Re: [Talk-GB] Reverting all Liam123's edits

[Mark Williams]

Chris Fleming wrote:
> On 21/07/09 16:39, Mark Williams wrote:
>> My 2p;
>>
>> He has been very active around "my" area and I have had to put in some
>> work righting wrongs; there are more out there than I have fixed&  I
>> believe the original was better than the fixed version in some cases.
>> Although some of my time has gone into re-edits, I would prefer to see
>> him reverted completely. If I lose an occasional addition, it will be
>> worth it.
>>
>> If he's a bored teenager in London, there's a Dartford mapping party
>> coming up next weekend; I'll even offer a lift&/or mentoring! It's the
>> summer holidays now so if he likes b*ggering about in OSM, the next 6
>> weeks could be problematic! If he's not interested in being
>> constructive, +1 for a ban.
>>
> I wonder if some kind of soft ban might be a good way to deal with this. 
> The idea being that the next time the user logs in they are presented 
> with a message to the extent that there has been some concern over their 
> edits, with some kind of explanation of what they have done and a offer 
> of assistance. And a warning that further unwarranted edits might lead 
> to further action and an Agree and Continue button.
> 
> If further edits are still not productive then we would have a clear 
> audit of a warning being issues and assistance being offered.
> 
> Cheers
> Chris
> 
> _

+1, nice idea if it's technically possible - otherwise a warning to his 
inbox will be emailed to him, but I gather he has already been contacted 
anyway.

Mark


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Re: [Talk-GB] Reverting all Liam123's edits

[Chris Fleming]

On 21/07/09 16:39, Mark Williams wrote:
> My 2p;
>
> He has been very active around "my" area and I have had to put in some
> work righting wrongs; there are more out there than I have fixed&  I
> believe the original was better than the fixed version in some cases.
> Although some of my time has gone into re-edits, I would prefer to see
> him reverted completely. If I lose an occasional addition, it will be
> worth it.
>
> If he's a bored teenager in London, there's a Dartford mapping party
> coming up next weekend; I'll even offer a lift&/or mentoring! It's the
> summer holidays now so if he likes b*ggering about in OSM, the next 6
> weeks could be problematic! If he's not interested in being
> constructive, +1 for a ban.
>
I wonder if some kind of soft ban might be a good way to deal with this. 
The idea being that the next time the user logs in they are presented 
with a message to the extent that there has been some concern over their 
edits, with some kind of explanation of what they have done and a offer 
of assistance. And a warning that further unwarranted edits might lead 
to further action and an Agree and Continue button.

If further edits are still not productive then we would have a clear 
audit of a warning being issues and assistance being offered.

Cheers
Chris

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Re: [Talk-GB] Reverting all Liam123's edits

[Mark Williams]

Tom Hughes wrote:
> On 21/07/09 14:02, Steve Hill wrote:
> 
>> Some thoughts on sensible protections which could be implemented in the
>> future:
>> 1. The ability to ban a user from editing.
> 
> This would be easy to add - at the moment we have to lock the account 
> completely.
> 
>> 2. The ability to ban an IP address or range of IP addresses from editing
>> (this is extreme).
> 
> This one would be easy to add but pointless when we can do (1) and (3).
> 
>> 3. The ability to ban user creation from an IP address or range of IP
>> addresses.
> 
> This one already exists, but has never been used to date.
> 
> Tom
> 

My 2p;

He has been very active around "my" area and I have had to put in some 
work righting wrongs; there are more out there than I have fixed & I 
believe the original was better than the fixed version in some cases.
Although some of my time has gone into re-edits, I would prefer to see 
him reverted completely. If I lose an occasional addition, it will be 
worth it.

If he's a bored teenager in London, there's a Dartford mapping party 
coming up next weekend; I'll even offer a lift &/or mentoring! It's the 
summer holidays now so if he likes b*ggering about in OSM, the next 6 
weeks could be problematic! If he's not interested in being 
constructive, +1 for a ban.

Mark
S.W.Essex


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Re: [Talk-GB] Reverting all Liam123's edits

[Tom Hughes]

On 21/07/09 14:02, Steve Hill wrote:

> Some thoughts on sensible protections which could be implemented in the
> future:
> 1. The ability to ban a user from editing.

This would be easy to add - at the moment we have to lock the account 
completely.

> 2. The ability to ban an IP address or range of IP addresses from editing
> (this is extreme).

This one would be easy to add but pointless when we can do (1) and (3).

> 3. The ability to ban user creation from an IP address or range of IP
> addresses.

