[Talk-GB] Protecting the work - Probation?

Peter Miller peter.miller at itoworld.com
Tue Jul 21 13:39:47 BST 2009


On 21 Jul 2009, at 13:17, Nick Allen wrote:

> Hi,
>
> One persons edits have created much talk as we are all worried about
> damage to the work that has been put into the project, and rightly so.
>
> When I started editing over a year ago I was worried (rightly on
> occasion) that I was damaging rather than contributing, and this
> actually made it harder for me to contribute & gain confidence.

Of course we should welcome and support newbies and help and encourage  
them. Some times we will just tweek their tagging to make it work and  
send them a message, other times one will let them get on with it if  
it is not structural stuff and possibly invite them to a mapping party.

>
> There is now a person who's current edits are causing alarm. This
> situation could alter in the future & their work then will be  
> valued. We
> could currently be looking at a gifted 5 year old who will write a new
> operating system for mapping systems in the future. For now, they are
> being monitored & incorrect edits repaired in one way or another.

In this situation we have someone pouring duff information into the  
map for fun and to see what we do about it. We do not have the  
resources to revert them all one-by-one, especially has he turns up  
and does new edits reasonably frequently. What we need is his edits  
out of the DB nice and efficiently so that we can get on with more  
productive work.

If he starts doing good work then we will stop reverting it. Until  
then, and when he doesn't respond to messages, we should briefly check  
each new changeset and request a revert.

>
> Perhaps it is now time to consider different status's for user log- 
> ins.
> A 'probationer' could be someone new who's first few contributions  
> need
> monitoring to help them navigate the minefield of tagging, or an
> existing user who's abilities have waned & now need monitoring,  
> perhaps
> temporarily. Anybody who's status is 'probationer' has their edits
> validated before they are added to the database. The initial  
> monitoring
> would have to be for a very limited number of edits, but could provide
> the necessary buffer to provide safety to the process.

I don't see any need for anything more than what we have at this  
stage. The tools are getting better making it less easy to mess up  
data inadvertently and people either seem to tweek what is there a bit  
or start mapping in a virgin area - I am quite happy with people being  
able to get on an edit from day one. I will however check out newbie's  
work in my patch when I see if using OSM Mapper or OSM history.

To be clear, my only focus at present is to have good processes for  
dealing with sustained malicious edits and for us to know who to call  
in these circumstances.



Regards,


Peter


> Nick (Tallguy)
>
>
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