Re: [Talk-us] Difficult USA mapper(s)

[Russ Nelson]

Greg Troxel writes:
 > First, there's the notion that the local mappers should have priority in
 > deciding how things should be tagged.  I don't mean that one shouldn't
 > make non-local edits - I do that after visiting places.  But I don't
 > make edits that I think a local might object to.

Me too. Whenever I see contributions which are obviously made by a
local (e.g. stores), I always edit more carefully. I don't want to
offend a local mapper because 1) that might discourage them, and 2) I
wouldn't want somebody non-local to Potsdam editing here willy-nilly.

 > So if there's a disagreement, and the results lopsidedly reflect
 > one user's view just because that user is far more insistent on
 > making changes and arguing about them, that's a bad outcome,

Yup. You risk letting the decision go to the person with the most free
time, who is not necessarily the most correct person.

-- 
--my blog is athttp://blog.russnelson.com
Crynwr supports open source software
521 Pleasant Valley Rd. | +1 315-600-8815
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Re: [Talk-us] Difficult USA mapper(s)

[Serge Wroclawski]

Martijn,

Thank you for this thoughtful and wise-reaching response.

I think that the kinds of issues you address in your email do deserve
consideration and contemplation, but most are not the focus of this
discussion we're having right now, which is the role of DWG in
handling what are essentially conduct issues.

To your question of technical means; you're right that adding
technical means to entirely prevent a malicious user are difficult to
put in place, but they are not impossible, but if it's just a handful
of troublemakers, it's best to address that, rather than create an
entire engineering task around it.

I think the focus right now are questions of community, rather than technology.

- Serge

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Re: [Talk-us] Difficult USA mapper(s)

[Paul Norman]

> From: Martijn van Exel [mailto:m...@rtijn.org]
> Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2012 2:18 PM
> To: Richard Weait
> Cc: Serge Wroclawski; d...@osmfoundation.org; Ian Dees; talk-
> u...@openstreetmap.org Openstreetmap
> Subject: Re: [Talk-us] Difficult USA mapper(s)
> 
> It's hard to come up with guidelines when you don't know the specifics,
> but let me throw in some thoughts based on what I read:
> 1) If you were to take administrative action on an account, blocking it
> either temporarily or permanently, how do you prevent the same person
> (or group of people, or bot, using the account) from starting fresh
> under a new guise? My limited knowledge of these matters suggests that
> this would be a Hard Problem. If it is, blocking accounts is a toothless
> measure that doesn't even deserve all that much consideration. If it
> isn't, I'm curious to know how it works, but that's possibly for another
> thread.

I am reasonably confident that the means exist to block someone and keep
them blocked.


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Re: [Talk-us] Difficult USA mapper(s)

[Russ Nelson]

James Mast writes:
 > If I think I know who this is all about, maybe he should be un-banned from 
 > talk-us so he might be able to defend himself at least? --James

No. This isn't about a person. This is about a style of mapping. If
you think that only one person is capable of defending this style of
mapping, then perhaps it's just as well that that style gets banned.

-- 
--my blog is athttp://blog.russnelson.com
Crynwr supports open source software
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Re: [Talk-us] Difficult USA mapper(s)

[James Mast]

If I think I know who this is all about, maybe he should be un-banned from 
talk-us so he might be able to defend himself at least? --James 
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Re: [Talk-us] Difficult USA mapper(s)

[Greg Troxel]

Given what I've observed and heard about from other mappers, I am not
particularly surprised to hear that the DWG has been getting complaints
(although I have not filed a complaint myself).  I think it's helpful to
talk about the general problem, separately from any identities.

My impression is that a fair part of the genesis of the issue is
disagreement about tagging highways.  We have an established, older view
that primary is for US highways or roads that are as important
culturally, secondary is for state highways or roads of similar
importance, and tertiary for roads that are less important than
secondary but that form a key part of the interconnecting grid (between
towns, across cities).  There is another view which promotes labeling
roads at higher classifications.

Given that, I think there are two problems that arise in terms of how
people collaborate (or not) on how to improve the map.  OSM is
fundamentally a group effort and how people feel about their
participation and interaction with others is very important for the
health of the project.

First, there's the notion that the local mappers should have priority in
deciding how things should be tagged.  I don't mean that one shouldn't
make non-local edits - I do that after visiting places.  But I don't
make edits that I think a local might object to.  When I see something
done by a local mapper that I think should be different, I message them
and ask about it (and sometimes go ahead if I don't hear back).  I've
met a fair number of the active people in Massachusetts in person, and
talked with several others in email.  We confer among ourselves
sometimes, and have in the past discussed issues with non-local mappers
adjusting tagging.  We also had the "highway=path foot=designated vs
highway=footway" discussion over beer, pleasantly (regarding differing
choices among local mappers, which I am quite sure DWG never heard
complaints about).

