[OSM-dev] Sending messages to users
Hey all, MapRoulette has made a choice to try to collect as little data from our users as possible. We don't require a separate login other than from osm.org, we don't collect email addresses or anything else. This is good for MapRoulette users, and I think good for OSM in general that we don't have lots of separate systems. The problem is that we are needing to send messages to users. Ideally, those messages would go through osm.org. Otherwise, we have to build our own messaging system, or start collecting user information (email address, etc.). The reason I've been told that we don't allow for an API to messaging is that we don't want spam, but: 1. This is a legitimate issue, of needing to message users, both in this context and in other contexts (DWG comes to mind of a place where we would benefit from this). 2. We already have spam issues on osm.org. I clean up spam not infrequently in the form of notes, which can be anonymous, but we also get spam from signed in users, as well as profiles, etc. 3. I'm not arguing that we need to make this feature available to every single user, but it might be a nice thing to allow for some use cases as above. What do others think? - Serge ___ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
Re: [OSM-dev] Sending messages to users
Does the MapRoulette program itself log into the API with an ID? If so, it should be possible to have a category of user IDs that have the privilege of sending it through the API, without opening the door to just anyone to send messages. On May 5, 2014 8:52:43 AM CDT, Serge Wroclawski emac...@gmail.com wrote: Hey all, MapRoulette has made a choice to try to collect as little data from our users as possible. We don't require a separate login other than from osm.org, we don't collect email addresses or anything else. This is good for MapRoulette users, and I think good for OSM in general that we don't have lots of separate systems. The problem is that we are needing to send messages to users. Ideally, those messages would go through osm.org. Otherwise, we have to build our own messaging system, or start collecting user information (email address, etc.). The reason I've been told that we don't allow for an API to messaging is that we don't want spam, but: 1. This is a legitimate issue, of needing to message users, both in this context and in other contexts (DWG comes to mind of a place where we would benefit from this). 2. We already have spam issues on osm.org. I clean up spam not infrequently in the form of notes, which can be anonymous, but we also get spam from signed in users, as well as profiles, etc. 3. I'm not arguing that we need to make this feature available to every single user, but it might be a nice thing to allow for some use cases as above. What do others think? - Serge ___ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev -- John F. Eldredge -- j...@jfeldredge.com Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. ___ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
Re: [OSM-dev] Sending messages to users
On Mo, Mai 05, 2014 at 09:52:43 -0400, Serge Wroclawski wrote: MapRoulette has made a choice to try to collect as little data from our users as possible. We don't require a separate login other than from osm.org, we don't collect email addresses or anything else. Unfortunately when I wanted to try MapRoulette and had to do the OAuth thing on osm.org it asked for: * read your user preferences. * modify your user preferences. I am not sure what user preferences entails, but for me that sounds like allow to change password and allow to set home location etc. All things MapRoulette doesn't need to change. You might not use all these rights, but you are asking for it. Might be because there is no way to ask for less rights? Or maybe it is bad wording on OSMs part? But I don't give out blank cheques to everybody, so for me MapRoulette is unusable for that reason. Sorry, I highjacked your thread here, but maybe we need to think more fundamentally about what rights a random application would need and should get or not get. Jochen -- Jochen Topf joc...@remote.org http://www.jochentopf.com/ +49-721-388298 ___ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
Re: [OSM-dev] Sending messages to users
Am 05.05.2014 15:52, schrieb Serge Wroclawski: The problem is that we are needing to send messages to users. Ideally, those messages would go through osm.org. Serge, what exactly is the use case you are thinking of or better: what messages are you thinking of sending? A message API would seem to only be required if we are talking about very high volume (a lot more than the 100 or so welcome messages I send per month). I'not arguing against being able to contact mappers better, quite the contrary (I suggested the API extension which allows editors to show you how many messages you have), just need to understand what your needs are. Simon signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
Re: [OSM-dev] Sending messages to users
On 5 May 2014 15:52, Serge Wroclawski emac...@gmail.com wrote: The problem is that we are needing to send messages to users. Ideally, those messages would go through osm.org. You can try doing that with this python API, https://github.com/balrog-kun/osm-scripts/blob/master/message-py2.py. You'll be subject to the same number of messages limits as everyone else. The API may also break unanounced but it's been working for over 2 years now. Looking for some information about OSM not allowing for a messaging API I only found a mention on the 0.7 planning wiki page suggesting that a more complete functionality may be in planning. Cheers ___ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
