I'm wondering what is the best approach to take with a relatively recent
contributor to OpenStreetMap. Since joining they've made a large number
of edits geographically spread across England. Unfortunately, most of
these edits seem at odds with previous on-the-ground surveys.
Examples of problems include include:
(I'll not include actual examples on a public mailing list at this stage)
o removing previously on-the-ground surveyed tags such as "surface",
"designation" (especially where it might preclude motor vehicle access),
and changes of "highway=bridleway" to "highway=track" (presumably to
encourage vehicle access).
o adding "designation=byway_open_to_all_traffic" where it either isn't
signed on the ground or is signed as something else (e.g. bridleway)
o merging ways together with differing tags resulting in e.g.
"surface=x;y;x" and "layer=1" from a merged bridge.
o adding data with incompatible tags such as "designation =
byway_open_to_all_traffic", "source = NPE"
I've been in contact with the mapper concerned about these problems
several times over the past month, trying to be friendly and helpful, as
would only be fair to a new mapper. Answers I received about the
"designation" tagging included things like "included on Notts CC's
definitive map as a byway" and "from a Definitive map modification order
from 2006" (in both cases I asked about verifiability and licence
suitability but received no further reply). I've not received a reply
about the bridleway-to-track changes, and problematical edits are still
being made.
My concern about the designation changes is obviously that they've been
copied from another source that might not be licence-compatible. The
removal of existing tags is a different problem, that of deleting
people's previous hard work (where ways have been merged and
subsequently re-edited it's not straightforward just to add back
previous tags).
What would people recommend as the next step?
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Vandalism
and
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Data_working_group
would suggest "try and sort it out within the community first, then
raise it with the DWG" which makes sense. My messages haven't had any
noticeable affect, but perhaps more voices would? Any other suggestions?
Cheers,
Andy
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