Second, there's a slippery slope to what "edit war" means.  Generally,
it takes two to have an edit war, and for that to happen, both have to
be willing to keep making the change, which is a combination of doing
that even though they should realize it's getting to edit war, and
caring enough to put energy into it, instead of deciding to focus on
other hobbies.  So if there's a disagreement, and the results lopsidedly
reflect one user's view just because that user is far more insistent on
making changes and arguing about them, that's a bad outcome, and in my
mind just as bad as an edit war if not worse, just less obvious.

So overall, I would say that if user A complains about user B making
non-local objectionable changes, and that's the only complaint, then
it's really hard to tell.  It could be that the non-local user in some
cases is right in a sense (consider bringing a jury of 6 seasoned
mappers to the area for a survey and pub discussion about what they'd
do, and see how that comes out).  Many of these calls are not
particularly important in the grand scheme of things; local users
feeling like someone far away is being pushy has a bigger impact on the
project.  On the other hand, If 20 users (not acting in concert) all
complain similarly about B, then there really is a problem -- most
people don't want to complain to authority in a group like osm, so if 20
complain probably 100 feel that way.  Reasonable people, more or less by
definition, do not provoke complaints by large numbers of other
reasonable people.

A serious concern is people being driven away because they find
participating in the community unpleasant; this is the concept in open
source of "poisonous people".  I've certainly run into this a bit in
openstreetmap.  In the open source world (I participate in NetBSD), it
seems that people who know each other in person are much more likely to
be reasonable on the net.  The local group concept helps greatly, but it
doesn't address the distant armchair editor (especially if that person
isn't part of his or her in-person community).

All that said, it's not clear that the DWG is the right group.  But I
think OSM needs a body of elders (who have the respect of the community
as reasonable and fair people) to deal with complaints of behavior that
doesn't meet community interaction norms.  I certainly don't want to
endorse some sort of global thought police, and would want such an
authority to tread lightly.  But the fact that the DWG is moved to write
to talk-us "has had a high number of complaints about a small number of
mappers" indicates to me that we have a significant social problem, and
as I see it DWG is the least inappropriate WG to handle it.

Greg (osm user gdt)


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Re: [Talk-us] Difficult USA mapper(s)

[Russ Nelson]

Richard Weait writes:
 > I would prefer to discuss this in general, and in the open.

Okay. In general, then, I have said that I believe the proper way to
edit is to not disturb anything that anybody else does[1]. That should
be rule #1, yet DUM[2] (Difficult USA Mapper) seems to feel that e[3]
can change other people's tags any way e wants without consulting with
them.

So, as a generalized example of a specific instance that I have in
mind, I added some tags to some ways which reflected data that anybody
could verify from multiple sources with a little bit of research. I
didn't put a source= tag because the source was from USGS topo data --
unquestionably public domain, backed up positionally with USGS ortho
photos. Sometimes the data came from research, other times from site
visits. A reasonably safe, uncontroversial edit.

DUM felt it necessary to change the key of the tag to a different key,
thus violating rule #1 by *changing* rather than *adding* a new tag
with e's new key and the value I put into the tag. To make matters
worse, this key is one that e invented and seems to be the sole user
of.

DUM has made this change to hundreds of ways that I know of, and
probably thousands or more across the country, and without any
consultation with others as far as I can find. That would be okay
except that e violated rule #1, the Prime Directive.

By the way, I am not one of the complaintants, but I will be happy to
enter a complaint about this specific edit, which has detracted from
the value of the map for me (at least, and I speculate others).

[1] I add to that: document how you tagged, don't change documentation
written by someone else, and then tag according to the documentation.
[2] Hey, I didn't make the name up!
[3] Neutral gender. Hey, it *could* be wonderchook, you never know.

-- 
--my blog is athttp://blog.russnelson.com
Crynwr supports open source software
521 Pleasant Valley Rd. | +1 315-600-8815
Potsdam, NY 13676-3213  | Sheepdog   

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Re: [Talk-us] Fw: [CrisisMappers] RE: Need maps of the Jersey shore

[Jeffrey Ollie]

On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 6:32 PM, Mikel Maron  wrote:
> Some mapping requests starting to come in on Crisis Mappers. The Jersey
> shore is particular is going to need remapping (destroyed beach front
> structures)

Is there anyone supplying post-Sandy imagery that armchair mappers can use?