Re: [OSM-dev] Sending messages to users
Simon, An example of the kind of thing we'd like to send messages. Sending messages that you should try a harder challenge For example, if the average time to fix a task in challenge foo is 30 seconds, and you only take 20 seconds, maybe you should try something harder Sending messages about false fixes If I claim to have fixed 2000 tasks, but then the server sees that all 2000 still remain as problems, we want to send a message This isn't an exhaustive list, but it's the kind of thing where we'd like to reach out to OSM users, and right now, there's no way to do that without implementing it ourselves. - Serge On Mon, May 5, 2014 at 10:43 AM, Simon Poole si...@poole.ch wrote: Am 05.05.2014 15:52, schrieb Serge Wroclawski: The problem is that we are needing to send messages to users. Ideally, those messages would go through osm.org. Serge, what exactly is the use case you are thinking of or better: what messages are you thinking of sending? A message API would seem to only be required if we are talking about very high volume (a lot more than the 100 or so welcome messages I send per month). I'not arguing against being able to contact mappers better, quite the contrary (I suggested the API extension which allows editors to show you how many messages you have), just need to understand what your needs are. Simon ___ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev ___ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
Re: [OSM-dev] Sending messages to users
My 2 cents: I think making permission to send mail to a user contingent on the user in question authorizing the application to do so is probably the way forward. I would suggest as a rule always making it optional for participation in any OSM related activity. Alternatively we could simply allow access to the e-mail address (as above) instead of adding a public API to the message system, there are just some privacy issues that I would see with that. Now there's the just the small matter of actually coding it Simon Am 05.05.2014 18:27, schrieb Serge Wroclawski: Simon, An example of the kind of thing we'd like to send messages. Sending messages that you should try a harder challenge For example, if the average time to fix a task in challenge foo is 30 seconds, and you only take 20 seconds, maybe you should try something harder Sending messages about false fixes If I claim to have fixed 2000 tasks, but then the server sees that all 2000 still remain as problems, we want to send a message This isn't an exhaustive list, but it's the kind of thing where we'd like to reach out to OSM users, and right now, there's no way to do that without implementing it ourselves. - Serge On Mon, May 5, 2014 at 10:43 AM, Simon Poole si...@poole.ch wrote: Am 05.05.2014 15:52, schrieb Serge Wroclawski: The problem is that we are needing to send messages to users. Ideally, those messages would go through osm.org. Serge, what exactly is the use case you are thinking of or better: what messages are you thinking of sending? A message API would seem to only be required if we are talking about very high volume (a lot more than the 100 or so welcome messages I send per month). I'not arguing against being able to contact mappers better, quite the contrary (I suggested the API extension which allows editors to show you how many messages you have), just need to understand what your needs are. Simon ___ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
Re: [OSM-dev] Sending messages to users
Hi Jochen, On 5 May 2014, at 15:16, Jochen Topf joc...@remote.org wrote: On Mo, Mai 05, 2014 at 09:52:43 -0400, Serge Wroclawski wrote: MapRoulette has made a choice to try to collect as little data from our users as possible. We don't require a separate login other than from osm.org, we don't collect email addresses or anything else. Unfortunately when I wanted to try MapRoulette and had to do the OAuth thing on osm.org it asked for: * read your user preferences. * modify your user preferences. I am not sure what user preferences entails, but for me that sounds like allow to change password and allow to set home location etc. All things MapRoulette doesn't need to change. You might not use all these rights, but you are asking for it. Might be because there is no way to ask for less rights? Or maybe it is bad wording on OSMs part? But I don't give out blank cheques to everybody, so for me MapRoulette is unusable for that reason. Sorry, I highjacked your thread here, but maybe we need to think more fundamentally about what rights a random application would need and should get or not get. The User preferences permission is for a set of key value pairs, as read and write, which is accessible to all apps. There’s currently no way to sandbox these preferences to a specific OpenID provider. They are not related to your password at all, you need to use the website for that. It will allow reading (not writing) of the data behind the following API call too: http://www.openstreetmap.org/api/0.6/user/details (login with your normal username and password). They are not related to your password at all, you need to use the website for that. Shaun ___ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