This one already exists, but has never been used to date.

Tom

-- 
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http://www.compton.nu/

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Re: [Talk-GB] Reverting all Liam123's edits

[Steve Hill]

On Tue, 21 Jul 2009, Chris Fleming wrote:

> It's also worth noting that if we ban him he may just go and open a new
> account and continue... at least now we know what to keep an eye on.

This is true.  But it might also draw his attention to the problem and be 
the end of the matter.

Some thoughts on sensible protections which could be implemented in the 
future:
1. The ability to ban a user from editing.
2. The ability to ban an IP address or range of IP addresses from editing 
(this is extreme).
3. The ability to ban user creation from an IP address or range of IP 
addresses.

At least (2) and (3) need to be time limited - we can't really justify 
banning indefinately based on IP address.  And of course, any kind of ban 
is a pretty extreme act so needs some kind of consensus that it is the 
right course of action.

I also agree that it would be nice to be able to monitor an area for edits 
from "untrusted" users so that both new users and vandals can be quickly 
spotted (vandals so that their acts can be monitored and reverted as 
appropriate, new users so that they can be helped).

  - Steve
xmpp:st...@nexusuk.org   sip:st...@nexusuk.org   http://www.nexusuk.org/

  Servatis a periculum, servatis a maleficum - Whisper, Evanescence


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Re: [Talk-GB] Reverting all Liam123's edits

[Chris Fleming]

On 21/07/09 10:26, Tom Hughes wrote:
> On 21/07/09 10:05, Alice Kaerast wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 21 Jul 2009 10:00:25 +0100 (BST)
>> Steve Hill   wrote:
>>
>>  
>>> If there is a user who (by general consensus) is making nonsense
>>> edits and is continuing to do so after having been taken to task by
>>> email, I would have thought the first thing to do is to ban the user
>>> from making edits before considering what to do about the edits they
>>> have already made. Bonus points for being able to display a message
>>> explaining *why* they've been banned when they next try to edit
>>> stuff, with details of who to contact to resolve the situation.
>>>
>> That's the most sense anybody has spoken on this so far!  Clearly the
>> user needs banning from making edits until we decide whether or not to
>> revert all the edits.  I have heard nobody suggest that this user's
>> edits are not nonsense, so why are we still arguing over what to do
>> about this?!
>>  
> Well because banning people is not something we do lightly!
>
> As the person with the technical ability to do it I would generally only
> do so with the agreement of the Data Working Group - only dire
> emergencies would lead me to apply a block directly without such a
> request from the appropriate body.
>
It's also worth noting that if we ban him he may just go and open a new 
account and continue... at least now we know what to keep an eye on.

Cheers
Chris



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Re: [Talk-GB] Reverting all Liam123's edits

[Peter Miller]

On 21 Jul 2009, at 12:15, David Earl wrote:

> Dave Stubbs wrote:
>> I really hope that this
>>central working group doesn't get distracted by every clown in the
>>world who messes with an area for a few hours after an evening in
>>the pub!
>> Most disappear quite happily without further interaction. The  
>> community can handle the revert.
>> It's only persistent problem users that require further attention  
>> and there have been mercifully few of them.
>
> This guy is persistent. He's done 35 changesets over about 6 weeks  
> and keeps coming back.

Ok, so who is going to press the button for us, and can then do it  
sooner rather than later?

Can we also be informed as to who we should ask to press the button in  
future to avoid having a big discussion each time?

What I propose for GB is that when someone notices a suspect set of  
edits they starts watching the users contributions and send them a  
polite message. If the edit is small in nature one just reverts the  
ways manually after an appropriate interval. If the damage is  
extensive or sustained then one need not wait for long for a response  
to the message, particularly if further damage has occurred since the  
message was sent.

If the damage is extensive one then puts an email on talk-gb and  
possibly also on regional lists asking for people's thoughts. One  
should also contact major contributors in the area affected who are  
not known to be on email lists (these major contributors can be  
established using OSM Mapper or through the OSM History tab).

Finally, assuming one gets support and consensus for the revert then  
one requests a revert from the appropriate administrator.

If further damage continues and the above is not effective then one  
might consider the need to block IP addresses or ban users then one  
should contact the Data Working Group.


Regards,


Peter Miller


>
> David
>


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Re: [Talk-GB] Reverting all Liam123's edits

[David Earl]

Dave Stubbs wrote:
> I really hope that this
> central working group doesn't get distracted by every clown in the
> world who messes with an area for a few hours after an evening in
> the pub!
> 
> Most disappear quite happily without further interaction. The community 
> can handle the revert.
> It's only persistent problem users that require further attention and 
> there have been mercifully few of them.