-- 
Jeff Ollie

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Re: [Talk-us] Difficult USA mapper(s)

[Dale Puch]

Account restrictions could be of help for new mappers making large
mistakes.  IE dragging a large selection, destroying relations ect.
Pushing good tutorials on new users would probably do more though.
Regardless restrictions only help minimize the accidental type issues but
do very little for edit wars or malicious edits.

Dale

On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 5:18 PM, Martijn van Exel  wrote:

> It's hard to come up with guidelines when you don't know the
> specifics, but let me throw in some thoughts based on what I read:
> 1) If you were to take administrative action on an account, blocking
> it either temporarily or permanently, how do you prevent the same
> person (or group of people, or bot, using the account) from starting
> fresh under a new guise? My limited knowledge of these matters
> suggests that this would be a Hard Problem. If it is, blocking
> accounts is a toothless measure that doesn't even deserve all that
> much consideration. If it isn't, I'm curious to know how it works, but
> that's possibly for another thread.
> 2) From past discussions about this I gathered that these particular
> accounts that inspire a lot of controversy and complaints usually show
> a high prolificness - higher than reasonable for a human mapper.
> Possibly, there are also particular discernible patterns to their
> edits? Is this something that can be quantified into editing
> thresholds above which the account would be red flagged and possibly
> blocked? For example more than 10,000 Again, of course, this leads
> back to the issue mentioned above.
> 3) Does this not in the end come down to some fundamental choices we
> make as an OSM community regarding accountability and lineage? All you
> need to sign up for an OSM account is a valid email address, a self
> assigned username and password, and agreement with the CT. I am all
> for respecting people's privacy and not gathering any more personal
> information than strictly necessary, but when there are so few
> limitations as to what you can do immediately after you sign up, is
> that really sustainable? Should we not be move to a system where
> newcomers have stricter limits imposed on what they can do (number of
> edits, geographical scope of their edits..), and lift those
> limitations gradually when they it becomes apparent (through peer
> validation, a buddy system - I am not saying this is easy...) that
> their contributions meet some quality standards? I realize full well
> that this brings us no further to a solution for these current cases,
> I just wanted to reflect on how these situations can come to exist in
> the first place: being able to sign up to OSM, start changing stuff at
> scale (even scripted) because you know better, without meeting much
> technical resistance - and moreover being able to do so without ever
> talking to anyone. We're only talking about a few (how many?) cases
> now, and looking for ways to deal with them, but there will be more
> and we need to think about how we can be prepared for them.
>
> Martijn
>
> On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 1:28 PM, Richard Weait  wrote:
> > On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 11:24 AM, Ian Dees  wrote:
> >
> >> We need to stop talking in nebulous terms. "the complaints here" are
> >> apparently unknown to everyone. If it's not appropriate to describe the
> >> specific issues, then perhaps we shouldn't be having this conversation
> on
> >> the mailing list.
> >
> > I would prefer to discuss this in general, and in the open.  Firstly,
> > open is good.  Secondly, we're seeking guidelines for use now and in
> > the future.
> >
> > I do understand where you are coming from though.  Yes, I think
> > "praise in public, criticize in private" is the way to go in general.
> > However, that hasn't worked in these current cases.  Again, we've had
> > _many_ complaints about these very few accounts.  If you haven't seen
> > something like this?  Good.  You are better for it.
> >
> > As Dale suggests in his point 1), if one mapper takes the high road
> > and decides not to change a disputed edit, but to discuss instead,
> > then the other mapper can effectively "game the system".  They can not
> > engage, or not change their mind and effectively get what they want,
> > without consultation or collaborative mapping.  Rest assured that the
> > difficult mappers would scream "edit war; bad touch!!!" were the high
> > road mapper to respond by reverting or editing to their preference.
> >
> > But how do we distinguish between an idiosyncratic mapper who chooses
> > to be less-engaged with the broader community from a mapping bully who
> > will have it their way, regardless?  We[1] can discuss welcome and
> > unwelcome behaviours.  We can establish guidelines. We can educate
> > where required.  We can impose sanctions where the above don't work.
> >
> > Discussion comes first.  DWG have a pattern of complaints from mappers
> > who feel that something must be done.  DWG is asking the US community
> > at large what you would have DWG do o

[Talk-us] Fw: [CrisisMappers] RE: Need maps of the Jersey shore

[Mikel Maron]

Some mapping requests starting to come in on Crisis Mappers. The Jersey shore 
is particular is going to need remapping (destroyed beach front structures)
 
