Re: [OSM-talk] More vandalism
Nic wrote (I think - I might have got confused by who is quoting who): Or change potlatch so that it will not delete or modify objects last edited by other users. Then it would at least be easy to delete anything they did. This couldn't work. I've modified a lot of things which have been added to the project by Potlatch users such as when tracing things from NPE (UK) or other such overlays, when I've actually travelled the route at a later date and GPS traced it. While the overlays are lined up pretty well in Potlatch and slightly less so (in my experience) in JOSM, it doesn't seem to compare with the accuracy of actually travelling a route and tracing it with GPS. An example from a journey I did at a weekend (to buy wet walnuts from a local farm, a trip I do about once a year) - when I uploaded the trace and followed it on the map I was changing (in JOSM) highway=road to a more appropriate type, splitting ways where the names changed, adding new ways that joined to existing ways (adding a node to those existing ways) or so on. If I were one of those experienced users who prefer Potlatch I'd want to be able to do all the same things. Occasionally I also find random nodes in the middle of nowhere that I delete (to be honest I may have added some of those on those few occasions I have used Potlatch when I've been trying to drag the map and messed up). Ed ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] More vandalism
I use potlatch almost exclusively (every so often, I play with merkaator), and I guess I'd just like to say that I think potlatch is the the ducks nuts. You've done a sterling job, Richard (and others, but I get the feeling the majority is still Richard slaving away making the app a fine bit of kit, with only occasional forays into the mailing list to defend the honour of potlatch), and I for one appreciate it. Given that a large chunk of the mapping I do is long 4WD tracks, potlatch really is the way to go Richard, don't let the great JOSM unwashed get you down... :) Cheers Matt vegard wrote: On Mon, Oct 13, 2008 at 11:57:08PM +0100, Richard Fairhurst wrote: While I'm here I might as well say something about the lack of a Save button. I'm not violently against the concept: I think unconvinced is perhaps the best way to describe my opinion. There are two big issues with it. One is that for edit sessions lasting more than a couple of seconds, there has to be conflict management. If you're a JOSM user, then you are de facto a clued-up, computer-savvy type, so conflict management doesn't worry you. But if you are a newbie - maybe even a schoolkid - trying just to edit your local area, then being presented with The following conflicts were detected. Accept/Resolve/Revert? will just utterly confuse you, and you'll click the wrong thing and cause more errors. Or maybe just close Potlatch and never return to OSM. Well. I'm a bit unconvinced that we need to attract everyone, even these people :) And as for schoolkids - I think even schoolkids can learn JOSM. Heck, I even have example to prove it: A 9 year old nephew that's recently started doing his own tagging in JOSM :) Of course, his father looks over the things he's done from time to time... Personally, *I* don't dare using Potlach for the lack of a save button. Yes, I'll do it for the quick change (moving a single node, changing a property) that I see while looking at the map, but not for more things. I just find it too dangerous. The second is that, in JOSM, your canvas is usually quite small - i.e. you have downloaded a particular area and are working on that exclusively. In Potlatch, because you can pan around an infinite map, your canvas may be much bigger. You may have traced a 600km cycle route (I know, I've done that! :) ) in one session. Yet you can't zoom out to see the whole thing, because requesting a 600km bounding box would break both the server and the browser. So you would be clicking Save to upload changes that you can't actually see or review, and that - in my opinion - defeats the point of it. Point taken. What worries me most, because I've seen it before, is that people are seizing on the first thing they don't like, and thinking that's the reason why there are bad edits. People used to criticise Potlatch for causing bad edits because there was no 'revert' feature, so I added a revert feature (the H key). Then they criticised Potlatch for causing bad edits because there was no 'test' mode, so I added a test mode. Then they criticised Potlatch because there was no 'splash screen' explaining things, so I added a splash screen. Now they criticise Potlatch because there's no compulsory 'save' button. Well. Yes. We critize. Based on what we see people actually manage to do despite these safety measures...Granted, I thought the test mode would help *much* more. And it helped, but not enough. Revert-button is great, but you'll have to know that you need to revert and not just quit the browser... the bad edits. The bad edits are principally because these guys are newbies. Newbies make mistakes. (Experienced users don't make mistakes with Potlatch just because it has no Save button.) *Ehem* - I don't trust myself not to :) Enough to not daring to use it for more advanced work. And in a week's time, someone would be saying Potlatch must be banned unless it has a