[Talk-GB] Mass removal of building=hall_of_residence

[Andy Townsend]

Hello, Andy from the DWG here.

Thanks for raising this.  There's actually already a DWG ticket for this 
(Ticket#2023011510000079); I've added this list post to that.

There are a couple of things going on here, and it's worth looking at 
each in turn.

1) Edits to the wiki that do not reflect actual usage in OSM.

There has been a lot of "is X a synonym of Y" activity on 
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Tag:building%3Ddormitory&action=history 
, with all the while the page just being a stub with almost no useful 
information on it.

It is true that some of these edits were by "Adamant1", and asking "have 
they attracted controversy in the past" is a bit like making an inquiry 
into "ursine lavatorial affairs".  However, here they're not the only 
contributor to this page since 2022, which is where the "don't use tag 
X, use tag Y" stuff started.  I have removed the one remaining "possible 
tagging mistake" from the wiki pages to discourage people from fiddling 
with the data based on what it says here.  See also 
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:building%3Dhall_of_residence .

However, I'm sure that these wiki pages would still benefit from more 
examples.  What it would also be useful to do would be to explain there 
the difference between building and amenity tags:

A "building" tag just describes the building type.  If does not say 
anything about what the building is currently used for.  Other tags 
(such as "amenity") do that. 
https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/building%3Ause also has 
significant usage for a building's current usage.

Generally speaking, if a particular wiki editor's activity is a problem 
I'd suggest contacting them (in the first instance) and then the regular 
wiki admins (if further action is needed).  The DWG doesn't normally get 
involved as a group in saying what should and should not be in the wiki.

2) Edits to the data based on the wiki page.

Yes, "kechan_tagfix" has corrupted a lot of surveyed tags in OSM.

I raised it with them on 
https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/131784711 and 
https://openstreetmap.org/changeset/131300925 .  On that latter 
changeset as of "2023-01-31" they said "I will try to look more into 
things before making a change from something on the osm wiki", which I 
had assumed meant that they would stop this activity.  They are still 
making changes such as https://osm.mapki.com/history/node/9670981349 so 
I will (a) block them until they contact the DWG so that we can explain 
again what is required again and (b) revert the corrupted data back to 
the status quo ante.

Edits to tags that people have surveyed should not be made in a 
"mechanical search and replace" manner unless 
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Automated_Edits_code_of_conduct is 
followed.  If someone's made an obvious typo, then fixing it is fine, 
but "guessing what someone might have meant" is not OK if it's not obvious.

Changing one tag to another just based on someone having edited a wiki 
page is not OK.

Changing one tag to another just because a few people took part in a 
wiki vote is not OK.

In each of these cases, 
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Automated_Edits_code_of_conduct 
should be followed.  Partly this is so that people know to expect a 
change; partly this is to avoid people with limited experience of tag 
changes avoid making a mess (this recently happened with database 
tagfiddling that occurred after 
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:site_type was "voted away". I'm 
a data consumer for that tag, and the first I knew of the change were 
some features showing up incorrectly at 
https://map.atownsend.org.uk/maps/map/map.html#17/54.09320/-1.40360 .  
See also 
https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/massenedit-von-site-type-zu-archaeological-site-diskutiert-und-abgesprochen/6577 
and 
https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/implementation-of-new-tagging-scheme-of-archaeological-site/7850 
.

In addition, "fixing" an "obviously wrong" tag combination by removing 
one of the problem tags is not a solution.  It took a while, but that 
was the outcome of the discussion on 
https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/125817813 (ignore the various 
misconceptions about various things from a couple of people earlier in 
the list of comments).  If may be that sources are available that make 
it pretty clear which tag is wrong; but "just guessing" is not OK.

Changing an "obviously incorrect" tag value to something that is just 
guesswork is also wrong.  There are lots of errors in OSM, and lots of 
QA sites help people find things that need fixing.  Local people can 
find errors near them and fix them based on survey, local knowledge, or 
other sources other than guesswork.  It may be that some of the "status 
quo ante" values changed here were "obviously incorrect", and if they 
get changed to something better by local mappers later; that's great - 
but they'll only be able to see the problem if the object shows up on a 
QA site as a potential issue.

Best Regards,

Andy


On 06/02/2023 21:38, nathuary via Talk-GB wrote:
> A new account (kechan_tagfix 
> <https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/kechan_tagfix>) of a relatively 
> new user (kechan <https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/kechan>) has been 
> replacing uncommon building tags with more common ones, seemingly 
> according to "possible tagging mistakes" on the wiki.
>
> These edits in general may require a closer look, since they seem like 
> essentially automated edits in small enough chunks to not be noticed 
> (whether that's deliberate or not), but in particular they removed all 
> instances of building=hall_of_residence throughout January, replacing 
> them with building=dormitory.
>
> They were likely just following the suggestion of the 
> building=dormitory page, which suggests building=hall_of_residence as 
> a possible tagging mistake since this revision 
> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Tag:building%3Ddormitory&oldid=2427402 
> <https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Tag:building%3Ddormitory&oldid=2427402>.
>
> Perhaps notably this revision was by Adamant1 
> <https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Adamant1>, who I'm vaguely 
> aware seems to attract regular controversy.
>
> The status of building=hall_of_residence has also been changed from in 
> use to obsolete in this revision 
> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Tag:building%3Dhall_of_residence&oldid=2464093 
> <https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Tag:building%3Dhall_of_residence&oldid=2464093>.
>
> Given the lack of discussion beforehand (as far as I'm aware), should 
> these changesets and wiki edits be reverted?
>
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