[Imports] Making the current guidelines/code of conduct about imports/automated|mechanical edits clearer and merged

[sly (sylvain letuffe)]

Le mardi 25 décembre 2012 00:07:47, Frederik Ramm a écrit :
> I think it depends on the attitude of the person doing it.

By going down that slippy slope, I don't feel we will make it clearer to what 
an "import policy" applies.

An import is an import*, I don't feel we should define our own word "imports", 
but we might/need to make clearer to what type of imports our policy apply. 
Or, best, to my POV, to what automated edits our policy applies.
(Because I feel someone importing 200k object has as much damage potential 
than someone deleting/modifying 200k object has)

*http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Draft/Edit_Policy
Imports are vector data that you get from elsewhere and convert to put it into 
OSM. 

 
> I (personally) thinkt that if you're importing less than a thousand
> objects in total (not in one session - in total) AND if your "normal
> mapping" strongly outnumbers the amount of importing you do, then it
> doesn't matter too much. As soon as you plan to add more than a 1000
> objects, roughly, then a separate account is advisable - if only to
> signal to people that this is not something you should be doing "on the
> side".

Yet again, back to the threshold we want to avoid, 100 ? 500 ? 1000 ? 5k ?

I have another idea of what a "potentially harmfull edit should be" (to which 
a policy should apply) :

"A potentially harmfull edit" is an edit that will take more time for *anyone* 
at *anytime* to revert than the one who did the edit.
Basically, as of now, it includes most automated edits.

The idea behind, is that some contributors have the technical knowledge to 
"kind of" impose their view by making other contributors unable to revert an 
automated edit they find harmfull.
And I think this is what we, at the DWG, should provide support to 
manual/technically unhealthy mappers to protect from, by communicating, asking 
people to *talk first* and, as last ressort, revert "those who knows how to".

-- 
sly (sylvain letuffe)