* Mikel Maron * +14152835207 @mikel s:mikelmaron

- Forwarded Message -
>From: "Wells, Linton" 
>To: WilsonGI ; crisismapp...@googlegroups.com 
>Cc: mcnu...@teamrubiconusa.org 
>Sent: Thursday, November 1, 2012 5:50 AM
>Subject: [CrisisMappers] RE:  Need maps of the Jersey shore
> 
>
>GI, will check.
> 
>Mappers, where should GI Wilson and his team look for support to the teams as 
>noted below.
> 
>Please contact him directly, or steer him to a Pentagon/Guard POC.
> 
>Thanks.
> 
>Lin
>202 436-6354
> 
>From:WilsonGI [mailto:wilso...@aol.com] 
>Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2012 5:08 PM
>To: Wells, Linton
>Cc: mcnu...@teamrubiconusa.org
>Subject: Need maps of the Jersey shore
> 
>Sir, any ideas who to contact in the Pentagon/Guard Bureau ?  We have TR teams 
>in place doing ops and in desperate need of maps of the Jersey shore. 
> 
>GI Wilson
>Col USMC Ret
>ASIS, ATAP, IACP, ACFEI
>MA Security Management
>MA Forensic Psychology
>Faculty Palomar College (Administration of Justice) 
>Commissioner, North County Gang Commission
>Board Certified Protection Professional (CPP # 1) 
>Board Certified Forensic Consultant (CFC)
>Advisory Board VA Center of Excellence for Stress and Mental Health
>Member American College of Forensic Examiners International
>Board of Directors Team Rubicon (www.teamrubiconusa.org)
>Cell: 760 505 4360
-- 
>You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
>"CrisisMappers" group.
>To post to this group, send email to crisismapp...@googlegroups.com.
>To unsubscribe from this group, send email to 
>crisismappers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
>For more options, visit this group at 
>http://groups.google.com/group/crisismappers?hl=en.
>
>
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Re: [Talk-us] Difficult USA mapper(s)

[Alan Millar]

> We need to stop talking in nebulous terms. "the complaints here" are 
> apparently unknown to everyone. If it's not appropriate to describe the 
> specific issues, then perhaps we shouldn't be having this conversation on the 
> mailing list.

Heh, one has to be quite new to talk-us to not know the likely suspect(s). 
Oops, I think my bias is showing. 

That notwithstanding, I think it is quite reasonable to discuss the DWG 
boundaries and guidelines without details of a specific conflict. It makes 
sense to discuss and decide what the purview *should* be, before you can decide 
if a given conflict falls within those boundaries. 
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Re: [Talk-us] redundant tagging on relations and member ways

[Evin Fairchild]

My guess is that people are doing that because in Potlatch 2, when you put tags 
into just a relation, it doesn’t render in Potlatch the same way that it does 
if you put the same tags into a way.  Let me explain what I mean.  For example 
if you want to make multipolygon relation for a lake, when you put the 
natural=water tag in the relation but don’t put it in for the member, Potlatch 
won’t display the lake in blue.  You have to put a natural=water tag into a way 
for it to be displayed blue.  But whether the member way has the appropriate 
tags or not doesn’t affect how it’s actually rendered on the map.  What I’m 
saying is that some users might think that the fact that the lake isn’t blue 
when you put the natural=water tag in the relation means that it might not 
display properly on the map.  Potlatch needs to be changed so that this doesn’t 
happen.

 

-Compdude

 

From: Ian Villeda [mailto:vill...@mapbox.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2012 1:10 PM
To: talk-us@openstreetmap.org
Subject: [Talk-us] redundant tagging on relations and member ways

 

 

Hi, 

 

I've noticed a few instances where members of multipolygon relations have the 
same tags as the relations. This seems redundant and I wondering why we 
wouldn't / haven't moved the tags to the relations. Specifically I'm thinking 
of cases like this:

http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/relation/135822 vs 

http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/way/34393828

 

Of course we wouldn't want to remove way-specific tags (i.e. district=* tags), 
but I wanted to make sure there was a reason the name=, landuse=, and leisure= 
tags haven't already been deleted in favor of tagging the relation. Happy to 
make the edits so long as I'm not stepping on any toes / missing something 
obvious. 

