It's a shame that this happened, ideally it shouldn't and it should be
be fixed faster. But I don't think we should give up the "wiki" aspect.
Everyone, even new users, should be able to edit the "live" database.
Which yes, will have disadvantages.
But the advantage is that we get a free, global map. IMO new users being
able to see their changes on the map is very powerful, and makes them
more likely to continue to edit. I don't think we would have the map we
have today if people needed to be approved by those in power already. I
don't like the idea of a cabal having the ability to approve/deny
edits.
On 16.03.2017 14:47, Manohar Erikipati wrote:
Hi all,
Last saturday, Central park in New York City was vandalized by a new OSM user
`Meowthreetimes` in all the map edits:
- 46756622 introduced a fictional lake inside Central park
https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/46756622
- 46756461 renamed Central park in
https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/427818536/history
- 46756506 introduced a fictional lake near Fort worth Dallas
http://www.openstreetmap.org/way/479837732/history
It took 2 days for the edits to be noticed and reverted on one of the most
popular locations in the world.
This was possibly preventable with a more active mapping community, but a
previous incident [1] highlights how simple cases like dragged ways can stay
around the map for months under the eyes of local mappers. The current strategy
of leaving changeset comments to users to prevent bad edits does not scale,
especially if the mappers do not read messages like Maps.me editors [2], or if
there are no expert mappers in the area who are knowledgeable in reporting and
reverting changes.
Thinking out loud on how we could better improve the current process to act on
bad edits:
- DWG currently acts promptly on incidents reported via email, but we need a
more accessible mechanism that allows new users to report such incidents
directly from the website or editors. The email details and existence of DWG,
is only available currently in the wiki [3]
- Auto-blocking known vandals to prevent repeated attacks [4]
- An organised repository to report and learn from previous attacks. There
seems to have been an effort to do this many years ago on the wiki [5]
- More visibility, awareness of QA tools and history tab on the OSM homepage.
Most of the really powerful QA tools like osmhv and osmose are only known to
advanced users.
It would be great to hear more approaches that could protect the map against
common mistakes and intentional attacks. Much of the world lacks an active
mapping community, so it is up to a small set of power mappers to catch and
revert most of the bad edits [6]. Building better support systems to respond to
bad edits could help more experienced mappers focus on community building
activities.
[1] https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/PlaneMad/diary/40491
[2] https://github.com/mapsme/omim/issues/4188
[3] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Vandalism
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Autoblock
[5] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/List_of_Vandalism_Changesets
[6]
http://osmcha.mapbox.com/?usernames=woodpeck_repair%2C+zool%2C+SomeoneElse_Revert%2C+mavl%2C+pnorman_mechanical%2C+_sev%2C+OSMF+Data+Working+Group%2C+Peda%2C+FTA_dwg%2C+Deanna+Earley%2C+Firefishy_repair%2C+drolbr%2C+emacsen_dwg%2C+sly&is_suspect=False&is_whitelisted=All&checked=False
Best,
Manohar Erikipati
osm : manoharuss
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