This guy is persistent. He's done 35 changesets over about 6 weeks and 
keeps coming back.

David


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Re: [Talk-GB] Reverting all Liam123's edits

[Dave Stubbs]

On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 10:44 AM, Peter Miller wrote:

>
> On 21 Jul 2009, at 10:24, Tom Hughes wrote:
>
>  On 21/07/09 10:10, Peter Miller wrote:
>>
>>  I am not hearing anyone saying we should not revert all Liam123's edits
>>> for which he is still the most recent editor. Can someone do it?
>>>
>>
>> That will be up to the Data Working Group surely?
>>
>
>
> Possibly.
>
>
>>  Should we set up a vandalism response process and team for England, or
>>> the East of England, GB or UK which can deal with UK related vandalism?
>>> One reason for doing this on at a territorial level is because issues
>>> will be different in different territories - the middle east and Cyprus
>>> have different issues from this part of the wold. Possibly we start with
>>> the GB area (to match with talk-gb) and then consider breaking it out to
>>> England, Scotland and Wales at a later point if necessary and possibly
>>> into regions but only if there is a good reason.
>>>
>>
>> It's called the Data Working Group and it already exists and is due to
>> meet in the near future - I assume this will be on the agenda.
>>
>
> Thanks Tom.
>
> The vandalism page says one should (
> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Vandalism):-
> " 1. Make direct human contact. Be polite and assume the best. Wait
> adequate time for response. This is always the first course of action.
> "2. Consult with lists and/or trusted individuals and the local community
> to examine problem. If necessary the data working group will help identify
> "investigators" within the community who can research the issues.
> "3. Report vandalism to the data working group (d...@osmfoundation.org).
> This should be the last resort!
>
> Fyi, we have done 1. We are in the process of doing 2. We should then do 3,
> but only after we have agreement on 2. I think we are also talking about how
> we should "Consult with lists and/or trusted individuals and the local
> community to examine problem" in the UK in the future to quickly get to the
> point where we agree a revert is needed.
>
> My intention would be that it should then be pretty much a matter of
> pressing the 'revert' button by someone in the data group after the local
> group has reached agreement.
>
> I would hope that the revert could happen within hours of the report - it
> should not required to wait for a meeting by which time the vandalism will
> have filtered out onto the rendering and into weekly planet files etc etc.
>


There's no need for the data group to do the revert. No special permissions
are used, no super db access rights or anything.
We'd just use the same scripts as are currently available in svn.
When copyright isn't an issue, and the scale is small, it can easily be
handled by the community.

The only area where the data group needs to get involved is if a user needs
banning or there's some massive war going on.



>
> I suggest that most of the work of the Data Working Group will be dealing
> with complex issues with potential mass copyright infringement or
> robot-based mass damage. I really hope that this central working group
> doesn't get distracted by every clown in the world who messes with an area
> for a few hours after an evening in the pub!



Most disappear quite happily without further interaction. The community can
handle the revert.
It's only persistent problem users that require further attention and there
have been mercifully few of them.


Dave
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Re: [Talk-GB] Reverting all Liam123's edits

[Peter Childs]

2009/7/21 Tom Hughes :

>
> I'm still not clear on what this user has been doing and what the
> evidence is that it is indeed malicious. This whole thread started with
> the statement that "Liam123 is still active unfortunately" which implies
> there is some history, but I have no memory of that history and there
> doesn't seem to have been any clear statement in this thread of what he
> has been doing and why it is thought to be malicious.
>

Problem was first reported on this List 11th June 2009 Thread Subject:
Vandalism in Kent/London area So its on-going now for the last 6
Weeks.

Peter.

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Re: [Talk-GB] Reverting all Liam123's edits

[Peter Miller]

On 21 Jul 2009, at 10:24, Tom Hughes wrote:

> On 21/07/09 10:10, Peter Miller wrote:
>
>> I am not hearing anyone saying we should not revert all Liam123's  
>> edits
>> for which he is still the most recent editor. Can someone do it?
>
> That will be up to the Data Working Group surely?


Possibly.

