[openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website] Ideas for combating vandalism (Issue #4818)

Nickolas Gupton notifications at github.com
Mon May 20 14:20:29 UTC 2024


### Problem

Vandals have been on the rise recently and I have a few ideas for how we can limit the damage they do. I would love to hear others ideas as well for how we could reduce the damage they can do.

### Description

I have 2 proposals, one I believe is a 'hot take' and may have contention, but I hope that the second one is more agreeable.

1. Limit access to edit using JOSM and other 'power tools' that can do large scale damage to the map for new and dormant accounts.
  a. While iD can still do quite a lot of damage to the map, it is harder to do global damage to the map with iD than it is with JOSM.
  b. JOSM is an extremely powerful tool and it should be an earned privilege to use it.
2. Treat accounts that have been dormant for years as 'new' accounts for the purposes of rate limiting.
  a. As an example, account chessiegp9 (https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/chessiegp9/history) was recently used as part of a vandalism campaign. This account had not edited on OSM for 3 years prior to the vandalism starting, it is unclear as to if the original account creator made these changes or if the account was taken over by a bad actor, however I believe this would have mitigated some of the damage done.

### Screenshots

_No response_

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