 

saludos, 

 

-- 

ian villeda (ian29  )

mapbox | developmentseed

https://twitter.com/ian_villeda

 

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Re: [Talk-us] Difficult USA mapper(s)

[Martijn van Exel]

It's hard to come up with guidelines when you don't know the
specifics, but let me throw in some thoughts based on what I read:
1) If you were to take administrative action on an account, blocking
it either temporarily or permanently, how do you prevent the same
person (or group of people, or bot, using the account) from starting
fresh under a new guise? My limited knowledge of these matters
suggests that this would be a Hard Problem. If it is, blocking
accounts is a toothless measure that doesn't even deserve all that
much consideration. If it isn't, I'm curious to know how it works, but
that's possibly for another thread.
2) From past discussions about this I gathered that these particular
accounts that inspire a lot of controversy and complaints usually show
a high prolificness - higher than reasonable for a human mapper.
Possibly, there are also particular discernible patterns to their
edits? Is this something that can be quantified into editing
thresholds above which the account would be red flagged and possibly
blocked? For example more than 10,000 Again, of course, this leads
back to the issue mentioned above.
3) Does this not in the end come down to some fundamental choices we
make as an OSM community regarding accountability and lineage? All you
need to sign up for an OSM account is a valid email address, a self
assigned username and password, and agreement with the CT. I am all
for respecting people's privacy and not gathering any more personal
information than strictly necessary, but when there are so few
limitations as to what you can do immediately after you sign up, is
that really sustainable? Should we not be move to a system where
newcomers have stricter limits imposed on what they can do (number of
edits, geographical scope of their edits..), and lift those
limitations gradually when they it becomes apparent (through peer
validation, a buddy system - I am not saying this is easy...) that
their contributions meet some quality standards? I realize full well
that this brings us no further to a solution for these current cases,
I just wanted to reflect on how these situations can come to exist in
the first place: being able to sign up to OSM, start changing stuff at
scale (even scripted) because you know better, without meeting much
technical resistance - and moreover being able to do so without ever
talking to anyone. We're only talking about a few (how many?) cases
now, and looking for ways to deal with them, but there will be more
and we need to think about how we can be prepared for them.

Martijn

On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 1:28 PM, Richard Weait  wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 11:24 AM, Ian Dees  wrote:
>
>> We need to stop talking in nebulous terms. "the complaints here" are
>> apparently unknown to everyone. If it's not appropriate to describe the
>> specific issues, then perhaps we shouldn't be having this conversation on
>> the mailing list.
>
> I would prefer to discuss this in general, and in the open.  Firstly,
> open is good.  Secondly, we're seeking guidelines for use now and in
> the future.
>
> I do understand where you are coming from though.  Yes, I think
> "praise in public, criticize in private" is the way to go in general.
> However, that hasn't worked in these current cases.  Again, we've had
> _many_ complaints about these very few accounts.  If you haven't seen
> something like this?  Good.  You are better for it.
>
> As Dale suggests in his point 1), if one mapper takes the high road
> and decides not to change a disputed edit, but to discuss instead,
> then the other mapper can effectively "game the system".  They can not
> engage, or not change their mind and effectively get what they want,
> without consultation or collaborative mapping.  Rest assured that the
> difficult mappers would scream "edit war; bad touch!!!" were the high
> road mapper to respond by reverting or editing to their preference.
>
> But how do we distinguish between an idiosyncratic mapper who chooses
> to be less-engaged with the broader community from a mapping bully who
> will have it their way, regardless?  We[1] can discuss welcome and
> unwelcome behaviours.  We can establish guidelines. We can educate
> where required.  We can impose sanctions where the above don't work.
>
> Discussion comes first.  DWG have a pattern of complaints from mappers
> who feel that something must be done.  DWG is asking the US community
> at large what you would have DWG do on your behalf?  You could tell
> those mappers to "suck it up and stop whining."  That's what the
> difficult accounts have effectively said.  I think that we can do
> better than that.
>
> I won't suggest that every complaint DWG receives deserves equal
> weight after consideration of the matter.  And I won't suggest that
> some accounts are always wrong while other accounts are always right.
> But this is a giant flashing warning light.  With a klaxon.
>
> [1] We = "We as a community"
>
> ___
>

[Talk-us] redundant tagging on relations and member ways

[Ian Villeda]

Hi, 

I've noticed a few instances where members of multipolygon relations have the 
same tags as the relations. This seems redundant and I wondering why we 
wouldn't / haven't moved the tags to the relations. Specifically I'm thinking 
of cases like this:
http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/relation/135822 vs 
http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/way/34393828

Of course we wouldn't want to remove way-specific tags (i.e. district=* tags), 
but I wanted to make sure there was a reason the name=, landuse=, and leisure= 
tags haven't already been deleted in favor of tagging the relation. Happy to 
make the edits so long as I'm not stepping on any toes / missing something 
obvious.  

saludos, 

-- 
ian villeda (ian29 (http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/ian29))
mapbox | developmentseed
https://twitter.com/ian_villeda

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Re: [Talk-us] Difficult USA mapper(s)

[Richard Weait]

On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 11:24 AM, Ian Dees  wrote:

> We need to stop talking in nebulous terms. "the complaints here" are
> apparently unknown to everyone. If it's not appropriate to describe the
> specific issues, then perhaps we shouldn't be having this conversation on
> the mailing list.