>
>> Should we set up a vandalism response process and team for England,  
>> or
>> the East of England, GB or UK which can deal with UK related  
>> vandalism?
>> One reason for doing this on at a territorial level is because issues
>> will be different in different territories - the middle east and  
>> Cyprus
>> have different issues from this part of the wold. Possibly we start  
>> with
>> the GB area (to match with talk-gb) and then consider breaking it  
>> out to
>> England, Scotland and Wales at a later point if necessary and  
>> possibly
>> into regions but only if there is a good reason.
>
> It's called the Data Working Group and it already exists and is due  
> to meet in the near future - I assume this will be on the agenda.

Thanks Tom.

The vandalism page says one should 
(http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Vandalism):-
" 1. Make direct human contact. Be polite and assume the best. Wait  
adequate time for response. This is always the first course of action.
"2. Consult with lists and/or trusted individuals and the local  
community to examine problem. If necessary the data working group will  
help identify "investigators" within the community who can research  
the issues.
"3. Report vandalism to the data working group  
(d...@osmfoundation.org). This should be the last resort!

Fyi, we have done 1. We are in the process of doing 2. We should then  
do 3, but only after we have agreement on 2. I think we are also  
talking about how we should "Consult with lists and/or trusted  
individuals and the local community to examine problem" in the UK in  
the future to quickly get to the point where we agree a revert is  
needed.

My intention would be that it should then be pretty much a matter of  
pressing the 'revert' button by someone in the data group after the  
local group has reached agreement.

I would hope that the revert could happen within hours of the report -  
it should not required to wait for a meeting by which time the  
vandalism will have filtered out onto the rendering and into weekly  
planet files etc etc.

I suggest that most of the work of the Data Working Group will be  
dealing with complex issues with potential mass copyright infringement  
or robot-based mass damage. I really hope that this central working  
group doesn't get distracted by every clown in the world who messes  
with an area for a few hours after an evening in the pub!

Btw, would it be worth creating a 'Data Working Group' wiki page (I  
think this is slightly different from vandalism) and there is  
currently no wiki page for it that I can find.



Regards,



peter



>
>> To be clear, we should only apply a revert to malicious edits;  
>> newbies
>> errors should be tweeked and dealt with much more sensitively  
>> (speaking
>> as one who has broken the coastline and sunk the east coast on more  
>> than
>> one occasion).
>
> I'm still not clear on what this user has been doing and what the  
> evidence is that it is indeed malicious. This whole thread started  
> with the statement that "Liam123 is still active unfortunately"  
> which implies there is some history, but I have no memory of that  
> history and there doesn't seem to have been any clear statement in  
> this thread of what he has been doing and why it is thought to be  
> malicious.
>
> Tom
>
> -- 
> Tom Hughes (t...@compton.nu)
> http://www.compton.nu/


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Re: [Talk-GB] Reverting all Liam123's edits

[Tom Hughes]

On 21/07/09 10:05, Alice Kaerast wrote:

> On Tue, 21 Jul 2009 10:00:25 +0100 (BST)
> Steve Hill  wrote:
>
>> If there is a user who (by general consensus) is making nonsense
>> edits and is continuing to do so after having been taken to task by
>> email, I would have thought the first thing to do is to ban the user
>> from making edits before considering what to do about the edits they
>> have already made. Bonus points for being able to display a message
>> explaining *why* they've been banned when they next try to edit
>> stuff, with details of who to contact to resolve the situation.
>
> That's the most sense anybody has spoken on this so far!  Clearly the
> user needs banning from making edits until we decide whether or not to
> revert all the edits.  I have heard nobody suggest that this user's
> edits are not nonsense, so why are we still arguing over what to do
> about this?!

Well because banning people is not something we do lightly!

As the person with the technical ability to do it I would generally only 
do so with the agreement of the Data Working Group - only dire 
emergencies would lead me to apply a block directly without such a 
request from the appropriate body.

Tom

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Re: [Talk-GB] Reverting all Liam123's edits

[Tom Hughes]

On 21/07/09 10:10, Peter Miller wrote:

> I am not hearing anyone saying we should not revert all Liam123's edits
> for which he is still the most recent editor. Can someone do it?

That will be up to the Data Working Group surely?

> Should we set up a vandalism response process and team for England, or
> the East of England, GB or UK which can deal with UK related vandalism?
> One reason for doing this on at a territorial level is because issues
> will be different in different territories - the middle east and Cyprus
> have different issues from this part of the wold. Possibly we start with
> the GB area (to match with talk-gb) and then consider breaking it out to
> England, Scotland and Wales at a later point if necessary and possibly
> into regions but only if there is a good reason.

It's called the Data Working Group and it already exists and is due to 
meet in the near future - I assume this will be on the agenda.

