[josm-dev] The Golden Rules

[SomeoneElse]

Frederik Ramm wrote:
> (Our rule is, in a nutshell: If you personally look at every object you
> change then it's fine; if however you select all objects that have a
> certain property and then change that globally without even noticing
> which countries you're editing in then that's a mechanical edit that
> requires prior discussion to make sure you're not breaking things
> inadvertently.)
>

Actually, as written it's a little broader than that.

What http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Mechanical_Edit_Policy actually 
says is "Generally, this policy covers all edits where an individual 
change to an object is not performed by a human being. This includes ... 
search-and-replace operations using an editor... unless your changes are 
backed up by knowledge or survey rather than just reckoning".

Generally speaking people doing large search-and-replace operations 
using JOSM are trying to "do the right thing" - many typo-correctors use 
JOSM on a daily basis without complaint either because their correcting 
genuine errors (e.g. tag misspellings) or are so minor (e.g. the case of 
letters used in a "source" tag) that no-one minds.

Problems occur when tag changes aren't notified beforehand and data 
consumers' maps break without warning, or when tag consolidations lose 
survey data, or when errors occur (e.g. the "building=generic" tag being 
removed in one of your "random example" user's changesets).

Perhaps a third rule along the lines of "if you're making changes over a 
large area, please consult with local mappers first and follow the 
Mechanical Edit Policy" would work?

Cheers,

Andy