Re: [OSM-talk] Beware Pokemon users

[Andrew Guertin]

On 01/04/2017 03:03 AM, Paul Johnson wrote:

On Wed, Jan 4, 2017 at 1:04 AM, Steve Bennett  wrote:
I've yet to hear of any evidence that OSM is being used at all.  I'm sure
someone from our web team might be able to locate Niantic IPs if we really
drilled down and it happened recently enough that we would still have the
logs before logrotate got 'em.  But, IMO, that seems rather far to go for
something for which there is basically only wild conjecture to back so far.


http://pokemongohub.net/pokemon-go-spawn-points-modeled-open-street-map-data/

Is this the kind of evidence you're looking for?

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Wikipedia/Wikidata admins cleanup

[Paul Norman]

On 1/6/2017 7:37 AM, Mikel Maron wrote:
http://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/39517002 is an example. There 
were issues with this import, sure. This was not vandalism, 
advertising, or a fatal breakage of the map -- not a situation where 
an immediate action was justified (and definitely there are other 
situations where immediate action is needed). An active mapper and an 
active community were communicating, acting to fix the problems. The 
reverter in this case choose to ignore the mapper and the community 
and took a unilateral action, in contradiction to some guidelines on 
the wiki. This kind of approach discourages community contribution and 
cooperation. We can do a lot better to cooperatively improve the map 
and how we map it.


The revert in this case did not involve the Data Working Group. The DWG 
statement on this issue is 
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-ca/2016-September/007260.html. 
Quoting from it



Advance permission is not required for reverts, nor for normal mapping
activities. At the same time, users are expected to be responsible,
particularly when using tools for reverting which allow large-scale
changes where other users may disagree with them.

Where there are problems with an import reverting is an option, but
just one of many, and often not the appropriate first action. Unless
there are legal problems or fatal problems with the import it is
preferable if the original importer can fix the problems in a timely
manner. There was every indication this was going to happen in this case.

The revert of 39517002 was inappropriate and counter-productive. New
actions like this revert may lead to further Data Working Group
involvement and potentially blocks. If the Canadian community needs help
reverting 41749133 and 41756737, the Data Working Group can revert those
changesets.


Because there seems to be some confusion, neither Nakaner or Mikel are 
members of the Data Working Group.


Frederik Ramm, Andy Townsend, and myself are the three people in this 
thread who are also members of the DWG. Unless they state otherwise, 
their opinions aren't representing the DWG.


Paul Norman
For the Data Working Group
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Wikipedia/Wikidata admins cleanup

[john whelan]

>When Simon says "Canvec and broken import is essentially a synonym" that
is not an
exaggeration, if you mention Canvec in a typical European community
meeting you usually just get a big sigh in return.

I think you have to understand a bit more about CANVEC data what it is and
how the quality varies.  Some of it is high quality data, the same source
as the local fire department uses.  In general CANVEC data is a collection
of different data sources from each province.  Each province has slightly
different standards of data collection.  The roads in major cites are
fairly accurate both in street name and location.  Address information is
available for some provinces in some areas.  The equipment used to collect
the data is in my opinion more accurate than an iPhone GPS trace near tall
buildings.

We have more lakes in Canada than exist in the whole of Europe.  Most are
fairly inaccessible and there is little economic incentive to map each one
to a high degree of accuracy. In many provinces they simply haven't spent
the cash to map them accurately and recently.  Some data is forty or more
years old.  So digging into the source of the CANVEC data can help to
determine how accurate it is.

We don't have many mappers per square km in Canada and mapping with a GPS
trace doesn't happen at minus 30 for some reason.  If I go back in time to
before I imported the CANVEC road data into Ottawa basically Ottawa
OpenStreetMap was incomplete, inaccurate, over 140 reads had the wrong name
when I compared them to the City of Ottawa map. The City of Ottawa map
wasn't license to copy but I could at least compare the two.  Locally some
imports had been done but anywhere an existing road was in the map an area
round the existing road was not imported.  Fine except that roads were not
joined up.  You couldn't find a route between two streets in the city.