> To be clear, we should only apply a revert to malicious edits; newbies
> errors should be tweeked and dealt with much more sensitively (speaking
> as one who has broken the coastline and sunk the east coast on more than
> one occasion).

I'm still not clear on what this user has been doing and what the 
evidence is that it is indeed malicious. This whole thread started with 
the statement that "Liam123 is still active unfortunately" which implies 
there is some history, but I have no memory of that history and there 
doesn't seem to have been any clear statement in this thread of what he 
has been doing and why it is thought to be malicious.

Tom

-- 
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Re: [Talk-GB] Reverting all Liam123's edits

[Peter Miller]

On 21 Jul 2009, at 10:05, Alice Kaerast wrote:

> -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
> Hash: SHA256
>
> On Tue, 21 Jul 2009 10:00:25 +0100 (BST)
> Steve Hill  wrote:
>
>
>> If there is a user who (by general consensus) is making nonsense
>> edits and is continuing to do so after having been taken to task by
>> email, I would have thought the first thing to do is to ban the user
>> from making edits before considering what to do about the edits they
>> have already made. Bonus points for being able to display a message
>> explaining *why* they've been banned when they next try to edit
>> stuff, with details of who to contact to resolve the situation.
>>
>
> That's the most sense anybody has spoken on this so far!  Clearly the
> user needs banning from making edits until we decide whether or not to
> revert all the edits.  I have heard nobody suggest that this user's
> edits are not nonsense, so why are we still arguing over what to do
> about this?!

Personally I would prefer not to ban them until we have a better  
process for dealing with vandalism and stopping malicious  
contributors- if we ban them they will probably register with a new  
user-name. I am watching Liam123 at present, but am not watching all  
new users in the South East!

I would like to have an ability to take an RSS feed for contributions  
in an area listing contributors with then ability to hide information  
from users who I have classed as 'trusted'. This would require me to  
be able to set a user's status to 'trusted' when I am happy that their  
edits are constructive. I may continue to monitor newbies who might  
need help and also potential trouble-makers.


Regards,


Peter



>
> - --
> Alice
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Re: [Talk-GB] Reverting all Liam123's edits

[Peter Miller]

On 21 Jul 2009, at 09:31, Dave Stubbs wrote:

On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 9:16 AM, David Earl > wrote:

For the record: I agree with Peter that we need to undo this user's
changes, however it is done, and that it could cause large parts of  
East
Anglia to be wiped out if data that happened to have his name on  
were to
be removed because of the license process. We need a way to deal  
with this.



You're exaggerating in this case. But if you're going down that road  
then liam123 is the least of your worries.
Anyway, that's a legal question for a license switch, and the moment  
he (or anybody else for that matter) touches a node/way/relation it  
doesn't matter how we revert, we'll still have the problem. The  
bonus of exact reverts is that they should be pretty easy to detect  
and discard, but radical changes moved roughly back might not be  
that hard.




He keeps coming back, day after day, making nonsense edits, but not  
in a

random way. It's not just scribbling.


Frederick put the revert scripts in svn a while back if you want to  
take a look.


I think this discussion is actually about the process of deciding that  
we want to make a change, not the technical ability to do so. Let's  
deal with the social side first and then do what we decide using the  
technology which is evidently available.


There seem to be two options available:

1) Revert all changes for which the vandal (whoever they are) is the  
last editor to the value before the change was made. Or...
2) Revert all ways which the vandal touch within an agreed date-range  
to the information prior to the edits even if further edits have been  
made over the top since them. To achieve this second we would need  
agreement from the people who subsequently tried to repair by hand. I  
suggest we should *not* consider this further at this point, instead  
we should watch more carefully for malicious edits, especially from  
new users, catch them more quickly and have an agreed way of getting  
consensus that a revert and do the deed prior to too much repair work  
taking place or new rendering to have be done.


I am not hearing anyone saying we should not revert all Liam123's  
edits for which he is still the most recent editor. Can someone do it?


Should we set up a vandalism response process and team for England, or  
the East of England, GB or UK which can deal with UK related  
vandalism? One reason for doing this on at a territorial level is  
because issues will be different in different territories - the middle  
east and Cyprus have different issues from this part of the wold.  
Possibly we start with the GB area (to match with talk-gb) and then  
consider breaking it out to England, Scotland and Wales at a later  
point if necessary and possibly into regions but only if there is a  
good reason.


