[Osmf-talk] Anonymous notes on osm.org

[David Earl]

 > whether to allow anonymous (i.e. non logged in users) notes and
 > comments.

I'd favour being quite liberal in this, but as recipient of some OSBs 
I've often felt the need to ask the reporter a question to clarify 
something, so encouraging contact details would be really helpful.

Federated login is OK, but I don't think it has quite the widespread 
acceptance and familiarity we need yet. I also find it quite frustrating 
on my ipad (adding blog comments for example) where it almost always 
happens in a context where I don't have the login cookie in the 
particular app I'm in (e.g. Flipboard), so I have to go all through 
Google's 2 factor authentication just to leave a comment, when I'm 
actually already logged in in another app (e.g. in the browser).

However, what I think people are used to - from sign ups to online 
petitions, across the board, is email verification, like OSM does on 
signing up, but without the actual account creation.

This also reduces spam. But it gives the opportunity to say "by clicking 
this link you agree to how your data is used and that it's legal" and 
you can provide an opt-out box for further contact. If they don't 
respond, mappers acting on the report can be advised to use caution and 
check out the report personally.

David