[OSM-talk] Anonymous login, yet again- was privacy policy

[Etienne]

On 7/28/06, Andy Robinson <Andy_J_Robinson at blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>
> Nice summary David and I broadly agree with your opinion.
>
> On the final point about permitting some anonymous edits I think this
> could
> work. If anonymous edits were restricted to a special set of tags then
> those
> tags could be available to editors for use in making corrections and to
> users to see alternatives and suggested changes which have not gone live
> yet. I've spotted this type of approach elsewhere. On Ancestry.com for
> instance there is the ability to tag a poor census transcription with a
> comment as to what you believe the transcription should read. These
> comments
> get attached to the data rather than changing the original data entry and
> new visitors can see this alterative information when the visit the same
> census page and use it as they see fit. The same sort of approach could be
> made with OSM. An anonymous user would be able to offer new or different
> spelling for a road name for instance but this information would be
> attached
> to the element in question rather than superseding the "name" tag.


Perhaps anonymous edits should be restricted to tags in the anon namespace.
name=Ermine Street, ref=A10 could be added by someone who is logged in, but
only anon:name=Ermin St, anon:ref=A10 permitted for an anonymous user.


A logged
> in editor could then make the correction or add the name if its
> verifiable.
>
> We were discussing on irc last night how we can maintain confidence in the
> validity of data in OSM. This might come by weighting data with confidence
> statistics. User edits (both logged and anonymous) could plan an important
> role in helping give the project continued confidence in the validity of
> data.


It would be great if it were easy for anyone _viewing_ the data to be able
to click an agree/disagree button on any map feature.  Over time this would
provide a mass of consensus for the map data and any errors ought to become
quite noticeable.

Cheers
>
> Andy
>
> Andy Robinson
> Andy_J_Robinson at blueyonder.co.uk
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: talk-bounces at openstreetmap.org [mailto:talk-
> >bounces at openstreetmap.org] On Behalf Of David Groom
> >Sent: 28 July 2006 00:47
> >To: talk at openstreetmap.org
> >Subject: [OSM-talk] Anonymous login, yet again- was privacy policy
> >
> >I think we are going to have to accept there is no absolute answer to the
> >question of anonymous login.  But here are my thoughts for what its
> worth.
> >
> >1)  I can see no real downside to anonymous access to "read" OSM data.
> >
> >2) OSM data is not like words written on Wikipedia, so don't cite that as
> >an
> >example of how to proceed.  To explain:
> >
> >a) as Martyn Welch (and others) have said its far easier to spot an error
> >on
> >Wikipedia than it will be on OSM data;
> >
> >b) I'm not a believer in conspiracy theories, but I have to accept the
> >possibility.  Something written in Wikipedia is in general not likely to
> >cause commercial harm to anyone, and therefore:
> >
> >i) wikipedia "data" is unlikely to be corrupted simply to cause a
> >commercial
> >disadvantage to someone;
> >ii) if something on wikipedia does come from a copyrighted source it is
> >unlikely to cause financial loss to someone;
> >
> >However, at least in the United Kingdom, the data being produced by the
> OSM
> >project directly effects the revenue earning potential of a number of
> large
> >powerful organisations which therefore have a distinct reason to note any
> >breaches of copyright, and take appropriate action.
> >
> >For these reasons OSM has to be more careful than Wikipedia in
> identifying
> >the identity of contributors, and separating one contributor from another
> >( i.e. no anonymous write access) so that problem data can more easily be
> >removed.
> >
> >c) OSM data is more "viral". Suppose someone writes something on
> wikipedia
> >that is wrong, it can be removed and this doesn't really effect the rest
> of
> >the article.  However suppose someone (logged in as anonymous) puts in a
> >few
> >nodes that are derived from a copyright source, then someone goes and
> uses
> >those  nodes to form a segment, and then someone else uses that segment
> to
> >form a way.  In deleting those nodes we then have to delete someone
> else's
> >work who created the segments and the way.  Not only that, but we then
> have
> >to back out all data created by that anonymous source, even if it doesn't
> >belong to the corrupt nodes.
> >
> >d) having said all the above, I can see the argument for the fact that if
> >someone is looking at OSM maps and sees a name of a street is missing, or
> >spelt wrong, that they should be able to easily correct this.  Such a
> >correction would not be "viral" in the case of (c) above as it only
> affects
> >the key/value of an existing entry.
> >
> >To summarise:
> >
> >A) Read access could be anonymous
> >B) Uploading of gpx tracks, creation of ways, & segments MUST require an
> >OSM
> >user account
> >C) I personally don't like the idea, but, adding key / values to EXISTING
> >ways might be allowed by anonymous login.
> >
> >David
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >_______________________________________________
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> >talk at openstreetmap.org
> >http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
>
>
>
>
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