pony (or something) and there'd be a lot of postings saying yes, the reason there are all these bad edits is BECAUSE POTLATCH HAS NO PONY. And so, a few weeks later, Potlatch would get a pony, which would make it even harder to use (ponies are quite stubborn, you know) and require newbies to learn even more, and then someone would decide on another reason for the bad edits... and so on. You are right, this is an endless task. But it's a necessary task. Bad edits are annoying as hell to the people who worked hard with them in the first time. Tools should be as foolproof as possible. And I would not too afraid to scare away someone by adding a submit button and conflict management, done wisely it need not be too annoying. But I'm no flash programmer :) And no, I don't want to ban potlach. But it needs to do more to stop the accidental bad edits :) Other than these, I have some suggestions for minor improvements that might help against some of
Re: [OSM-talk] More vandalism
Nic, I have previously reported how someone with the screen name 'thebigfatgeek' has messed up a roundabout in Pretoria. I'm sorry this happens. I would be grateful if Frederik can run his revert tool again. In fact I wouldn't mind if it's in a cron job. I am approached every now and then by people who would like something reverted. It is quite a dilemma for me, in most cases I don't even know the place or the people involved - so who am I to decide who is right and who is wrong? It is easy in cases where someone says oops I made a mistake here, can someone help fixing it. But in cases where someone says that someone else is doing bad work and that someone else is not available for comment, should I really simply remove their contributions? I don't feel I have a right to - there is no law against bad edits! I really want to do the project good, but I have a feeling that reverting edits that are considered bad by a few users is probably abusing my powers as a script writer. I would do that for an area I know and where I could conceivably also fix things by hand, but for Pretoria...? What whout the others suggest? Or do if they were me? I could of course just publish the script (those with a clue can write their own anyway), but would this perhaps run the risk of giving tools to clueless people that they cannot wield properly? Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail [EMAIL PROTECTED] ## N49°00'09 E008°23'33 ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] More vandalism
On Monday 13 October 2008 18:26:52 Frederik Ramm wrote: Nic, I have previously reported how someone with the screen name 'thebigfatgeek' has messed up a roundabout in Pretoria. I'm sorry this happens. I would be grateful if Frederik can run his revert tool again. In fact I wouldn't mind if it's in a cron job. I am approached every now and then by people who would like something reverted. It is quite a dilemma for me, in most cases I don't even know the place or the people involved - so who am I to decide who is right and who is wrong? I'm one who requested such a thing :-) (Just saying for the benefit of others who may read this.) It is easy in cases where someone says oops I made a mistake here, can someone help fixing it. But in cases where someone says that someone else is doing bad work and that someone else is not available for comment, should I really simply remove their contributions? I don't feel I have a right to - there is no law against bad edits! Problem users are problematic :-) Although we might think that admitting the mistake and asking for a reversal would be logical, these are people who are by definition careless and disrespectful of other people's work. I really want to do the project good, but I have a feeling that reverting edits that are considered bad by a few users is probably abusing my powers as a script writer. I would do that for an area I know and where I could conceivably also fix things by hand, but for Pretoria...? Some edits are clearly bad even if the region is unknown, obviously spelling and such can't be decided by someone that's not familiar with the area, but a grey area usually does have a black and a white area on each side. What whout the others suggest? Or do if they were me? I could of course just publish the script (those with a clue can write their own anyway), but would this perhaps run the risk of giving tools to clueless people that they cannot wield properly? Please don't publish them, the clueless users breaking maps might get them. generic proposal of banning potlatch :-P I think having changesets and better support for history in editors will help alleviate this issue. I don't think any action is required, other than maybe displaying a notice about this. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] More vandalism
