Re: [Talk-us] Taking a break and a call for help

[brad]

How can I tell who is a one-edit-and-done spam, amazon logistics 
account, and who is a first edit noob?


On 3/20/20 5:07 PM, Paul Johnson wrote:
So, you all know at this point that I've been heavily invested in 
editing OSM and contributing to my maximum activity, less as a need to 
help a charity and more of an obligation to the public to do the most 
good with the short time I have on this planet.  However, I've had a 
few events come up that are more or less killing my ability to keep up.


I'm taking a step back from being the primary editor in the Oklahoma 
region until this passes.


3) Amazon Logistics and a revolving door team of one-edit-and-done 
spam accounts keeps throwing paid contributions into Oklahoma that are 
of poorly aligned, largely fictional and low quality.  I'm stuck 
cleaning up in a neglected part of North America some particularly low 
quality edits with limited resources and little ability to find more.  
I hope other contributors can help keep abreast and I hope OSM 
Foundation can help keep paid contributors to account.  I don't think 
it's unreasonable to think that paid mapper should be contributing 
/far/ higher quality data than your average volunteer first time 
mapper, and I think OSM needs to have a serious conversation about 
minimum qualifications for paid mapping that I simply don't have the 
time or energy for at this point.  Dealing with this (and staying 
abreast extensive OkTrans highway modernization efforts lately) have 
been a major part of my editing (and while OkTrans is unavoidable, 
Amazon is inexcusable).


2) My truck was stolen last night 
, along 
with the dashcams I use for Mapillary, essentially making long range 
surveying impossible and imperiling my survival since, if for nothing 
else, I need to hit Costco for restocking my pantry and storeroom.  As 
such, I had to call off work and spent most of the day today dealing 
with the police today.


1) I work in the IT department of a major regional hospital on the 
front lines of the COVID-19 response in the US.  My vacation at the 
end of next month, and my weekends for the next two months, have been 
cancelled, and I'm expected to work 8+ hours a day, 7 days a week to 
help keep things up and running so the medical staff don't have to 
think about the computers.


I really hope OSMF and the DWG takes a good, hard and critical look at 
dealing with the low quality edits from Amazon and spammers while I 
deal with acquiring another (or, best case, my stolen) pickup and 
dealing with my professional life.




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Re: [Talk-us] [OSM-talk] Taking a break and a call for help

[Paul Johnson]

On Sat, Mar 21, 2020 at 3:59 PM Greg Troxel  wrote:

> Dave F via talk  writes:
>
> > In my area, AL are adding legitimate data which helps improve the
> > quality of the OSM database. I believe they make the same amount of
> > errors as any other contributors, including experienced ones.
> >
> > Unsure why he thinks OSMF should be keeping an eye on contributors
> > purely because they're paid.
> > I doubt Paul, when he started his first *paid* job was an expert at
> > it, & never made a mistake.
> >
> > It sounds like Paul's got his knickers in a twist over something other
> > than poor quality data.
>
> This really seems unfair.
>
> When someone maps for OSM because they want to, they have goals and a
> typically a good attitude about community norms.
>
> When someone is a a paid mapper, their goals come from the person who is
> paying them, and they don't necessarily care about the overall health of
> OSM.
>

This is accurate.  I don't consider it unreasonable to expect a paid mapper
to have a higher level of professionalism and due care than the
volunteers.  So, I will say, I am *definitely not* holding the Amazon
Logistics mappers to the same standard I hold other volunteers.  I hold
them to *a much higher standard*.


> Really these edits are not so different from mechanical
> edits, and I think the organizers need to own the responsibilility for
> high quality, and the standard should be quite a bit better than normal
> hand mapping norms.
>

 I honestly don't think we could get worse results than Amazon Logistics is
contributing now if we outsourced map editing to Amazon Mechanical Turk for
a penny an edit.
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Re: [Talk-us] [OSM-talk] Taking a break and a call for help

[Paul Johnson]

On Sat, Mar 21, 2020 at 9:36 AM Dave F  wrote:

> In my area, AL are adding legitimate data which helps improve the quality
> of the OSM database. I believe they make the same amount of errors as any
> other contributors, including experienced ones.
>
> Unsure why he thinks OSMF should be keeping an eye on contributors purely
> because they're paid.
> I doubt Paul, when he started his first *paid* job was an expert at it, &
> never made a mistake.
>

My first job, oddly enough, was with the Boy Scouts of America.  A
situation directly analogous to OSM.  I was a Scout for about a decade
before I found myself on payroll.  Not to say I didn't make mistakes as an
employee (I was 14), but I found myself on payroll because I rose to that
level, not because some third party decided I should start scattergun
efforts.  Anybody paid to contribute to OSM *must* be capable of setting
the example, as far as I'm concerned.
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Re: [Talk-us] [OSM-talk] Taking a break and a call for help

[Greg Troxel]

Dave F via talk  writes:

> In my area, AL are adding legitimate data which helps improve the
> quality of the OSM database. I believe they make the same amount of
> errors as any other contributors, including experienced ones.
>
> Unsure why he thinks OSMF should be keeping an eye on contributors
> purely because they're paid.
> I doubt Paul, when he started his first *paid* job was an expert at
> it, & never made a mistake.
>
> It sounds like Paul's got his knickers in a twist over something other
> than poor quality data.

This really seems unfair.

When someone maps for OSM because they want to, they have goals and a
typically a good attitude about community norms.

When someone is a a paid mapper, their goals come from the person who is
paying them, and they don't necessarily care about the overall health of
OSM.

So this "paid mapping is a bit scary" notion is 100% accurate.  That
doesn't mean all paid apping is bad; were I to take money from the local
chamber of commerce to make sure all their businesses were on the map
with opening hours and other details, all of it would be done in a way
that other mappers would think is correct, or at least just as correct
as if I were doing it for fun.  But the idea that people are hired into
a position and given instructions might lead to bad outcomes is quite
sensible.  Really these edits are not so different from mechanical
edits, and I think the organizers need to own the responsibilility for
high quality, and the standard should be quite a bit better than normal
hand mapping norms.




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