[OSM-dev] MapRoulette requests OSM permissions
There was a recent question on why MapRoulette requests user permissions. I thought I'd address that question here. This is relatively new bahvior. MapRoulette didn't always ask you to log in before using it, but we decided that we needed some kind of user authentication for a few reasons: 1. It would let us customize the experience for a user. If a user logged in, we would remember their preferences from last time 2. It would allow us to loosely associate activity in MapRoulette against a user system. For example, we'd know roughly how many users were using MapRoulette, including if there were super-mappers, or maybe super-vandals. We decided that instead of creating yet another login system, that we'd use osm.org's oauth as a sort of identifier. Since every MapRoulette user is already an OSM user, this made a lot of sense to us. It also meant that we could benefit from using osm.org But OAuth isn't an identification system. We don't know who is authenticated when they log into osm.org- we just have an authentication token to act on their behalf. When a user is logged in, though, we can make an API call to osm.org on their behalf that provides us information about the currently logged in user, eg their username, home location (if set), language preferences, etc. Initially, we thought we would probably use osm.org's internal system of storing user data in key/value pairs to store information about the user from MapRoulette, for example, choosing which challenge they wanted to have by default, but ultimately we moved away from this choice because making the external calls to osm.org was more expensive than making local db lookups. Those preferences don't include anything like passwords, and they don't include things like your email address. In the future, MapRoulette will be doing editing, and then, like any other editor, it will need permissions for editing API calls, just like other applications do (iD, PoiPond, Level0). In our early testing, we asked for those permissions as well, becuase we knew that we'd need them one day, but we made a decision to not ask for them until we needed them (even if it meant that users would have to log back into osm.org in the future). Hope that clear's up any questions people have. - Serge ___ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
Re: [OSM-dev] Sending messages to users
-Original Message- From: Jochen Topf [mailto:joc...@remote.org] Sent: Monday, May 05, 2014 7:17 AM To: Serge Wroclawski Cc: OpenStreetMap Development Subject: Re: [OSM-dev] Sending messages to users On Mo, Mai 05, 2014 at 09:52:43 -0400, Serge Wroclawski wrote: MapRoulette has made a choice to try to collect as little data from our users as possible. We don't require a separate login other than from osm.org, we don't collect email addresses or anything else. Unfortunately when I wanted to try MapRoulette and had to do the OAuth thing on osm.org it asked for: * read your user preferences. * modify your user preferences. I am not sure what user preferences entails, but for me that sounds like allow to change password and allow to set home location etc. All things MapRoulette doesn't need to change. User preferences are arbitrary key-value pairs. I don't think it includes other things, which aren't part of the API. Preferences is reasonably clear to me, but can you suggest an alternative wording? ___ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
Re: [OSM-dev] MapRoulette requests OSM permissions
From: Serge Wroclawski [mailto:emac...@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, May 05, 2014 1:10 PM To: OpenStreetMap Development Subject: [OSM-dev] MapRoulette requests OSM permissions Initially, we thought we would probably use osm.org's internal system of storing user data in key/value pairs to store information about the user from MapRoulette, for example, choosing which challenge they wanted to have by default, but ultimately we moved away from this choice because making the external calls to osm.org was more expensive than making local db lookups. I'd suggest only doing this for preferences across multiple MapRoulette instances (MapRoulette preferences, rather than MapRoulette.org preferences) ___ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
Re: [OSM-dev] MapRoulette requests OSM permissions
Paul, MapRoulette is unconcerned about other instances, just as osm.org is unconcerned with other openstreetmap-website instances. - Serge On Mon, May 5, 2014 at 4:40 PM, Paul Norman penor...@mac.com wrote: From: Serge Wroclawski [mailto:emac...@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, May 05, 2014 1:10 PM To: OpenStreetMap Development Subject: [OSM-dev] MapRoulette requests OSM permissions Initially, we thought we would probably use osm.org's internal system of storing user data in key/value pairs to store information about the user from MapRoulette, for example, choosing which challenge they wanted to have by default, but ultimately we moved away from this choice because making the external calls to osm.org was more expensive than making local db lookups. I'd suggest only doing this for preferences across multiple MapRoulette instances (MapRoulette preferences, rather than MapRoulette.org preferences) ___ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