Hi Frederik, I'm glad the issue gets to be discussed, as it will show up more and more frequently. Clearly we need some conflict resolution rules (similar to wikipedia's 3 revert rule), oversight and dispute resolution. We need to strike a balance between giving new users the benefit of the doubt while not tying down experienced users with the boring work of explaining themselves and revisiting previously mapped locations. In this case my traces prove that I have visited the bridle way that he changed to residential during the last 3 months. http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Nic%20Roets/traces/197038 Unfortunately he also combined a footway and a residential road (that should not be combined!) in another city (Potchefstroom). Once again my traces indicate that I visited the location during the last 5 months : http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Nic%20Roets/traces/104661 Getting someone from OSM-ZA to visit those locations to resolve the dispute seems counter productive. Grant Slater messaged him regarding some of this other mistakes he made and did not receive a reply. A google search of the user indicates that he's a South African called Pieter Du Preez now living the UK. So his mischief may not be limited to South Africa :-(. Like you, I don't feel like the data I contributed is my data. And I don't need the Pretoria map for navigation or professional work. So there is really no incentive for me to clean up after this guy. It's just my opinion that OSM will benefit if all his contributions after October 5 were reverted. Matias wrote : generic proposal of banning potlatch :-P Or change potlatch so that it will not delete or modify objects last edited by other users. Then it would at least be easy to delete anything they did. I think having changesets ... will help alleviate this issue. Changesets wouldn't do much. According to itoworld, this user had many sessions. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] More vandalism
Nic Roets wrote: Or change potlatch so that it will not delete or modify objects last edited by other users. Then it would at least be easy to delete anything they did. Tell you what, let's completely ban all editors - that'll eliminate the risk of vandalism. Richard ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] More vandalism
On Monday 13 October 2008 20:19:38 Nic Roets wrote: Hi Frederik, I'm glad the issue gets to be discussed, as it will show up more and more frequently. Clearly we need some conflict resolution rules (similar to wikipedia's 3 revert rule), oversight and dispute resolution. We need to strike a balance between giving new users the benefit of the doubt while not tying down experienced users with the boring work of explaining themselves and revisiting previously mapped locations. Matias wrote : generic proposal of banning potlatch :-P Or change potlatch so that it will not delete or modify objects last edited by other users. Then it would at least be easy to delete anything they did. It would also make it useless. Proper history support would make it easy to revert someone's changes. Maybe a 5/10 minute interactive tutorial the first time one uses potlatch would solve the issue of Iwannaeditnow users. Since anonymous editing is not allowed, people would only have to do it once, I don't think it would be too annoying. Of course, implementing this is the issue :-) I think having changesets ... will help alleviate this issue. Changesets wouldn't do much. According to itoworld, this user had many sessions. It would help in other cases, though. There is no silver bullet for anything (well, except for hunting werewolves). ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] More vandalism
On Mon, Oct 13, 2008 at 11:34:34PM +0100, Richard Fairhurst wrote: Nic Roets wrote: Or change potlatch so that it will not delete or modify objects last edited by other users. Then it would at least be easy to delete anything they did. Tell you what, let's completely ban all editors - that'll eliminate the risk of vandalism. Like it or not, potlach *is* the source of quite a bit of accidental vandalism. It's easy to use for beginners, but they will *not* understand the implications of what they are doing. The sanbox helped a lot, but obviously not enough. I believe you need some sort of online buffer for potlach and a prominent submit button that everyone understand the implications on. Maybe even with a warning-page that you need to go through unless you have gone to your preferences box to turn it off. Yes, it's gonna be a bit annoying to new users. But not nearly as annoying as having to clean up hard-worked map data. -- - Vegard Engen, member of the first RFC1149 implementation team. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] More vandalism
Hi, vegard wrote: Like it or not, potlach *is* the source of quite a bit of accidental vandalism. Let's just say: beginners are the source of I believe you need some sort of online buffer for potlach and a prominent submit button that everyone understand the implications on. But it has this rather prominent and permament message about being in live edit mode now. People who ignore that will also blindly hit a submit button. ANY submit button. Maybe we should just make Potlatch show a few quiz questions every now and then and immediately switch into sandbox mode if a question receives the wrong answer. That'll take care of dimwits using it ;-) Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail [EMAIL PROTECTED] ## N49°00'09 E008°23'33 ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] More vandalism