We had a physical local meeting over coffee, I think the first ever in
Ottawa and decided the cleanest way was to replace all the highways in
Ottawa from CANVEC which we did over a weekend.  It probably violated every
rule we have now but it gave us a working functional map.  Since then we've
mapped using traditional methods.  We simply didn't have the resources to
map every street in Ottawa with local mappers.  The City of Ottawa is big,
2,770 square kms.  We are the only map that can display either the official
French version of the name or the English version.  No one else can do
this.  It works in OSMAND or Maperitive using a special set of rules. This
was done with a Visual Basic program that input a .OSM file and took the
English name and output another file adding the French version of the
street name according to the rules in the City of Ottawa's bylaws.  Locally
this has generated a lot of goodwill for OpenStreetMap.

Canada is not Europe.  It is a country but in some ways it is a collection
of provinces and each is different.  Perhaps if I give you an example of
health care.  Each province is different.  Move from one part of the
country to another and you may find you have no health coverage.  If you
move from one part of the UK to another the NHS will still cover you,
whether or not they have the resources to provide a level of service is a
different matter.  In fact if you move from one part of the EU to another
health coverage is automatically available.  Europe is different to Canada.

Cheerio John

On 6 January 2017 at 13:04, Christoph Hormann  wrote:

> On Friday 06 January 2017, john whelan wrote:
> >
> > I think we should be trying to build the community.  We need a
> > balance between adding data without limits, and building the
> > community and building the community is hard.
>
> Well - as overzealous as Nakaners intervention in this case might have
> been in a way it is a good sign that someone still cares.  When Simon
> says "Canvec and broken import is essentially a synonym" that is not an
> exaggeration, if you mention Canvec in a typical European community
> meeting you usually just get a big sigh in return.  I for one do not
> touch Canada in OSM any more, not even with a ten foot pole.  And the
> only way this would change is a permanent moratorium on Canvec imports.
>
> But since i don't see this happening i sincerely hope you are able to
> build a big and active community even with the Canvec data - which
> seems difficult to me but it is not my place to judge this.
>
> > My roots are in the UK, I've mapped in the UK using local knowledge.
> >  I live in Canada.  Am I part of the UK local community of mappers?
>
> To me local community means the community of local mappers.  To what
> extent a local mapper stays a local mapper after moving away and how
> far you can become a local mapper during a short term visit is an open
> question.  But this is just minor semantics.  The important thing is
> that OSM is primarily about local knowledge and human assessment of the
> on-the-ground situation.
>
> --
> Christoph Hormann
> http://www.imagico.de/
>

Re: [OSM-talk] Public GPS Traces

[Oleksiy Muzalyev]

I wish it were written in the Map Key. Something like this:

The color of the GPS tracks :
eastbound movement - red,
westbound - cyan,
northbound - yellow,
southbound - violet.

It is a very interesting feature, I mean the new GPS tracks layer, 
especially for hiking in the wilderness. One can see were people 
actually walked, how often, and in what direction. I looked up colors in 
the blog post, and I forgot as expected in fifteen minutes which color 
means what direction. If it were in the Map Key it would be more convenient.


Oleksiy

On 06.01.17 18:52, Eugene Alvin Villar wrote:
Canonical blog post that explains this layer: 
https://www.mapbox.com/blog/openstreetmap-gps-layer/


On Sat, Jan 7, 2017 at 1:41 AM, Dave F > wrote:


Main Page > Map Layers > Public GPS Traces

What do the different colours represent for this feature?

DaveF

---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus 


___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org 
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk





___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk



___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] StreetSound

[Jóhannes Birgir Jensson]

That sounds very Orwellian!

Þann 06.01.2017 19:04, Milo van der Linden reit:

In Eindhoven a new initiative is launched to capture streetsound:

https://translate.google.nl/translate?sl=nl&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=nl&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fe52.nl%2Fvan-google-streetview-naar-sorama-streetsound%2F&edit-text=
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

[OSM-talk] StreetSound

[Milo van der Linden]

In Eindhoven a new initiative is launched to capture streetsound:

https://translate.google.nl/translate?sl=nl&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=nl&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fe52.nl%2Fvan-google-streetview-naar-sorama-streetsound%2F&edit-text=
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Wikipedia/Wikidata admins cleanup

[Christoph Hormann]

On Friday 06 January 2017, john whelan wrote:
>
> I think we should be trying to build the community.  We need a
> balance between adding data without limits, and building the
> community and building the community is hard.