I would prefer to discuss this in general, and in the open.  Firstly,
open is good.  Secondly, we're seeking guidelines for use now and in
the future.

I do understand where you are coming from though.  Yes, I think
"praise in public, criticize in private" is the way to go in general.
However, that hasn't worked in these current cases.  Again, we've had
_many_ complaints about these very few accounts.  If you haven't seen
something like this?  Good.  You are better for it.

As Dale suggests in his point 1), if one mapper takes the high road
and decides not to change a disputed edit, but to discuss instead,
then the other mapper can effectively "game the system".  They can not
engage, or not change their mind and effectively get what they want,
without consultation or collaborative mapping.  Rest assured that the
difficult mappers would scream "edit war; bad touch!!!" were the high
road mapper to respond by reverting or editing to their preference.

But how do we distinguish between an idiosyncratic mapper who chooses
to be less-engaged with the broader community from a mapping bully who
will have it their way, regardless?  We[1] can discuss welcome and
unwelcome behaviours.  We can establish guidelines. We can educate
where required.  We can impose sanctions where the above don't work.

Discussion comes first.  DWG have a pattern of complaints from mappers
who feel that something must be done.  DWG is asking the US community
at large what you would have DWG do on your behalf?  You could tell
those mappers to "suck it up and stop whining."  That's what the
difficult accounts have effectively said.  I think that we can do
better than that.

I won't suggest that every complaint DWG receives deserves equal
weight after consideration of the matter.  And I won't suggest that
some accounts are always wrong while other accounts are always right.
But this is a giant flashing warning light.  With a klaxon.

[1] We = "We as a community"

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Re: [Talk-us] NE2 changing my work with bots again

[Toby Murray]

On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 2:04 AM, Sam Iacullo  wrote:
> Well all, he's at it again. I had an issue with user NE2 a while ago
> involving his running of bots changing a bunch of highways that I had worked
> on here in Texas. Apparently, he's back at it again, and it's worse than
> just Texas. He changed many, many things on roads that I had worked hours on
> (changing secondary to trunk, deleting and changing names, etc.) in ways
> that just seem arbitrary. This has happened on more than just one occasion,
> but the majority of the damage has been on changeset 13246406.
>
> Apparently he had been running random "post-redaction cleanup" bots on areas
> that did not need to be edited. Since this is the second problem that I have
> had personally with him, I don't understand why there is no
> rating/banning/formal complaint system in OSM. The section written about
> "armchair mapping" was a direct result of him, and he's in direct violation
> of that. Is there anything that can be done about him?

Yeah, he made a "post-redaction cleanup" run through Kansas
interstates even though there was no license related cleanup needed. I
think he just ran through the entire interstate system after the
license bot hit and he did clean up a lot of problems. Most of the
changes here were harmless so I didn't worry about it too much. I did
revert a silly FIXME tag that he put on a way based on a patch of
fuzzy aerial imagery. But at least it was just a FIXME and not a
change to the actual data.

The other thing he has been doing lately is creating route relations
for historic highways that don't exist any more. Example:
http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/relation/2401488

While I'm not entirely opposed to having old highways in the database
and this information is of interest to many people, it doesn't seem
like our data model lends itself to keeping such information accurate.
The information is too static. For example I recently realigned part
of Kansas highway 18 because of major construction. They completely
razed the entire area down to dirt, shifted the highway by a couple
hundred feet and are building up a new network of link roads. In order
to leave the old US 40 relation with the correct geometry, I would
have to leave the old ways in place and mark them as highway=abandoned
(which NE2 has done in some places) and then create new ways for the
new construction. That's just not how OSM works. Our data evolves with
the real world. If there were a way to create a relation which
contained only a specific version of a way, it would be an entirely
different matter... Is that on the API v0.7 wishlist page yet? :)

Toby

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Re: [Talk-us] Difficult USA mapper(s)

[Dale Puch]

My best take on the questions:

For this discussion your basically arbitrators.  Investigate what is
involved with arbitration, what do they require and how do they manage
these issues.