vegard wrote: Like it or not, potlach *is* the source of quite a bit of accidental vandalism. It's easy to use for beginners, but they will *not* understand the implications of what they are doing. The sanbox helped a lot, but obviously not enough. I believe you need some sort of online buffer for potlach and a prominent submit button that everyone understand the implications on. Maybe even with a warning-page that you need to go through unless you have gone to your preferences box to turn it off. sighs, copies and pastes previous answer at bottom of message svn is... oh, never mind. Richard While I'm here I might as well say something about the lack of a Save button. I'm not violently against the concept: I think unconvinced is perhaps the best way to describe my opinion. There are two big issues with it. One is that for edit sessions lasting more than a couple of seconds, there has to be conflict management. If you're a JOSM user, then you are de facto a clued-up, computer-savvy type, so conflict management doesn't worry you. But if you are a newbie - maybe even a schoolkid - trying just to edit your local area, then being presented with The following conflicts were detected. Accept/Resolve/Revert? will just utterly confuse you, and you'll click the wrong thing and cause more errors. Or maybe just close Potlatch and never return to OSM. The second is that, in JOSM, your canvas is usually quite small - i.e. you have downloaded a particular area and are working on that exclusively. In Potlatch, because you can pan around an infinite map, your canvas may be much bigger. You may have traced a 600km cycle route (I know, I've done that! :) ) in one session. Yet you can't zoom out to see the whole thing, because requesting a 600km bounding box would break both the server and the browser. So you would be clicking Save to upload changes that you can't actually see or review, and that - in my opinion - defeats the point of it. But actually they're not my biggest problem with the idea. What worries me most, because I've seen it before, is that people are seizing on the first thing they don't like, and thinking that's the reason why there are bad edits. People used to criticise Potlatch for causing bad edits because there was no 'revert' feature, so I added a revert feature (the H key). Then they criticised Potlatch for causing bad edits because there was no 'test' mode, so I added a test mode. Then they criticised Potlatch because there was no 'splash screen' explaining things, so I added a splash screen. Now they criticise Potlatch because there's no compulsory 'save' button. But if I added a compulsory save button tomorrow, it wouldn't stop the bad edits. The bad edits are principally because these guys are newbies. Newbies make mistakes. (Experienced users don't make mistakes with Potlatch just because it has no Save button.) And in a week's time, someone would be saying Potlatch must be banned unless it has a pony (or something) and there'd be a lot of postings saying yes, the reason there are all these bad edits is BECAUSE POTLATCH HAS NO PONY. And so, a few weeks later, Potlatch would get a pony, which would make it even harder to use (ponies are quite stubborn, you know) and require newbies to learn even more, and then someone would decide on another reason for the bad edits... and so on. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] More vandalism
Like Fredik's idea. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/07/gmails-drunk-emailing-pro_n_132680.html On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 12:34 AM, Richard Fairhurst [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: Tell you what, let's completely ban all editors - that'll eliminate the risk of vandalism. Ban the talk-list, so that we stop tagging the bikeshed and start contributing. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] More vandalism
Nic Roets wrote: Ban the talk-list, so that we stop tagging the bikeshed and start contributing. Superb idea. I was actually doing some stuff on Potlatch 1.0 before this bloody thread distracted me. :( Richard ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] More vandalism
On Mon, Oct 13, 2008 at 11:57:08PM +0100, Richard Fairhurst wrote: While I'm here I might as well say something about the lack of a Save button. I'm not violently against the concept: I think unconvinced is perhaps the best way to describe my opinion. There are two big issues with it. One is that for edit sessions lasting more than a couple of seconds, there has to be conflict management. If you're a JOSM user, then you are de facto a clued-up, computer-savvy type, so conflict management doesn't worry you. But if you are a newbie - maybe even a schoolkid - trying just to edit your local area, then being presented with The following conflicts were detected. Accept/Resolve/Revert? will just utterly confuse you, and you'll click the wrong thing and cause more errors. Or maybe just close Potlatch and never return to OSM. Well. I'm a bit unconvinced that we need to attract everyone, even these people :) And as for schoolkids - I think even schoolkids can learn JOSM. Heck, I even have example to prove it: A 9 year old nephew that's recently started doing his own tagging in JOSM :) Of course, his father looks over the things he's done from time to time... Personally, *I* don't dare using Potlach for the lack of a save button. Yes, I'll do it for the quick change (moving a single node, changing a property) that I see while looking at the map, but not for more things. I just find it too dangerous. The second is that, in JOSM, your