[Talk-GB] Problematical rural edits across England

[SomeoneElse]

I'm wondering what is the best approach to take with a relatively recent 
contributor to OpenStreetMap.  Since joining they've made a large number 
of edits geographically spread across England.  Unfortunately, most of 
these edits seem at odds with previous on-the-ground surveys.

Examples of problems include include:
(I'll not include actual examples on a public mailing list at this stage)

o removing previously on-the-ground surveyed tags such as "surface", 
"designation" (especially where it might preclude motor vehicle access), 
and changes of "highway=bridleway" to "highway=track" (presumably to 
encourage vehicle access).

o adding "designation=byway_open_to_all_traffic" where it either isn't 
signed on the ground or is signed as something else (e.g. bridleway)

o merging ways together with differing tags resulting in e.g. 
"surface=x;y;x" and "layer=1" from a merged bridge.

o adding data with incompatible tags such as "designation = 
byway_open_to_all_traffic", "source = NPE"

I've been in contact with the mapper concerned about these problems 
several times over the past month, trying to be friendly and helpful, as 
would only be fair to a new mapper.  Answers I received about the 
"designation" tagging included things like "included on Notts CC's 
definitive map as a byway" and "from a Definitive map modification order 
from 2006" (in both cases I asked about verifiability and licence 
suitability but received no further reply).  I've not received a reply 
about the bridleway-to-track changes, and problematical edits are still 
being made.

My concern about the designation changes is obviously that they've been 
copied from another source that might not be licence-compatible.  The 
removal of existing tags is a different problem, that of deleting 
people's previous hard work (where ways have been merged and 
subsequently re-edited it's not straightforward just to add back 
previous tags).

What would people recommend as the next step?

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Vandalism
and
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Data_working_group

would suggest "try and sort it out within the community first, then 
raise it with the DWG" which makes sense.  My messages haven't had any 
noticeable affect, but perhaps more voices would?  Any other suggestions?

Cheers,
Andy