[OSM-talk] Disallow Anonymous Edits NOW

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

> No, you're wrong. It is not hard to work out a semi-anonymous  
> editor's identity from their gps traces and map edits.

We are *not* talking GPS traces here. GPS traces can be marked  
"private" on upload even if your OSM edits are public, and I see no  
problem with that - having to contact someone about a GPS trace is a  
rare use case.

> It allows anybody (at any point in the future) to correllate all  
> your movements, where you live, who your friends are, where you  
> work, where you buy your milk. That is most certainly loss of freedom.

This argument is built on the assumption that GPS traces would be  
automatically public. That assumption is false, so the argument does  
not hold.

> I do agree that there should be a way to contact anonymous editors  
> however, but sending a message to "most recent editor of node XYZ"

This has been discussed in the past but it is next to worthless. If  
you are dealing with someone who has introduced errors in your area,  
you want to see the full amount of what he/she did, and then you can  
send him/her a meaningful message and start a dialogue. If all you  
can do is guess that a number of edits were probably made by the same  
person then you can't even define the full extent of the problem, you  
might make wrong guesses, you might have to send the same message to  
the "last editor of" 1000 objects just to be sure that you really get  
all of them.

Such a feature might seem a compromise at first glance, but in my  
eyes it is of next to no use. In any case it will not be suitable to  
defuse the problem I was talking about initially. Having an  
"anonymous user" ruining your work creates a lot of tension. Knowing  
that it is "fred037" ruining your work helps a lot, psychologically.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00.09' E008°23.33'