canvas is usually quite small - i.e. you have downloaded a particular area and are working on that exclusively. In Potlatch, because you can pan around an infinite map, your canvas may be much bigger. You may have traced a 600km cycle route (I know, I've done that! :) ) in one session. Yet you can't zoom out to see the whole thing, because requesting a 600km bounding box would break both the server and the browser. So you would be clicking Save to upload changes that you can't actually see or review, and that - in my opinion - defeats the point of it. Point taken. What worries me most, because I've seen it before, is that people are seizing on the first thing they don't like, and thinking that's the reason why there are bad edits. People used to criticise Potlatch for causing bad edits because there was no 'revert' feature, so I added a revert feature (the H key). Then they criticised Potlatch for causing bad edits because there was no 'test' mode, so I added a test mode. Then they criticised Potlatch because there was no 'splash screen' explaining things, so I added a splash screen. Now they criticise Potlatch because there's no compulsory 'save' button. Well. Yes. We critize. Based on what we see people actually manage to do despite these safety measures...Granted, I thought the test mode would help *much* more. And it helped, but not enough. Revert-button is great, but you'll have to know that you need to revert and not just quit the browser... the bad edits. The bad edits are principally because these guys are newbies. Newbies make mistakes. (Experienced users don't make mistakes with Potlatch just because it has no Save button.) *Ehem* - I don't trust myself not to :) Enough to not daring to use it for more advanced work. And in a week's time, someone would be saying Potlatch must be banned unless it has a pony (or something) and there'd be a lot of postings saying yes, the reason there are all these bad edits is BECAUSE POTLATCH HAS NO PONY. And so, a few weeks later, Potlatch would get a pony, which would make it even harder to use (ponies are quite stubborn, you know) and require newbies to learn even more, and then someone would decide on another reason for the bad edits... and so on. You are right, this is an endless task. But it's a necessary task. Bad edits are annoying as hell to the people who worked hard with them in the first time. Tools should be as foolproof as possible. And I would not too afraid to scare away someone by adding a submit button and conflict management, done wisely it need not be too annoying. But I'm no flash programmer :) And no, I don't want to ban potlach. But it needs to do more to stop the accidental bad edits :) Other than these, I have some suggestions for minor improvements that might help against some of this: What about... 1) Not allowing to merge things with different properties (unless one of them was non-tagged). 2) Not allowing to drag non-nodes so easily? Could be annoying, granted, but it's actually very seldom you need to? 3) Make it harder to delete things? Not allowing to delete something you didn't create (or owned at the start of the session) ? Potlach is obviously popular, and I recognize that we get lots of useful contribution through it too. But I do understand the rage of people who experience bad edits through it. -- - Vegard Engen, member of the first RFC1149 implementation team. ___ talk mailing list
Re: [OSM-talk] More vandalism
Hi Frederik, I am approached every now and then by people who would like something reverted. It is quite a dilemma for me, in most cases I don't even know the place or the people involved - so who am I to decide who is right and who is wrong? I'd have said that making the request to have someone edits reverted on a public list and not having anyone disagree was a good sign. That said keeping a log of what you revert (so it can be un-reverted - is that possible?) would seem sensible, as would sending the relevant user a short message. If you are willing to do it then really all your doing is providing a manual version or the standard wiki 'undo'. To me it would seem like a good first step for testing out how an undo it works in practice on this project. Presumably this sort of functionality will be available to everyone once 0.6 is released - that was as I understood it part of the point of the 0.6 changes! -- Brian ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
[OSM-talk] More vandalism
I have previously reported how someone with the screen name 'thebigfatgeek' has messed up a roundabout in Pretoria. Well, yesterday he changed a lot more stuff, most of it clearly being wrong. See for example http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/way/4259221/history Joining ways with different names, creating evil semicolons : http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/way/4616530/history Changing bridleways to residential roads. http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/way/26165816/history Local members have messaged him before and after yesterday, but the damage is already done. Clearly OSM can do without the help of someone who pays so little attention to detail. I would be grateful if Frederik can run his revert tool again. In fact I wouldn't mind if it's in a cron job. Regards, Nic ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