Well - as overzealous as Nakaners intervention in this case might have 
been in a way it is a good sign that someone still cares.  When Simon 
says "Canvec and broken import is essentially a synonym" that is not an 
exaggeration, if you mention Canvec in a typical European community 
meeting you usually just get a big sigh in return.  I for one do not 
touch Canada in OSM any more, not even with a ten foot pole.  And the 
only way this would change is a permanent moratorium on Canvec imports.

But since i don't see this happening i sincerely hope you are able to 
build a big and active community even with the Canvec data - which 
seems difficult to me but it is not my place to judge this.

> My roots are in the UK, I've mapped in the UK using local knowledge.
>  I live in Canada.  Am I part of the UK local community of mappers?

To me local community means the community of local mappers.  To what 
extent a local mapper stays a local mapper after moving away and how 
far you can become a local mapper during a short term visit is an open 
question.  But this is just minor semantics.  The important thing is 
that OSM is primarily about local knowledge and human assessment of the 
on-the-ground situation.

-- 
Christoph Hormann
http://www.imagico.de/

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Public GPS Traces

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

Canonical blog post that explains this layer:
https://www.mapbox.com/blog/openstreetmap-gps-layer/

On Sat, Jan 7, 2017 at 1:41 AM, Dave F  wrote:

> Main Page > Map Layers > Public GPS Traces
>
> What do the different colours represent for this feature?
>
> DaveF
>
> ---
> This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
> https://www.avast.com/antivirus
>
>
> ___
> talk mailing list
> talk@openstreetmap.org
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
>
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Public GPS Traces

[Grant Slater]

On 6 January 2017 at 17:41, Dave F  wrote:
> Main Page > Map Layers > Public GPS Traces
>
> What do the different colours represent for this feature?
>

Travel direction.

/ Grant

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

[OSM-talk] Public GPS Traces

[Dave F]

Main Page > Map Layers > Public GPS Traces

What do the different colours represent for this feature?

DaveF

---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus


___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Wikipedia/Wikidata admins cleanup

[john whelan]

I think one issue to try and define is what is the local community?

Canada is big, parts are closer to London UK than Vancouver.

Yes we have a bandwidth of opinions but so does the rest of OSM.

At the moment I'm trying to clean up a bit in Africa.  In many parts there
is no local community.  Morocco is extremely difficult, there are more than
two thousand untagged ways by one mapper many of which are a square with an
arrow pointing away from the square. Many have a note but they look like an
import of some such to me and I'd be delighted if Michael took aim at them.

I think we should be trying to build the community.  We need a balance
between adding data without limits, and building the community and building
the community is hard.  A bit like validation on the HOT side give gentle
guidance and you get better mapping, people feel motivated, tag the tile as
invalid because the project manager who did the validation feels that more
things were mapped on a tile than were requested doesn't help build the
community side of things.  Especially when I checked and the things that
had been mapped had been mapped before the HOT project.

One of the mappers whose opinion I respect in Africa is actually based in
Montreal.  He has travelled a great deal and knows the local conditions and
has good local contacts.  I would say he's part of the local African
community.

My roots are in the UK, I've mapped in the UK using local knowledge.  I
live in Canada.  Am I part of the UK local community of mappers?

I think we have to accept a different standard for imports in different
parts of the world.  Africa has seen a fair number of imports of schools
for example.  Many settlement names have been imported in places they look
like a spreadsheet because the accuracy of the import was limited in the
number of digits after the decimal point.  I haven't seen much activity
from Michael on these imports and to be honest even though they have been
imported and the quality isn't perfect they are being used by end users.
OSM is in use by local government as well as NGOs in Africa they have
nothing better. Should we strip out these imports and demand that only data
from local mappers with hand held GPS devices be allowed into the map?

