[OSM-talk] Copy-and-paste remapping

Frederik Ramm frederik at remote.org
Mon May 28 22:17:38 BST 2012


Hi,

    we've had a few cases of "copy-and-paste remapping" reported to DWG, 
where in a bid to "save" data from the relicensing axe over-eager 
mappers copied and pasted existing data, thereby making the data look as 
if it was originally contributed by them.

This is, obviously, not ok and rather than "save" anything, such actions 
stop others from properly remapping the area (because it all looks 
clean), and comes back to haunt us later, tarnishinig OSM's reputation. 
Later removal of such data will have a knock-on effect of all that has 
been built on top. Don't do it.

Where cases of copy-and-paste remapping are detected, the changesets in 
question can be added to the list on this wiki page

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Quick_History_Service/Changeset_Lists#Copy_-_Paste_Remapping

and will then be treated during the relicensing process as "tainted", 
i.e. the data created in these changesets will not be kept.

There are two drawbacks to this:

1. OSM Inspectors's license change view does not take this list into 
account, i.e. the areas thus "remapped" still look clean on OSMI even 
though they will be dropped later.

2. An object that has been edited by non-agreers and agreers alike might 
be partly saved in the license change; however if the object is deleted 
and re-created in a copy-and-paste action and the changeset flagged as 
tainted, then the object will be gone completely.

Again - don't do it.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"



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