To be clear, we should only apply a revert to malicious edits; newbies  
errors should be tweeked and dealt with much more sensitively  
(speaking as one who has broken the coastline and sunk the east coast  
on more than one occasion).


For licencing purposes I suggest we would should to recognise the  
special case where a way had been reverted to exactly what it was  
before an edit was done and then remove the person from the IPR chain  
for that way in those circumstances.



Regards,



Peter Miller





Dave




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Re: [Talk-GB] Reverting all Liam123's edits

[Alice Kaerast]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA256

On Tue, 21 Jul 2009 10:00:25 +0100 (BST)
Steve Hill  wrote:


> If there is a user who (by general consensus) is making nonsense
> edits and is continuing to do so after having been taken to task by
> email, I would have thought the first thing to do is to ban the user
> from making edits before considering what to do about the edits they
> have already made. Bonus points for being able to display a message
> explaining *why* they've been banned when they next try to edit
> stuff, with details of who to contact to resolve the situation.
> 

That's the most sense anybody has spoken on this so far!  Clearly the
user needs banning from making edits until we decide whether or not to
revert all the edits.  I have heard nobody suggest that this user's
edits are not nonsense, so why are we still arguing over what to do
about this?!

- -- 
Alice
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Re: [Talk-GB] Reverting all Liam123's edits

[Steve Hill]

On Tue, 21 Jul 2009, David Earl wrote:

> He keeps coming back, day after day, making nonsense edits, but not in a
> random way. It's not just scribbling.

(Disclaimer: I've not done any work in the areas affected, haven't looked 
at the user's edits and so have no specific opinion on whether the user is 
in the wrong or not).

If there is a user who (by general consensus) is making nonsense edits and 
is continuing to do so after having been taken to task by email, I would 
have thought the first thing to do is to ban the user from making edits 
before considering what to do about the edits they have already made. 
Bonus points for being able to display a message explaining *why* they've 
been banned when they next try to edit stuff, with details of who to 
contact to resolve the situation.

If you just revert all the user's edits without doing something about the 
ongoing problem, you're just going to end up with a whole load of more 
edits that need reverting in the future.

  - Steve
xmpp:st...@nexusuk.org   sip:st...@nexusuk.org   http://www.nexusuk.org/

  Servatis a periculum, servatis a maleficum - Whisper, Evanescence


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Re: [Talk-GB] Reverting all Liam123's edits

[Dave Stubbs]

On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 9:16 AM, David Earl wrote:

> For the record: I agree with Peter that we need to undo this user's
> changes, however it is done, and that it could cause large parts of East
> Anglia to be wiped out if data that happened to have his name on were to
> be removed because of the license process. We need a way to deal with this.
>


You're exaggerating in this case. But if you're going down that road then
liam123 is the least of your worries.
Anyway, that's a legal question for a license switch, and the moment he (or
anybody else for that matter) touches a node/way/relation it doesn't matter
how we revert, we'll still have the problem. The bonus of exact reverts is
that they should be pretty easy to detect and discard, but radical changes
moved roughly back might not be that hard.



> He keeps coming back, day after day, making nonsense edits, but not in a
> random way. It's not just scribbling.
>
>
Frederick put the revert scripts in svn a while back if you want to take a
look.

Dave
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Re: [Talk-GB] Reverting all Liam123's edits

[David Earl]

For the record: I agree with Peter that we need to undo this user's 
changes, however it is done, and that it could cause large parts of East 
Anglia to be wiped out if data that happened to have his name on were to 
be removed because of the license process. We need a way to deal with this.

He keeps coming back, day after day, making nonsense edits, but not in a 
random way. It's not just scribbling.