Cheerio John

On 6 January 2017 at 11:20, Christoph Hormann  wrote:

> On Friday 06 January 2017, Mikel Maron wrote:
> > [...] http://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/39517002 is
> > an example. There were issues with this import, sure. This was not
> > vandalism, advertising, or a fatal breakage of the map -- not a
> > situation where an immediate action was justified (and definitely
> > there are other situations where immediate action is needed).
>
> Agreed, this is not how things should be done.  Note Nakaner is not a
> local mapper here nor does he - to my knowledge - routinely map in this
> area.
>
> Note within the Canadian community there is a significant bandwidth of
> opinions regarding the Canvec imports and also significant voices that
> want to stop them and even remove significant parts of the Canvec data
> again.  Still this is ultimately the decisions of the Canadian
> community, even if - to quote myself - it is worth considering
> if "someone sitting in Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver [is] really more
> of a local mapper on Devon Island or Ellesmere Island than someone from
> Britain, Germany or Russia?"
>
> --
> Christoph Hormann
> http://www.imagico.de/
>
> ___
> talk mailing list
> talk@openstreetmap.org
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
>
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Wikipedia/Wikidata admins cleanup

[Simon Poole]

Am 06.01.2017 um 16:37 schrieb Mikel Maron:

..

I would suggest that using this case to make your point is seriously
misplaced.

Reverting a broken import asap to allow for a) the guidelines to be
followed, b) address technical and legal issues, is the sensible,
logical and low impact and only scalable course of action. It is
definitely neither unfriendly nor un-welcoming or any other adjective
you want to use*. The earlier and more consistently it happens the less
effort and work is lost by all participants.

If there is an issue with immediate reverts, it is that, particularly in
the past, there hasn't been enough. The numerous broken imports (CANVEC
and broken import is essentially a synonym) that bitrot in our data and
are long past any reasonable way of removing them are testimony to this.

It is fatal for the project that you are creating the impression that as
long as you argue long enough and feign innocence you will be able to
bypass the rules and get away with whatever you want. To the contrary,
we should be making it clear that not following the few, definitely not
particularly arduous to adhere to, rules will result in immediate
removal of the content.

Simon

* the participants in the referenced discussion are neither newbies, not
aware of the guidelines, or any other mitigating factor, but that is not
the point.



signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Wikipedia/Wikidata admins cleanup

[Christoph Hormann]

On Friday 06 January 2017, Mikel Maron wrote:
> [...] http://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/39517002 is
> an example. There were issues with this import, sure. This was not
> vandalism, advertising, or a fatal breakage of the map -- not a
> situation where an immediate action was justified (and definitely
> there are other situations where immediate action is needed).

Agreed, this is not how things should be done.  Note Nakaner is not a 
local mapper here nor does he - to my knowledge - routinely map in this 
area.

Note within the Canadian community there is a significant bandwidth of 
opinions regarding the Canvec imports and also significant voices that 
want to stop them and even remove significant parts of the Canvec data 
again.  Still this is ultimately the decisions of the Canadian 
community, even if - to quote myself - it is worth considering 
if "someone sitting in Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver [is] really more 
of a local mapper on Devon Island or Ellesmere Island than someone from 
Britain, Germany or Russia?"

-- 
Christoph Hormann
http://www.imagico.de/

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Wikipedia/Wikidata admins cleanup

[Mikel Maron]

> "Reverts should be held to the same standard as imports" and "well documented 
>and visible plan" I read it as meaning "I want you to stop doing what you are 
>currently doing in the way that you are doing it", and want to understand 
>why.> I'd much rather the direction on this came from the community rather 
>than the board
You are questioning my motives and my affiliations. Yes, I wrote off the cuff, 
quickly in the middle of the thread. (Though have no idea what you mean by dog 
whistle here -- and I do know what a dog whistle is, I've just survived the US 
election :P). But sure, I'll take a little time here to do my best to achieve a 
clear communication -- no doubt I'll fall short, happy to keep trying.
It is good we have guidelines for handling imports, mechanical edits, disputes, 
and a community and working group that works to protect the map. I helped start 
the DWG after all. I do think there is room for improvement in certain 
circumstances (I'll give an example below) -- particularly around the tone and 
depth of the communication, the right speed of action, and transparency of 
process. My motivation is pretty much the same as everyone's here -- create a 
great map welcome to contributions to everyone who shares the vision of OSM, 
and helps us collectively improve how we do it. And I'm getting involved again 
in the DWG as me -- this has not been discussed by the Board at all, and 
serving as a Board member has no bearing on this discussion for anyone involved.
http://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/39517002 is an example. There were 
issues with this import, sure. This was not vandalism, advertising, or a fatal 
breakage of the map -- not a situation where an immediate action was justified 
(and definitely there are other situations where immediate action is needed). 
An active mapper and an active community were communicating, acting to fix the 
problems. The reverter in this case choose to ignore the mapper and the 
community and took a unilateral action, in contradiction to some guidelines on 
the wiki. This kind of approach discourages community contribution and 
cooperation. We can do a lot better to cooperatively improve the map and how we 
map it.