1) When is "being difficult" transitioning into an edit war that DWG has
dealt with? Is this just an edit war where one person is trying to resolve
it with discussion instead of continual reverts and edits?
2) The DWG needs a set of guidelines for it and the mappers that is
controlled by DWG (not a general use WIKI anyone can edit) that they can
point to for self resolution, or use if the DWG must take action on it's
own.
3) It will happen because you will not have all the facts all the time.
Handle those situations gracefully.

Dale

On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 11:24 AM, Ian Dees  wrote:

> On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 10:13 AM, Serge Wroclawski wrote:
>
>> Richard,
>>
>> Thank you for this well thought out email and summary of the DWG.
>>
>> You've touched on an important issue, which is that the complains here
>> are a bit outside the scope of normal DWG functions, and more toward
>> conflict resolution and code of conduct.
>>
>> This is not a role that's unfamiliar to the DWG- for example its
>> intervention in Israel.
>>
>> You may be right that this code of conduct issue isn't the DWG's
>> domain, but no other organization has the ability/authority to take
>> such action.
>
>
> We need to stop talking in nebulous terms. "the complaints here" are
> apparently unknown to everyone. If it's not appropriate to describe the
> specific issues, then perhaps we shouldn't be having this conversation on
> the mailing list.
>
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-- 
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Re: [Talk-us] Difficult USA mapper(s)

[Ian Dees]

On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 10:13 AM, Serge Wroclawski wrote:

> Richard,
>
> Thank you for this well thought out email and summary of the DWG.
>
> You've touched on an important issue, which is that the complains here
> are a bit outside the scope of normal DWG functions, and more toward
> conflict resolution and code of conduct.
>
> This is not a role that's unfamiliar to the DWG- for example its
> intervention in Israel.
>
> You may be right that this code of conduct issue isn't the DWG's
> domain, but no other organization has the ability/authority to take
> such action.


We need to stop talking in nebulous terms. "the complaints here" are
apparently unknown to everyone. If it's not appropriate to describe the
specific issues, then perhaps we shouldn't be having this conversation on
the mailing list.
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Re: [Talk-us] Difficult USA mapper(s)

[Serge Wroclawski]

Richard,

Thank you for this well thought out email and summary of the DWG.

You've touched on an important issue, which is that the complains here
are a bit outside the scope of normal DWG functions, and more toward
conflict resolution and code of conduct.

This is not a role that's unfamiliar to the DWG- for example its
intervention in Israel.

You may be right that this code of conduct issue isn't the DWG's
domain, but no other organization has the ability/authority to take
such action.

- Serge

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Re: [Talk-us] Difficult USA mapper(s)

[Alex Barth]

It would help to know the concrete incidences - any way to know more details?

On Oct 31, 2012, at 10:11 AM, Richard Weait  wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> Summary
> 
> The Data Working Group has had a high number of complaints about a
> small number of mappers in the USA.  The matter falls outside the
> normal activities of DWG.  DWG would like to help, but need your
> guidance in how to do so.
> 
> What is the Data Working Group?
> 
> The Data Working Group exists to handle matters that users don't wish
> to handle.  Namely:
> 
>Resolution of issues in copyright violation, disputes, vandalism,
> and bots, beyond the normal means of the community.
>Helping to set policy on data.
>Detecting and stopping vandalism and imports that to not comply
> with guidelines.
> 
> Most of this is uncontroversial and largely invisible to the
> community.  As an example, when a mapper notices that somebody has
> created an imaginary town and notifies DWG, DWG can contact the
> mapper, block the account temporarily and revert the changesets to
> restore the real map data.
> 
> It is also uncontroversial when a user self-reports that their bot or
> import has made an error and they ask DWG to revert the error for
> them.  I should also note that many experienced users on the OSM IRC
> channels can offer help with undoing self-reported mistakes. DWG is
> called at times to block parties involved in edit wars and other
> harmful activities.
> 
> The current matter
> 
> An unusual number of complaints have come to DWG regarding a small
> number of accounts.  It is unusual to get a complaint about any
> account from more than one other account.  The numbers involved here
> beggar our experience in any other part of the world.
> 
> The matters from that varied complaints are typically differences of
> opinion on tagging.
> The mappers involved have generally attempted to resolve the matters in 
> private.
> The matters generally involve a local mapper and one from further away.
> The local mappers generally report that they are being 'over ruled' by
> a remote mapper who won't accept the local mappers local knowledge.
> 
> DWG has the administrative tools to block an account.  What we don't
> have is a clear rule stating that we can block an account for "being
> difficult".
> 
> Questions for the US mapping community:
> 
> 1) Do you want DWG to act on your behalf on this matter and or similar 
> matters?
> 2) How would you frame your guidance to DWG so that DWG act
> appropriately now and in the future?
> 3) How would you frame your guidance to DWG so that there are no
> false-positives and few false-negatives?
> 
> It is my opinion that this very limited number of difficult mappers
> are a large net-negative to the US mapping community and that the
> difficult behaviours must be stopped for the benefit of OSM.
> 
> Best regards,
> Richard Weait on behalf of
> OSMF Data Working Group
> 
> 
> [1] http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Data_Working_Group
> 
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Alex Barth
http://twitter.com/lxbarth
tel (+1) 202 250 3633





