[Oceania-Board] Proposal: policy as code

[Greg Lauer]

As per Martin and others, I think philosophically, it is a good idea. It is an issue we as a board are grappling with and I am not sure there is an easy answer or solution

My concern, and as Alex notes, is that it is a technical solution. It introduces a barrier of entry for members and/or community to participate. We are such a wide ranging community, from highly skilled developers to casual mappers  to GIS users to people that have had no previous experience with geospatial software. I do realize that many in the community would welcome a move to Git/Markup, but for some (including myself) having to learn how to use Git and Markup will take some time, for others an insurmountable obstacle. If we were a more technical focused community (such as a Python or R group) then I can see a move towards a more technical solution making sense. 

We have worked hard to lower the barriers of entry to the FOSS4G and OSM communities, and in my mind it does not make sense to erect technical barriers that may restrict members participation in board and/or the organisation's affairs. 


Google Docs is not an ideal solution (both technically and philosophically), and I do acknowledge that we should be seen to be 'eating our own dog food' so to speak, but it does work and has a very low barrier of entry (internet connection and email address). I think our issue is more around 'housekeeping', and better managing volunteers time in insuring that documentation is completed and a transparent process in managing and ratifying.

I would really welcome more of the communities thought on this topic!

Greg



On 11/20/2020 5:05:05 PM, Emma Hain <emmahain at gmail.com> wrote:
I agree
For me, the positive is that t will help get me used to the system as well. I may be asking some user notes on it but it is the way I want to go as I eventually (when I have time) I would like to get more on the documentation side of things.

Thanks
Em

On Fri, Nov 20, 2020 at 8:27 AM Martin Tomko <tomkom at unimelb.edu.au [mailto:tomkom at unimelb.edu.au]> wrote:

Philosophically, I agree.
Practically, I am unsure whether it will solve the issue. I am also lost in the stuff going on, and how to track it. But I hate issue trackers, so that would not solve it. Maybe a transparent GIT-like doc system would help. But I do not think that the versioning is what is needed, the transparent, always online exposure is the crux.
Let’s give it a try…
M.
From: Oceania-Board <oceania-board-bounces at lists.osgeo.org [mailto:oceania-board-bounces at lists.osgeo.org]>
Date: Friday, 20 November 2020 at 1:11 am
To: oceania-board at lists.osgeo.org [mailto:oceania-board at lists.osgeo.org] <oceania-board at lists.osgeo.org [mailto:oceania-board at lists.osgeo.org]>
Subject: Re: [Oceania-Board] Proposal: policy as code
hey Alex, John proposed this a long time ago and some work was done
towards an OO gitlab repository, I believe we have one already
somewhere..

I was supportive of the idea then, and I still am now, so thanks for
raising it again. I prefer gitlab because we can make it immune from
the whims of a huge company if we want to, but also not keen to make
that preference an impediment. whatever works, knowing that we always
risk *something*...

I think it is totally fine to gently mentor ourselves toward using a
git based structure, there is plenty of help!

Cheers

Adam
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