Hi Frederick,

Thanks for your reflections. I think the choice of appropriate, considerate words will always set a civil tone for a conversation in any forum.

If you have strong feelings about Facebook, this shouldn’t lead you to express these feelings publicly by using metaphors that include rather offensive words. And if you then offer an apology is there really any added value to use yet another inappropriate word [1] to describe something else equally deplorable? Being a leading person in the OSM community, your examples will set the tone for many other OSM users to follow.

Also, I would consider appropriate to apologise to the Facebook employee/candidate for the OSM board who was quoted in the metaphor. Before expressing such an extraordinary judgement, irrefutable evidence should be provided.

On the other hand, I don’t feel there was an ‘’intentional behaviour to exclude participation by women and minority groups’’ from OSM. On the exclusion of women and minority groups perhaps the OSM board or those in charge may wish – given quite a few users strongly feels so – to ascertain to what degree this is true in OSM and therefore have a (independent?) review carried out and then, when findings are presented, take the appropriate/necessary actions? A manifesto like the one proposed is of little use I think.

I would instead welcome – also based on my previous (and not very pleasant) experience with other Italian OSM users on the mapping comment boxes and mailing lists, of which you were made aware once in May via a submission by myself to the DWG – a more robust and truly enforceable Etiquette/Code of Conduct for all OSM users. This should help users to understand that unfriendly and disrespectful tones/words/expressions in any OSM mailing list or elsewhere on the OMS website are not welcome and may be sanctioned.

Thanks, F

[1] ‘’[…] Women […] their place is in the home with the kids or any of that last-century shit.’’.