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[Talk-us] Difficult USA mapper(s)

[Richard Weait]

Hi,

Summary

The Data Working Group has had a high number of complaints about a
small number of mappers in the USA.  The matter falls outside the
normal activities of DWG.  DWG would like to help, but need your
guidance in how to do so.

What is the Data Working Group?

The Data Working Group exists to handle matters that users don't wish
to handle.  Namely:

Resolution of issues in copyright violation, disputes, vandalism,
and bots, beyond the normal means of the community.
Helping to set policy on data.
Detecting and stopping vandalism and imports that to not comply
with guidelines.

Most of this is uncontroversial and largely invisible to the
community.  As an example, when a mapper notices that somebody has
created an imaginary town and notifies DWG, DWG can contact the
mapper, block the account temporarily and revert the changesets to
restore the real map data.

It is also uncontroversial when a user self-reports that their bot or
import has made an error and they ask DWG to revert the error for
them.  I should also note that many experienced users on the OSM IRC
channels can offer help with undoing self-reported mistakes. DWG is
called at times to block parties involved in edit wars and other
harmful activities.

The current matter

An unusual number of complaints have come to DWG regarding a small
number of accounts.  It is unusual to get a complaint about any
account from more than one other account.  The numbers involved here
beggar our experience in any other part of the world.

The matters from that varied complaints are typically differences of
opinion on tagging.
The mappers involved have generally attempted to resolve the matters in private.
The matters generally involve a local mapper and one from further away.
The local mappers generally report that they are being 'over ruled' by
a remote mapper who won't accept the local mappers local knowledge.

DWG has the administrative tools to block an account.  What we don't
have is a clear rule stating that we can block an account for "being
difficult".

Questions for the US mapping community:

1) Do you want DWG to act on your behalf on this matter and or similar matters?
2) How would you frame your guidance to DWG so that DWG act
appropriately now and in the future?
3) How would you frame your guidance to DWG so that there are no
false-positives and few false-negatives?

It is my opinion that this very limited number of difficult mappers
are a large net-negative to the US mapping community and that the
difficult behaviours must be stopped for the benefit of OSM.

Best regards,
Richard Weait on behalf of
OSMF Data Working Group


[1] http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Data_Working_Group

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Re: [Talk-us] Local Chapters Discussion

[Serge Wroclawski]

On Thu, Oct 25, 2012 at 9:07 PM, Richard Welty  wrote:
> On 10/25/12 2:38 PM, Mikel Maron wrote:

> as i understand it, the local chapters process ran out of steam for various
> reasons. the US
> chapter (and i'm not speaking as a board member, as i'm no longer on the
> board, just the
> executive committee[1]) would i think be happy to reengage in the process.

Speaking as someone who was on the US board, and was part of the
previous discussions with the Chapters working group, I think at the
time, both the US Chapter and the OSMF were in difficult places, both
wanted to work together, but not sure what the best way was to
represent their constituents.

The goals of the two organizations was very different, and so it
seemed easier to table the discussion and simply move on without a
formal agreement until a later time.

It would be wonderful for the that later time to be now, and I think
we have the right people in both organizations to make it happen.

- Serge

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[Talk-us] NE2 changing my work with bots again

[Sam Iacullo]

Well all, he's at it again. I had an issue with user NE2 a while ago
involving his running of bots changing a bunch of highways that I had
worked on here in Texas. Apparently, he's back at it again, and it's worse
than just Texas. He changed many, many things on roads that I had worked
hours on (changing secondary to trunk, deleting and changing names, etc.)
in ways that just seem arbitrary. This has happened on more than just one
occasion, but the majority of the damage has been on changeset 13246406.

Apparently he had been running random "post-redaction cleanup" bots on
areas that did not need to be edited. Since this is the second problem that
I have had personally with him, I don't understand why there is no
rating/banning/formal complaint system in OSM. The section written about
"armchair mapping" was a direct result of him, and he's in direct violation
of that. Is there anything that can be done about him?

Sam Iacullo
a.k.a. homeslice60148
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