative assistant and CC me ([email protected]) as per the instructions here. Please note the requested format, it makes collation far easier! An approximate estimate of how much time that you spend on your answers and manifestos would be appreciated; this will help us in future years. Please answer as many questions as you can. Our suggestion is to answer all of them - we are a global organisation, so many voters won't know you and this will help them make a decision. --ZeLonewolf (talk) 03:02, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
1. Motivation and Objectives
Why do you want to join the OSMF Board, and what do you hope to accomplish as a board member over the next two years?
2. Conflict of Interest Management
Do you currently have any conflicts of interest that might affect your role on the Board? If so, what are they and how would you manage them? Can you share examples of how you have handled conflicts of interest in the past?
3. Transparency and Accountability
How would you ensure that the Board’s decisions and actions are transparent and accountable to the OSM community?
4. Teamwork
OSMF board members bring diverse skills, experiences, personalities, and cultural backgrounds. How can the board foster a productive, respectful, and collaborative working environment? What kind of onboarding, training, or knowledge transfer should current and departing board members provide to help new board members work effectively?
5. Artificial Intelligence
How do you see AI tools like chat bots, large language models, and computer vision fitting into the OpenStreetMap community? Should the board itself and/or its working groups use AI tools, and if so, how would you ensure they are used ethically and responsibly? Lastly, did you use AI assistance to craft your response to the candidate questions?
6. Access to Imagery
Is it the role of the OSMF to ensure that mappers continue to have reliable access to high‑quality overhead imagery to serve mappers globally? If yes, what strategies would you prioritize to maintain or expand access, especially in regions with limited alternatives?
7. Software Governance
Please comment generally on the OSMF's role in managing, maintaining, and/or providing governance for the "core" software in the project. Has the Software Dispute Resolution Panel been effective?
8. Map Styles on OpenStreetMap.org
Who should make the decision about which map styles should be available, or shown as the default, on openstreetmap.org?
9. State of the Map Conferences
State of the Map conferences can spark controversy over speakers, sponsors, or the political and/or safety climate of the chosen host country. What principles should guide the selection of future SotM locations and how should the OSMF respond to protests or disruptions during the event?
10. Intellectual Property
What steps, if any, should the OSMF take to protect OpenStreetMap's intellectual property?
11. OSMF Enthusiasm
In this election cycle, only a small number of candidates stood for election, and a smaller than usual number of community questions were submitted for the candidates. What do you think is the reason for this low level of interest, and what would you do, if anything, to promote interest in quality candidates running for the OSMF board?
Community questions to OSMF board candidates, upon which the official set will be based
Submission of community questions to the board candidates closed on the 12th of July ("end of", in UTC).
Here will be the questions from the OSM community to the candidates for the OpenStreetMap Foundation (OSMF) board elections. An official set of questions -based on the questions below- will be published on July 26.
Asking questions? You are kindly asked to be respectful in your tone and try to phrase questions in an open way without already implying a certain answer or trick questions which are superficially about something else than what you want to know. Also you should give enough context to your questions, possibly with links, so they can be understood by any interested community member and not just insiders familiar with the specific subject and by any candidate so both long term active members and newcomers have an equal chance of giving you an accurate and honest answer.
The questions from 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016 etc. might still be relevant for inspiration.
Questions from non English speaking community members
- We invite local communities to get together, discuss and add their questions. If you do not feel comfortable in asking your questions in English, feel free to add them in your native language.
- We invite other community members who can help, to add translations above of the non-EN questions. In case no-one reading this page can help, the Communication Working Group (CWG) will try to find people to translate the questions.
- Please note that -depending on the language and date- the CWG cannot guarantee translation of all non-EN questions. So, we kindly ask you to add any non-EN questions as soon as possible.
Are you a candidate? In advance thanks to all candidates for standing for election. You are kindly asked to wait for the official set of questions, which will be published on 26 July, on this page. Submit your answers to the official questions and your manifestos directly to the facilitator and cc our administrative assistant. Please view the official questions as a possibility to articulate your views on matters that might be important for OSM community members. State freely if you have not formed an opinion on a question or are unable to answer it based on your current knowledge. Please also feel encouraged to state if your position on a question is a firm conviction or if what you say is just an opinion. If English is not your native language and you feel you cannot properly express your ideas on a certain question in English, feel free to answer in your native language.
Thank you all for participating in this process.
Please sign and date your questions by typing four tildes ~~~~ at the end of your messages. Thanks :)
Selection of map styles on the front page
The iD editor is subject to review by the Software Dispute Resolution Panel. Should there also be a mechanism to demote map layers from the front page or from the default for issues such as unreasonable tag rendering choices? --Wynndale (talk) 11:31, 4 July 2025 (UTC)
Access to Bing imagery
Bing is supposedly going to stop being accessible in various OSM editors (iD, JOSM, etc). Given the importance of this imagery to thousands of editors. Can the OSFM board facilitate discussion with Microsoft, a platinum corporate member, to keep Bing imagery accessible to OSM user?
ViriatoLusitano (talk | contribs) 11:36, 4 July 2025 (UTC)
Replace this with the topic of your question
New board members come from many backgrounds with varying skills. What training or education would you like to see the OSMF provide new board members? Pnorman (talk) 05:50, 8 July 2025 (UTC)
Protests against conference speakers
Drew DeVault announced on his blog that he would sit on the stage blocking the session during a session with Jack Dorsey at FOSDEM. What would you consider to be a suitable response if someone did something similar at an OSM conference? --Wynndale (talk) 17:41, 10 July 2025 (UTC)
Board candidates on using generative AI ( ~ ChatGPT ) in OSMF
- What is your personal opinion about using generative AI tools like ChatGPT in the OpenStreetMap community? How would this influence your work if you are elected to the OSMF board? Please also explain how ready you feel to deal with AI challenges, and what values or principles would guide your decisions.
- Do you think the OSMF board should use generative AI tools in its decision making or daily work? If yes, in what ways?
- What kind of rules or guidelines should the OSMF create to make sure generative AI is used in a responsible and ethical way?
- Do you have any experience using generative AI for mapping, data tasks, or helping with community discussions? If yes, please describe briefly.
- How do you think generative AI could change or affect the open and free data model of OpenStreetMap in the future?
--ImreSamu (talk) 07:16, 12 July 2025 (UTC)
General Election to Board Wiki-Discussion
This space is for discussing the page in a normal wiki talk page like style. For substantial election discussions the osmf-talk mailing list is probably a more suitable place. Subscription to osmf-talk is available to members of the Foundation, using the same email-address they have registered as OSMF members. You can join the OpenStreetMap Foundation at https://supporting.openstreetmap.org/#Membership-Categories You can view all emails here.