[OSM-talk] Disallow Anonymous Edits NOW

[Richard Fairhurst]

Frederik Ramm wrote:

> I'm willing to implement the required changes to the API unless
> someone beats me to it. I think I would even be able to change the
> Potlatch controllers to this effect, however I would need some input
> from Richard about what kind of error code I should return in cases
> where the user has not made his edits public.

At first glance, I suspect the best way to do it might be to modify  
the User.authenticate method. I could then add some code to the  
Potlatch SWF that would bring up an alert if the controller returned  
"user not public". (It would be most user-friendly to add  
User.authenticate to Potlatch's getpresets action, so that the user  
was informed immediately on launching Potlatch, rather than the first  
time they tried to edit.)

Alternatively, you could just implement it all in the Rails site and  
refuse to present the SWF if the user hadn't set their edits to public.

(Obviously you'd have to do something comparable to JOSM, and I guess  
that might involve implementing a new API method. Bad edits are not  
confined to one particular editor.)

On the wider issue, I fully agree that anonymous edits are A Bad  
Thing and should be deprecated.

cheers
Richard