We need guidelines and transparency on reverts and other processes of the the 
DWG, so the community knows best how to act when issues arise, and what to 
expect as mappers. We need to have a consistent understanding -- this will only 
help us in the DWG over time. Transparency educates everyone and has benefitted 
other parts of the OSMF, like the Board. Certainly not saying the transparency 
means all is visible -- there are definitely sensitivity topics, privacy 
implications, etc.

So that's where I'm at. My next steps are going to be review what we have 
written up on the wiki (http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Vandalism, 
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Data_working_group, 
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Disputes), assess where there's a need for 
more clarity or inconsistencies, and propose some edits.
-Mikel

 * Mikel Maron * +14152835207 @mikel s:mikelmaron 

   

 On Friday, January 6, 2017 6:16 AM, Andy Townsend  wrote:
 
 

  On 05/01/17 12:23, mi...@groundtruth.in wrote:
 
     * Mikel Maron * +14152835207 @mikel s:mikelmaron ...  As Frederik said, 
better reporting and processing can benefit DWG. This is something I want to 
spend time on.
  
 
 I think that it's important that how we do this sort of thing as a project is 
discussed in whatever public forums are available (and right now the "most 
international" one we have is this talk list, alongside the other widely-used 
international community forums for different languages over at forum.osm.org 
such as the DE and RU forums there).
 
 Your "Reverts should be held to the same standard as imports..." post above 
may have been something of a dog-whistle response to Frederik's post, but when 
I read things that talk about "the current revert regime" and say "Reverts 
should be held to the same standard as imports" and "well documented and 
visible plan" I read it as meaning "I want you to stop doing what you are 
currently doing in the way that you are doing it", and want to understand why.
 
 I'd much rather the direction on this came from the community rather than the 
board (and yes, there will obviously be as many different views as there are 
OSM mappers).  If "the communication I've seen from community members making 
reverts has left a lot of rough feelings" then let's talk about it (for a 
start; which particular actions are we talking about?  Was the data that was 
removed added when it shouldn't have been (for e.g. license reasons) and are we 
just talking about the tone of the conversation, or something else?
 
 Activities such as https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/44923663 (to take 
an example revert action from me yesterday) are going to become more common as 
more people use OSM.  In this case the sequence of events was detect the 
problem, rev

Re: [OSM-talk] Wikipedia/Wikidata admins cleanup

[Andy Mabbett]

On 6 January 2017 at 12:01, Christoph Hormann  wrote:

> It seems to me by the way that negative feelings of people whose
> activities have clashed with the DWG are natually more voiceful than
> those of people who contacted the DWG in despair because they are
> swamped with an undiscussed import or because they made a mistake
> themselves and ask for help after getting in trouble with others about
> it.

It seems to me that precisely the opposite is true. But as we've both
offered zero evidence for our beliefs, they should each carry no weight.

-- 
Andy Mabbett
@pigsonthewing
http://pigsonthewing.org.uk

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Wikipedia/Wikidata admins cleanup

[Christoph Hormann]

On Friday 06 January 2017, Andy Townsend wrote:
>
> I'd much rather the direction on this came from the community rather
> than the board (and yes, there will obviously be as many different
> views as there are OSM mappers).  If "the communication I've seen
> from community members making reverts has left a lot of rough
> feelings" then let's talk about it (for a start; which particular
> actions are we talking about?

