As I’m involved in running the OSM Foundation board elections, I thought it would be interesting to share some statistics on the OSMF members who are eligible to vote this year, compared to last year.

Thanks and data sources

Thanks to:

• the volunteers of the Membership Working Group for looking after the database with the OSMF memberships and

• to Pascal Neis, for publishing OSM related statistics, e.g. average number of OSM mappers (mapping accounts active) per day and per country.

Regions of OSMF members eligible to vote

This year 1518 out of 1937 OSMF members (as of 2022-12-07), from 96 countries, are eligible to vote in the 2022 board election. The regional distribution is shown on the image below and the table is also on the OSM wiki.

Notes:

• The regions and country names are as defined by CiviCRM - the software used by the volunteers of the Membership Working Group (MWG) to manage the database with the OSMF memberships.

• The total number of OSMF members eligible to vote in 2022 might change a bit till the end of the election.

Countries of OSMF members eligible to vote in 2021 and 2022

The image below shows the countries of OSMF members eligible to vote in 2021 and 2022.

The table is also on the OSM wiki.

Countries with less than 5 OSMF members eligible to vote in 2022:

Afghanistan, Albania, Argentina, Armenia, Bangladesh, Barbados, Benin, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Chile, China, Colombia, Congo (The Democratic Republic of the), Côte d’ Ivoire, Croatia, Cuba, Ecuador, Estonia, French Polynesia, Greece, Guinea, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, Indonesia, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Israel, Korea (Republic of), Kosovo, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Lithuania, Madagascar, Mali, Mexico, Mozambique, Panama, Peru, Romania, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tanzania (United Republic of), Thailand, Togo, United Arab Emirates, Zambia

Non-organised mappers

Pascal Neis started on March 2022 to publish numbers on the percentage of organised mappers per day, so the average number of mappers with non-organised mapping activity was calculated and is based on a period of around 9 months (from 2022-03-02 to 2022-12-01). For comparison, the average number of mappers per day is presented for the same period of around nine months (2022-03-02 to 2022-12-01), as well as for around a year.

On “expected” numbers of OSMF members eligible to vote in 2022

People might have different expectations on what the distribution of OSMF members should be. The “expected” numbers of OSMF members eligible to vote in 2022 on the table is based on the assumption that the distribution of OSMF members per country should reflect the distribution of active mappers per country. Please also read the notes further below.

Calculations:

Column 6 = Column 13 * 1518 / 6356.8

Column 9 = Column 14 * 1518 / 5305.4

• 1518 is the number of OSMF members eligible to vote in 2022.

• 6356.8 is the sum of the average numbers of OSM mappers (accounts) active per day, over all countries (Data: 2022-03-02 to 2022-12-01). Column 13 displays part of that dataset.

• 5305.4 is the sum of the average numbers of non-organised OSM mappers active per day, over all countries (Data: 2022-03-02 to 2022-12-01). Column 14 displays part of that dataset.

The sum of the average numbers of OSM mappers (accounts) active per day over all countries (one year data: 2021-12 to 2022-12) is 6255.1 and is not used in the calculations. Column 12 displays part of that dataset.

Notes

On number of countries mapped per day

A mapper mapping in more than one country on any given day would be represented more than once.

On number of active OSM accounts per user per day

It is assumed that a mapper uses only a single OSM account.

On minimum OSM contribution requirements to become an OSMF member

While the basic assumption is that the distribution of OSMF members per country should reflect the distribution of active mappers per country, not all people who have mapped on OSM at some point can currently become OSMF members. This is because the OSM Foundation board has introduced minimum requirements related to OSM contributions, in order for someone to become an OSMF member.

On OSMF members with memberships based on non-mapping OSM contributions

OSMF members might have both non-mapping and mapping contributions and there are OSMF members whose contributions to OSM are mainly non-mapping. The calculations for the “expected” numbers on the table take into account only mapping activities.

These OSMF members with mainly non-mapping OSM contributions could have acquired a membership either by payment or via the active contributor membership program. We currently do not have numbers for the first group (by payment), but we do for the later: From 2021-09 to 2022-09-10 (when people could sign up to be OSMF members and still be eligible to vote in the 2022 election), there were 18 Active Contributor membership applications submitted based on non-mapping contributions, and of these 11 were accepted by the OSMF board (61%). These applications also include Active Contributor membership renewals based on non-mapping contributions, as OSMF memberships have to be renewed every year. So, from the 1518 OSMF members eligible to vote in 2022, eleven (0.7 %) are members based on their non-mapping contributions via the Active Contributor membership program.

Type of memberships of eligible voters in 2022

Table also on the OSM wiki

• Normal members provide their full residential address and can vote on all issues. They can also be candidates in the election to Board.
• Associate members provide just their country of residence and can vote - but not on all issues. More information here.

On Active Contributor Membership program

41.5% of OSMF members eligible to vote in the 2022 election, are currently members via the active contributor membership program.

Current voting statistics on 2022 election and reminder

As of now (morning of Saturday 10 December 2022), 40% of eligible members have already voted. Reminder that the deadline for voting is on Saturday 10 December 2022, at 1600 UTC.