David

Peter Miller wrote:
> On 20 Jul 2009, at 22:32, Frederik Ramm wrote:
> 
>> Hi,
>>
>> Peter Miller wrote:
>>> My reasoning is firstly many of his edits are clearly just plain  
>>> wrong  and are certainly breaking previously good maps. Secondly  
>>> that he has  failed to respond to a polite message asking him for  
>>> an explanation.  Thirdly, given that he is not responding to  
>>> messages he is unlikely to  agree to the new license!
>> I cannot say anything about #1 and #2, but #3 must not come into the  
>> picture. It would be absolutely wrong to judge someone's  
>> contribution today, even if only in an ancillary way, based on  
>> whether or not he is likely to agree to some new license which we're  
>> not even sure will ever be implemented.
> 
> That was not my point which was that there are two ways to removed  
> vandalism once one has determined that it is vandalism- the first is  
> to repair the damage by moving things back to where they should be and  
> re-entering the correct information in tags, the other is to revert  
> the data to before the person touched it. In the situation where there  
> is a potential license change coming up the later seems the best  
> approach once one has determined that it is vandalism.
> 
> Currently people are using a mixture of repairing the damage which  
> leaving the person in the IPR chain, and reverting ways one by one  
> which is slow. However... there is too much damage to efficiently do  
> this manually, hence my question with regard to a programatic removal  
> of the edits which I understand is possible.
> 
> To be clear, this person has probably damage about 1000 ways in ways  
> that are visible and/or damage routing. He comes back to do more work  
> from time to time and we are having difficulty agreeing to have it  
> removed.
> 
> I will ask again. Does anyone support a programatic removal of all  
> this person's edits? Does any object to a programatic removal of all  
> this person's edits. Before saying you object please check a selection  
> of his changes and note that some have been reverted already so might  
> look ok, but were not ok at the time.
> http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/liam123/edits
> 
> 
> 
> Regards,
> 
> 
> 
> Peter
> 
> 
>> Bye
>> Frederik
>>
>> -- 
>> Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frede...@remote.org  ##  N49°00'09"  
>> E008°23'33"
> 
> 
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Re: [Talk-GB] Reverting all Liam123's edits

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

Peter Miller wrote:
> there are two ways to removed vandalism [...] the first is to repair
> the damage by moving things back to where they should be and 
> re-entering the correct information in tags, the other is to revert
> the data to before the person touched it.

While it would theoretically be possible to do a "proper" revert on a 
database level, this has to my knowledge never ever been done in OSM and 
is very unlikely to be done with Liam123's edits.

Whenever we "revert" something, we actually retrieve the previous 
version from the object's history and re-upload that as a new version. 
Always.

You are right in saying that this leaves the person who has done the 
vandalism on the "history stack". The only way around this (apart from 
database-level reverts which are extremely unlikely to ever happen) is 
to delete the object and re-upload the last known good version as a new 
object. This is however difficult if you have objects referring each 
other, and also destroys the pre-vandalism history.

> Currently people are using a mixture of repairing the damage which 
> leaving the person in the IPR chain, and reverting ways one by one
> which is slow. However... there is too much damage to efficiently do
> this manually, hence my question with regard to a programatic removal
> of the edits which I understand is possible.

I have scripts to do reverts on a larger scale, and even talked about 
them in a workshop at SOTM so they're not super-secret; but they all 
operate with normal user privileges, nothing on a database level. What 
they generally do is just what I described above - retrieve a changeset, 
look at all the objects, access their history, read the last known good 
version, and upload it again. Exactly the same as someone would do with 
the "H" or "U" functions in Potlatch, just automated.

I was acutally about to offer my help with reverting Liam123's 
changeset you mentioned previously but then I saw that most of the 
changes had been manually fixed by various other users already.

> I will ask again. Does anyone support a programatic removal of all
> this person's edits? Does any object to a programatic removal of all
> this person's edits. Before saying you object please check a
> selection of his changes and note that some have been reverted
> already so might look ok, but were not ok at the time. 
> http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/liam123/edits

I can, if there is sufficient consensus, revert everything that 
currently has Liam123's name to it to the state it was in before he 
touched it (which also includes deleting things he created and 
undeleting things he deleted). Some things might not be revertable 
because others have built upon things that Liam123 has added. I could 
even, which would be more severe, revert anything he ever touched to the 
state it was in before, no matter whether someone fiddled with it 
afterwards or not. This is not by special privilege, it is a technical 
possibility open to anyone with an OSM account and sufficient scripting 
expertise.

However, this is not something that should be done lightly, and the 
project has not yet evolved ways to deal with this kind of 
decision-making. How many people would have to express support for such 
a wipe-out to make it ok? Is it sufficient to ask on the list whether 
anyone objects or is this something like the "you could have looked at 
the building plans on Alpha Centauri" in the Hitchhiker's Guide? Who, 
ultimately, decides what vandalism is, and when all avenues of 
contacting a user have been exhausted? Should not e.g. the OSMF issue a 
formal warning shot or something like that? Should the OSMF data working 
group be involved?

All these things need to be considered, especially as we'll have more 
cases of this in the future and we do not want to set a wrong precedent.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
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Re: [Talk-GB] Reverting all Liam123's edits

[Peter Miller]

On 20 Jul 2009, at 22:32, Frederik Ramm wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Peter Miller wrote:
>> My reasoning is firstly many of his edits are clearly just plain  
>> wrong  and are certainly breaking previously good maps. Secondly  
>> that he has  failed to respond to a polite message asking him for  
>> an explanation.  Thirdly, given that he is not responding to  
>> messages he is unlikely to  agree to the new license!
>
> I cannot say anything about #1 and #2, but #3 must not come into the  
> picture. It would be absolutely wrong to judge someone's  
> contribution today, even if only in an ancillary way, based on  
> whether or not he is likely to agree to some new license which we're  
> not even sure will ever be implemented.

That was not my point which was that there are two ways to removed  
vandalism once one has determined that it is vandalism- the first is  
to repair the damage by moving things back to where they should be and  
re-entering the correct information in tags, the other is to revert  
the data to before the person touched it. In the situation where there  
is a potential license change coming up the later seems the best  
approach once one has determined that it is vandalism.

Currently people are using a mixture of repairing the damage which  
leaving the person in the IPR chain, and reverting ways one by one  
which is slow. However... there is too much damage to efficiently do  
this manually, hence my question with regard to a programatic removal  
of the edits which I understand is possible.

To be clear, this person has probably damage about 1000 ways in ways  
that are visible and/or damage routing. He comes back to do more work  
from time to time and we are having difficulty agreeing to have it  
removed.

I will ask again. Does anyone support a programatic removal of all  
this person's edits? Does any object to a programatic removal of all  
this person's edits. Before saying you object please check a selection  
of his changes and note that some have been reverted already so might  
look ok, but were not ok at the time.
http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/liam123/edits



Regards,



Peter


>
> Bye
> Frederik
>
> -- 
> Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frede...@remote.org  ##  N49°00'09"  
> E008°23'33"


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Re: [Talk-GB] Reverting all Liam123's edits

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

Peter Miller wrote:
> My reasoning is firstly many of his edits are clearly just plain wrong  
> and are certainly breaking previously good maps. Secondly that he has  
> failed to respond to a polite message asking him for an explanation.  
> Thirdly, given that he is not responding to messages he is unlikely to  
> agree to the new license!

I cannot say anything about #1 and #2, but #3 must not come into the 
picture. It would be absolutely wrong to judge someone's contribution 
today, even if only in an ancillary way, based on whether or not he is 
likely to agree to some new license which we're not even sure will ever 
be implemented.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
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Re: [Talk-GB] Reverting all Liam123's edits

[WessexMario]

If you Google for 'liam123' there are lots of links and they all suggest 
a young male teenager, most likely living in the London area where he's 
editing.
The times of the majority of his edits (9-10 am) suggest boredom from 
not being at school,
http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/liam123/edits
I'd suggest he's not even aware of the chaos he's causing. because 
someone who is malicious would escalate to major deletions, he seems to 
be experimenting.
This link suggests a positive character. 
http://liam123.livejournal.com/  (presuming it's the same Liam123, it 
does fit the profile)
I'd be optimistic that he could be enticed into being constructive. the 
idea of inviting him to a mapping party might well be a constructive way 
of diverting his interest into being productive, but that migth not be 
an option if he's a minor.
Mario


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Re: [Talk-GB] Reverting all Liam123's edits

[Andy Robinson (blackadder-lists)]

Forwarded to Data@

Can you confirm what correspondence there has been with the user please.

Thanks

Andy

>-Original Message-
>From: talk-gb-boun...@openstreetmap.org [mailto:talk-gb-
>boun...@openstreetmap.org] On Behalf Of Peter Miller
>Sent: 20 July 2009 2:57 PM
>To: Talk GB
>Subject: [Talk-GB] Reverting all Liam123's edits
>
>
>I am proposing that we get all Liam123's edits removed from OSM.
>
>My reasoning is firstly many of his edits are clearly just plain wrong
>and are certainly breaking previously good maps. Secondly that he has
>failed to respond to a polite message asking him for an explanation.
>Thirdly, given that he is not responding to messages he is unlikely to
>agree to the new license!
>
>To be clear, this is likely to also result in loosing any subsequent
>work on the ways he touched. I suggest that most of these edits are
>attempts to sort out the mess anyway.
>
>Do I have some support for this?
>
>Does anyone object?
>
>
>Regards,
>
>
>
>Peter
>
>
>
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Re: [Talk-GB] Reverting all Liam123's edits

[Nicholas Barnes]

Peter Miller wrote:
> Do I have some support for this?

Yes. Definitely. I am surprised that this has not already happened.

> Does anyone object?

Probably. ;-)

Nick.


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