[Talk-GB] Voting mechanical edit: UK shop names

[Dan S]

2014-11-01 12:50 GMT+00:00 Richard Fairhurst <richard at systemed.net>:
> Matthijs Melissen wrote:
>> Voting is now open for the proposal to unify the names of chain
>> shops within the UK by renaming them.
>
> No, it isn't.
>
> Mechanical edits stand or fall by their own merits. They cannot be ok-ed by
> a vote.
>
> From the Automated Edits Code of Conduct: "We do not require or recommend a
> formal vote, but if there is significant objection to your plan - and even
> minorities may be significant! - then change it or drop it altogether."
>
> We historically have a low tolerance of mechanical edits and imports in the
> UK; we prefer to make large-scale changes by hand. That is one of the
> reasons why the OSM map of the UK is so good. A "come one, come all" vote on
> the wiki can be trivially gerrymandered into supporting your proposals
> without any proof of approval by the people who are affected by such a bulk
> change, i.e. UK mappers.
>
> I am not sure where you got the idea of a "vote" for mechanical edits
> (Wikipedia? wiki.osm.org tag pages?), but there is no precedent for it in
> OSM and I would ask you to withdraw it.

The "rationale" part of the webpage* seems to me to set out Matthjis'
perspective on why to ask for a vote.

Also, Matthijs sent out an RFC email proposing this whole process - he
got lots of feedback (which he has taken into consideration), but
no-one objected to the voting mechanism. It's not your fault if you
only just noticed this happening, of course, but it's a little rude to
declare "No it isn't" in the sense of shutting him down when he's
proceeding in such an open and consultative manner. Lots of people
have discussed Matthijs' proposed changes in the RFC thread and now
this thread. To me, it seems a good example of consultation.

Cheers
Dan

* https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Mechanical_Edits/Math1985/UK_Shop_Names