It seems to me by the way that negative feelings of people whose 
activities have clashed with the DWG are natually more voiceful than 
those of people who contacted the DWG in despair because they are 
swamped with an undiscussed import or because they made a mistake 
themselves and ask for help after getting in trouble with others about 
it.  These countless people who are grateful for the help are mostly 
silent.

> Activities such as https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/44923663
> (to take an example revert action from me yesterday) are going to
> become more common as more people use OSM.  In this case the sequence
> of events was detect the problem, revert the vandalism, block the
> user and request that an admin delete the account (which was created
> just for that purpose).  I'd argue that those actions (apart from
> block the user) should be able to be carried out by anyone familiar
> enough with OSM to recognise the problem, and we should actually
> encourage everyone in that position to do so - providing that they
> can recognise the difference between obvious vandalism (as happened
> here) and a business owner unable to get the hang of editing and
> renaming something nearby by mistake.

Exactly - and on average you can assume that active mappers are usually 
careful when reverting others' work.  The on-the-ground rule usually 
gives us a very powerful tool to resolve conflicts, something that 
other communities like wikipedia lack.

And the user blocks - which are the only real power of the DWG - are 
well documented on http://www.openstreetmap.org/user_blocks

-- 
Christoph Hormann
http://www.imagico.de/

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Wikipedia/Wikidata admins cleanup

[Andy Townsend]

On 05/01/17 12:23, mi...@groundtruth.in wrote:

* Mikel Maron * +14152835207 @mikel s:mikelmaron
... As Frederik said, better reporting and processing can benefit DWG. 
This is something I want to spend time on.


I think that it's important that how we do this sort of thing as a 
project is discussed in whatever public forums are available (and right 
now the "most international" one we have is this talk list, alongside 
the other widely-used international community forums for different 
languages over at forum.osm.org such as the DE and RU forums there).


Your "Reverts should be held to the same standard as imports..." post 
above may have been something of a dog-whistle response to Frederik's 
post, but when I read things that talk about "the current revert regime" 
and say "Reverts should be held to the same standard as imports" and 
"well documented and visible plan" I read it as meaning "I want you to 
stop doing what you are currently doing in the way that you are doing 
it", and want to understand why.


I'd much rather the direction on this came from the community rather 
than the board (and yes, there will obviously be as many different views 
as there are OSM mappers).  If "the communication I've seen from 
community members making reverts has left a lot of rough feelings" then 
let's talk about it (for a start; which particular actions are we 
talking about?  Was the data that was removed added when it shouldn't 
have been (for e.g. license reasons) and are we just talking about the 
tone of the conversation, or something else?


Activities such as https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/44923663 (to 
take an example revert action from me yesterday) are going to become 
more common as more people use OSM.  In this case the sequence of events 
was detect the problem, revert the vandalism, block the user and request 
that an admin delete the account (which was created just for that 
purpose).  I'd argue that those actions (apart from block the user) 
should be able to be carried out by anyone familiar enough with OSM to 
recognise the problem, and we should actually encourage everyone in that 
position to do so - providing that they can recognise the difference 
between obvious vandalism (as happened here) and a business owner unable 
to get the hang of editing and renaming something nearby by mistake.  I 
don't think that "a well documented and visible plan" would help here, 
unless that plan said "if you see something wrong, please take 
appropriate action to fix it" (which I've always thought was the 0th 
rule of OSM anyway).  Anything too bureaucratic would just slow down the 
fixing of problems.


There are lots of interested parties in OSM - all the way from 
individuals like me who 8 years ago were just looking for somewhere to 
store stuff from an old GPS (a route of footpaths and villages across 
Wales, as it happens) up through large non-profit and for-profit 
corporations, all of whom contribute greatly to the OSM ecosystem.  On a 
personal note with the DWG I've found that the large organisations can 
generally look after themselves, and there's a role for standing up for 
the "little guy", whether it's a new mapper in an established community 
or (as in the SADR case upthread) an attempt to remove a country - for 
some definition of country - from the map.  It's important that as a 
community we talk to each other and listen to what everyone else has to 
say, especially when (as in the "wikidata" case) everyone has the best 
interests of the project at heart, just different visions of what those 
best interests are.


Best Regards,

Andy

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk