Re: [Talk-us] Undiscussed mass-revert by user Nakaner-repair

[Jack Armstrong dan...@sprynet.com]

I fully support the efforts of Nakaner. There are 6-8 users creating a mess in the Denver, Colorado area.See here: https://www.openstreetmap.org/edit?node=5538075288#map=19/39.71967/-104.98736-Original Message->From: EthnicFood IsGreat <ethnicfoodisgr...@gmail.com>>Sent: Apr 22, 2018 11:28 PM>To: talk-us@openstreetmap.org>Subject: Re: [Talk-us] Undiscussed mass-revert by user Nakaner-repair>>> As a member of the US community, I'm in favor of reverting the bad >> edits, even if it removes some good contributions.>> Mark>>>> ->>>> Message: 1>> Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2018 13:27:14 + (UTC)>> From: Mikel Maron <mikel.ma...@gmail.com>>> To: Michael Reichert <osm...@michreichert.de>,  Talk-us>> 	<talk-us@openstreetmap.org>>> Subject: Re: [Talk-us] Undiscussed mass-revert by user Nakaner-repair>> Message-ID: <232049907.3007698.1524317234...@mail.yahoo.com>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8">>>>   blockquote, div.yahoo_quoted { margin-left: 0 !important; border-left:1px #715FFA solid !important; padding-left:1ex !important; background-color:white !important; } Nakaner>> This is an epic effort and appreciated.>> But there are two things that need to be cleared up.>>>   The choice was to either accept that OSM>> is overrun by a army of sockpuppets who ignore us at all or to make the>> time/money they invest into editing a waste of time/money by reverting their edits even if it removes good contributions. That's sad but what is the alternative?>>>> It's not a binary choice. The alternative is to establish good dialogue with the communities you are monitoring (the US on this case), and make sure there is awareness and buy in to your proposed action. I don't think that would be difficult or time consuming but does take consideration of other mappers in OSM who you don't regularly communicate with.>>>   There is no formal policy yet but that doesn't mean that they can do what they want to do. If it is against the interests of the community, it's against the existing unwritten rules.>> There is no such thing that gives anyone the right for large scale vigilante actions. There is enough justification to potentially take action (after discussion and with proper communication) -- sock puppets for one -- that you don't need to invoke organized editing.   If and when we do have a policy, we in the osmf will also need to develop clear guidance on how it is communicated and implemented.>>>> Mikel>>>> On Friday, April 20, 2018, 8:22 PM, Michael Reichert <osm...@michreichert.de> wrote:>>>> Hi,>>>> Am 20.04.2018 um 17:13 schrieb Ian Dees:>>> I noticed that user Nakaner-repair just reverted 1000+ changesets>>> throughout the United States without any discussion in the local community.>>> Nakaner-repair points to a thread in the German forum [0] that seems to>>> indicate that they think these edits were made by paid mappers. Having not>>> heard from those suspected paid mappers, they went ahead and reverted>>> without discussion from the local community.>> TL;DR A group of mappers (presumeably from UTC+5) started adding>> highway=service and doing wrong quality assurance on roads in Europe and>> the U.S. in mid/end of March. British and later German mappers found>> these strange edits last week, some German searched for more accounts,>> SomeoneElse and myself wrote changeset comments and SomeoneElse (DWG)>> blocked many on them.>>>> Unfortunately, the 0-hour user blocks are not as useful as they are>> usually (and I expected them to be). They have been ignored and they>> continued editing or created sockpuppets. Longer blocks were ignored and>> they continued editing after the block. Changeset comments were not>> answered or the response did not answer the question.>>>> Since this week, they don't do any QA on roads any more and only add>> highway=service in the U.S. They create new accounts if their old>> accounts are blocked. This pattern now repeats day by day and the last>> resort was to revert their work because that causes financial damage (I>> hope they get paid).>>>> Please see some inline comments/responses on Ian's questions below.>>>> ->> The full story:>>>> On 2018-03-29 Will Phillips writes to the Talk-gb mailing list that he>> observed "a series of edits with users removing or changing access and>> oneway tags". He describes the quality of these edits as "very poor". At>> that time "none of them has yet responded to ch

Re: [Talk-us] Undiscussed mass-revert by user Nakaner-repair

[EthnicFood IsGreat]

As a member of the US community, I'm in favor of reverting the bad 
edits, even if it removes some good contributions.

Mark

-

Message: 1
Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2018 13:27:14 + (UTC)
From: Mikel Maron <mikel.ma...@gmail.com>
To: Michael Reichert <osm...@michreichert.de>,  Talk-us
<talk-us@openstreetmap.org>
Subject: Re: [Talk-us] Undiscussed mass-revert by user Nakaner-repair
Message-ID: <232049907.3007698.1524317234...@mail.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

  blockquote, div.yahoo_quoted { margin-left: 0 !important; border-left:1px 
#715FFA solid !important; padding-left:1ex !important; background-color:white 
!important; } Nakaner
This is an epic effort and appreciated.
But there are two things that need to be cleared up.

  The choice was to either accept that OSM

is overrun by a army of sockpuppets who ignore us at all or to make the
time/money they invest into editing a waste of time/money by reverting their 
edits even if it removes good contributions. That's sad but what is the 
alternative?

It's not a binary choice. The alternative is to establish good dialogue with 
the communities you are monitoring (the US on this case), and make sure there 
is awareness and buy in to your proposed action. I don't think that would be 
difficult or time consuming but does take consideration of other mappers in OSM 
who you don't regularly communicate with.

  There is no formal policy yet but that doesn't mean that they can do what 
they want to do. If it is against the interests of the community, it's against 
the existing unwritten rules.

There is no such thing that gives anyone the right for large scale vigilante 
actions. There is enough justification to potentially take action (after 
discussion and with proper communication) -- sock puppets for one -- that you 
don't need to invoke organized editing.   If and when we do have a policy, we 
in the osmf will also need to develop clear guidance on how it is communicated 
and implemented.

Mikel

On Friday, April 20, 2018, 8:22 PM, Michael Reichert <osm...@michreichert.de> 
wrote:

Hi,

Am 20.04.2018 um 17:13 schrieb Ian Dees:

I noticed that user Nakaner-repair just reverted 1000+ changesets
throughout the United States without any discussion in the local community.
Nakaner-repair points to a thread in the German forum [0] that seems to
indicate that they think these edits were made by paid mappers. Having not
heard from those suspected paid mappers, they went ahead and reverted
without discussion from the local community.

TL;DR A group of mappers (presumeably from UTC+5) started adding
highway=service and doing wrong quality assurance on roads in Europe and
the U.S. in mid/end of March. British and later German mappers found
these strange edits last week, some German searched for more accounts,
SomeoneElse and myself wrote changeset comments and SomeoneElse (DWG)
blocked many on them.

Unfortunately, the 0-hour user blocks are not as useful as they are
usually (and I expected them to be). They have been ignored and they
continued editing or created sockpuppets. Longer blocks were ignored and
they continued editing after the block. Changeset comments were not
answered or the response did not answer the question.

Since this week, they don't do any QA on roads any more and only add
highway=service in the U.S. They create new accounts if their old
accounts are blocked. This pattern now repeats day by day and the last
resort was to revert their work because that causes financial damage (I
hope they get paid).

Please see some inline comments/responses on Ian's questions below.

-
The full story:

On 2018-03-29 Will Phillips writes to the Talk-gb mailing list that he
observed "a series of edits with users removing or changing access and
oneway tags". He describes the quality of these edits as "very poor". At
that time "none of them has yet responded to changeset comments".
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-gb/2018-March/021259.html

SomeoneElse suggests him to write an email to d...@osmfoundation.org
(the DWG).
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-gb/2018-March/021260.html

I am not subscribed to Talk-gb and did not notice it at that time.

On 2018-04-09 tux67 creates a new thread on the German forum because he
found two users (sri_harsha and Premsakhare) editing roads globally
without local knowledge. He asks other mappers to review their edits.
https://forum.openstreetmap.org/viewtopic.php?pid=693849#p693849
(contains changeset links)

Premsakhare had received multiple (!) user blocks at that time. The
oldes block was created after the discussion on Talk-gb.
https://www.openstreetmap.org/user_blocks/1831
He had been blocked because he did not answer changeset comments asking
for the sources being used. The block was removed automatically when
Premsa

Re: [Talk-us] Undiscussed mass-revert by user Nakaner-repair

[Mikel Maron]

 blockquote, div.yahoo_quoted { margin-left: 0 !important; border-left:1px 
#715FFA solid !important; padding-left:1ex !important; background-color:white 
!important; } Nakaner
This is an epic effort and appreciated.
But there are two things that need to be cleared up.
> The choice was to either accept that OSM
is overrun by a army of sockpuppets who ignore us at all or to make the
time/money they invest into editing a waste of time/money by reverting their 
edits even if it removes good contributions. That's sad but what is the 
alternative?

It's not a binary choice. The alternative is to establish good dialogue with 
the communities you are monitoring (the US on this case), and make sure there 
is awareness and buy in to your proposed action. I don't think that would be 
difficult or time consuming but does take consideration of other mappers in OSM 
who you don't regularly communicate with.
> There is no formal policy yet but that doesn't mean that they can do what 
>they want to do. If it is against the interests of the community, it's against 
>the existing unwritten rules.
There is no such thing that gives anyone the right for large scale vigilante 
actions. There is enough justification to potentially take action (after 
discussion and with proper communication) -- sock puppets for one -- that you 
don't need to invoke organized editing.   If and when we do have a policy, we 
in the osmf will also need to develop clear guidance on how it is communicated 
and implemented.

Mikel

On Friday, April 20, 2018, 8:22 PM, Michael Reichert  
wrote:

Hi,

Am 20.04.2018 um 17:13 schrieb Ian Dees:
> I noticed that user Nakaner-repair just reverted 1000+ changesets
> throughout the United States without any discussion in the local community.
> Nakaner-repair points to a thread in the German forum [0] that seems to
> indicate that they think these edits were made by paid mappers. Having not
> heard from those suspected paid mappers, they went ahead and reverted
> without discussion from the local community.

TL;DR A group of mappers (presumeably from UTC+5) started adding
highway=service and doing wrong quality assurance on roads in Europe and
the U.S. in mid/end of March. British and later German mappers found
these strange edits last week, some German searched for more accounts,
SomeoneElse and myself wrote changeset comments and SomeoneElse (DWG)
blocked many on them.

Unfortunately, the 0-hour user blocks are not as useful as they are
usually (and I expected them to be). They have been ignored and they
continued editing or created sockpuppets. Longer blocks were ignored and
they continued editing after the block. Changeset comments were not
answered or the response did not answer the question.

Since this week, they don't do any QA on roads any more and only add
highway=service in the U.S. They create new accounts if their old
accounts are blocked. This pattern now repeats day by day and the last
resort was to revert their work because that causes financial damage (I
hope they get paid).

Please see some inline comments/responses on Ian's questions below.

-
The full story:

On 2018-03-29 Will Phillips writes to the Talk-gb mailing list that he
observed "a series of edits with users removing or changing access and
oneway tags". He describes the quality of these edits as "very poor". At
that time "none of them has yet responded to changeset comments".
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-gb/2018-March/021259.html

SomeoneElse suggests him to write an email to d...@osmfoundation.org
(the DWG).
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-gb/2018-March/021260.html

I am not subscribed to Talk-gb and did not notice it at that time.

On 2018-04-09 tux67 creates a new thread on the German forum because he
found two users (sri_harsha and Premsakhare) editing roads globally
without local knowledge. He asks other mappers to review their edits.
https://forum.openstreetmap.org/viewtopic.php?pid=693849#p693849
(contains changeset links)

Premsakhare had received multiple (!) user blocks at that time. The
oldes block was created after the discussion on Talk-gb.
https://www.openstreetmap.org/user_blocks/1831
He had been blocked because he did not answer changeset comments asking
for the sources being used. The block was removed automatically when
Premsakhare read it. Premsakhare uploaded more changesets but did not
answer the question, SomeoneElse blocked him again, the block expired,
Premsakhare started editing again, SomeoneElse blocked him again, …
https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Premsakhare/blocks

One hour after tux67's posting on the German forum, user whb commented
that he observed multiple mappers editing roads and intersections
without local knowledge. He found patterns (editor, locale, mapped
features) making it possible to group them. He suspected that they are
accounts of employees of "Mapbox or at least any other company".

Re: [Talk-us] Undiscussed mass-revert by user Nakaner-repair

[Tod Fitch]

Thank you Michael for your thorough history of the situation. I think it
clearly explains what has happened and is still happening.

I personally am not sure how to go forward. I suppose that there will
always be mappers who are not following good practices and I suppose
that those who are paid to map are likely to create new accounts and
continue regardless of the negative feedback they receive.

I am not too worried about this type of activity occurring near me as I
have RSS feeds setup to monitor changes and have no reservations about
cleaning up after obviously bad edits especially after posting a change
set comment and getting no response.

That may also be true of other areas that may be affected, but there are
large swaths of the US where the mapping community is thin and nobody is
performing a oversight function. So relying on local mappers to perform
QA is not, at present, a viable path forward.

And, basically the mappers in GB and DE who detected the issue were
performing a QA function. Since the mapping community in those countries
is larger and stronger it does not surprise me that this issue was
detected there first.

It seems a project wide method for reducing this type of activity is
in order. I am not worried about paid versus volunteer: I couldn’t care
less if a mapper is paid as long as they make good edits.

I will be traveling to northern India in a while and, as usual when
traveling to a place I haven’t been before, I have taken a look at maps
based on OSM to get a feel for the area. My impression is that the
completeness and accuracy of OSM data in that area is worse than where I
live and usually map.

This gave me the idea that maybe a way to get new mappers, paid or
volunteer, to learn the craft might be to restrict them to editing only
in the geographical area their registration IP address indicates they
are in until they have some number of edits. In this case that would
mean they’d be editing in India or Pakistan until they’ve got some
experience. Two birds with one stone as it were: First their local area
would become better mapped. And second, when they start editing in more
distant regions they might value the account they worked to setup enough
to respond to comments, etc. so that it won’t be blocked.

Within the OSM profile is a field for where you are located. If the IP
address is not feasible, we could restrict edits to a radius around the
declared location and not allow the location to be changed frequently.

I suppose the HOT team might not like that setup as it would cut into
their new volunteer base. But perhaps any geographical restriction on
editing could be cut short if the new mapper has an experienced mapper
who is listed as a mentor.

Just tossing out ideas for a possible general case solution. Feel free
to shoot them all down. :)

-Tod
n76 on OSM

> On Apr 20, 2018, at 4:00 PM, Michael Reichert  wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Am 20.04.2018 um 17:13 schrieb Ian Dees:
>> I noticed that user Nakaner-repair just reverted 1000+ changesets
>> throughout the United States without any discussion in the local community.
>> Nakaner-repair points to a thread in the German forum [0] that seems to
>> indicate that they think these edits were made by paid mappers. Having not
>> heard from those suspected paid mappers, they went ahead and reverted
>> without discussion from the local community.
> 
> TL;DR A group of mappers (presumeably from UTC+5) started adding
> highway=service and doing wrong quality assurance on roads in Europe and
> the U.S. in mid/end of March. British and later German mappers found
> these strange edits last week, some German searched for more accounts,
> SomeoneElse and myself wrote changeset comments and SomeoneElse (DWG)
> blocked many on them.
> 
> Unfortunately, the 0-hour user blocks are not as useful as they are
> usually (and I expected them to be). They have been ignored and they
> continued editing or created sockpuppets. Longer blocks were ignored and
> they continued editing after the block. Changeset comments were not
> answered or the response did not answer the question.
> 
> Since this week, they don't do any QA on roads any more and only add
> highway=service in the U.S. They create new accounts if their old
> accounts are blocked. This pattern now repeats day by day and the last
> resort was to revert their work because that causes financial damage (I
> hope they get paid).
> 
> Please see some inline comments/responses on Ian's questions below.
> 
> -
> The full story:
> 
> On 2018-03-29 Will Phillips writes to the Talk-gb mailing list that he
> observed "a series of edits with users removing or changing access and
> oneway tags". He describes the quality of these edits as "very poor". At
> that time "none of them has yet responded to changeset comments".
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-gb/2018-March/021259.html
> 
> SomeoneElse suggests him to write an email to d...@osmfoundation.org

Re: [Talk-us] Undiscussed mass-revert by user Nakaner-repair

[Andy Townsend]

On 20/04/2018 16:13, Ian Dees wrote:


Some questions:

Was this action made under the auspices of the Data Working Group?


No


Has the "directed mapping" policy been approved by the OSMF?


No, although the refusal to interact with other mappers and the mass 
creation of sock-puppet accounts to avoid doing so would I think qualify 
under the ban policy https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Ban_Policy .


To be clear - there are a number of different mappers here.  They appear 
to be using the same customised copy of iD; we don't know what imagery 
they're using or whether it's licence-compatible with OSM (I suspect 
based on comments that at least some isn't, but can't be sure).  The 
mappers involved have been less than informative about who they're 
working for (of course, they may not actually know who this is - I'm 
guessing that this is organised through a "mechanical turk"-type site).  
They should, at least, be able to say what rules they are following 
though - and none of them that I have seen has given a reply that 
explains that yet (see for example 
https://openstreetmap.org/changeset/58023538 ).


Throughout this process I've tried to engage with each of the mappers 
involved (see the top of 
http://resultmaps.neis-one.org/osm-discussion-comments?uid=61942 
for examples) but have generally failed to do so.


Their changes have been of mostly two sorts - "fixing routing problems" 
and "missing service roads".  The "fixing routing problems" was reported 
on talk-gb initially where at a guess 80% of the access changes were in 
error - a typical example is 
https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/57929974 , where an access 
restriction was changed because whatever rules they were following 
simply did not understand it.  The German forum thread also found many 
issues caused by "fixing routing problems" in Germany.


The US situation is of course different - there are few access 
restrictions that might impede motor traffic mapped (and probably fewer 
physically per mile of road too).  Many more of the US edits were of the 
"missing service roads" type, and there's generally less to go wrong 
there (although these do still warrant checking - I suspect that in 
https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/57730894 the assumption is that 
people drive on the left in Washington). Interestingly I note that in 
that mapper's case (see 
http://resultmaps.neis-one.org/osm-discussion-comments?uid=7511407 ) the 
revert excluded North and South America, so there are still errors 
introduced by that particular mapper than need fixing.  Other problems 
in the US include mapping roads likely to be private as 
residential/unclassified, which will cause some "interesting" routing, 
but that's a smaller subset.


One thing that would really help here would be if anyone has any idea 
who's behind this mapping to ask them to say who they are (either to the 
DWG, or to the communities in the places that they are editing).  Given 
the concentration on places like LA and Denver it's likely to be someone 
who wants to do last-mile motor vehicle routing in the US.  It's clear 
that they need a bit of help about how access tags in OSM work 
(including access not for motor vehicles) and I'm sure that lots of 
people in the OSM community would like to help with that.  The current 
situation (leaving comments for mappers, having those comments ignored, 
being blocked temporarily for ignoring comments, creating sock-puppet 
accounts, rinse and repeat) is clearly not satisfactory.


Best Regards,

Andy


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Re: [Talk-us] Undiscussed mass-revert by user Nakaner-repair

[Christoph Hormann]

On Friday 20 April 2018, Ian Dees wrote:
>
> I'd be interested in seeing all of these reverts reverted (at least
> in the US) until discussion can take place.

I don't know about these changes or the reverts of them in detail but on 
a general note here:  If mappers find edits they consider 
questionable - either factually or methodologically - and attempts to 
get in contact with the mapper making those edits fail it is commonly 
accepted practice that mappers can revert such changes.  This happens 
every day many times all over the world and is a good way to reduce the 
workload of the DWG by not getting them involved in all the small 
matters mappers can resolve between each other.

OTOH reverting an edit, even if that edit itself is a revert, without 
trying to discuss it with the mapper making it, is generally not 
considered to be acceptable.

I don't want to assess Nakaner's edits with that but your call for a 
blanket revert of them without a previous discussion giving him the 
chance to explain his intentions with those edits and their merit would 
not be in line with established practice in OSM.

If what the discussion on the German forum indicates is accurate, i.e. 
that there is a group of mappers performing organized edits which 
reject attempts to contact them and evade blocks established to ensure 
they do not continue without getting in contact with the community by 
creating sockpuppet accounts, i am pretty sure the local US community 
does not want this to continue in their domain and how to best 
accompish that would be a good subject of discussion.

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

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[Talk-us] Undiscussed mass-revert by user Nakaner-repair

[Ian Dees]

Hi All,

I noticed that user Nakaner-repair just reverted 1000+ changesets
throughout the United States without any discussion in the local community.
Nakaner-repair points to a thread in the German forum [0] that seems to
indicate that they think these edits were made by paid mappers. Having not
heard from those suspected paid mappers, they went ahead and reverted
without discussion from the local community.

Some questions:

Was this action made under the auspices of the Data Working Group?
Has the "directed mapping" policy been approved by the OSMF?

I'd be interested in seeing all of these reverts reverted (at least in the
US) until discussion can take place.

-Ian

[0] https://forum.openstreetmap.org/viewtopic.php?id=61964
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