[OSM-talk] ANNOUNCEMENT - Anonymous Editing being disallowed

[Andy Robinson (blackadder-lists)]

Dear OSM contributors,

Following on from the original posting to this list in February (copied
below) and having further discussed at the OSMF board meeting this week it
has been decided to finally implement the abolition of anonymous editing of
OSM data. There were no objections received since the original post. This
change will be effective once the API 0.6 upgrade has been completed.

Please read the original posting below for further details of this change.

For and on behalf of the OpenStreetMap Foundation Board

Andy Robinson
Secretary
OpenStreetMap Foundation
0777 553 7872
andy at osmfoundation.org

Name & Registered Office:
Openstreetmap Foundation
16 Oakfield Glade
Weybridge
Surrey
KT13 9DP
United Kingdom 
A company limited by guarantee, registered in England and Wales.
Registration No. 05912761.

>-----Original Message-----
>From: talk-bounces at openstreetmap.org [mailto:talk-
>bounces at openstreetmap.org] On Behalf Of Etienne
>Sent: 03 February 2009 6:07 PM
>To: osm
>Subject: [OSM-talk] Anonymous Editing
>
>There was discussion in this forum recently about anonymous editing.
>Consequently, the subject was raised at the OSMF board meeting on 24/25
>January.  All board members were of the opinion that anonymous editing
>should be disallowed.  It was resolved that unless serious and legitimate
>objections are received in response to this posting, the board would
>recommend that anonymous editing be prohibited.
>
>Currently, if a user had chosen not to publish their identity then when
>their edits are published their User ID and Username would not be shown.
>It is proposed that the User ID and Username of all users who make edits
>will be made public.  Just to be clear, user's email addresses will not be
>made public, but other people will be able to contact them through the OSM
>messaging system.
>
>Any user who had not previously made their identity public will not be
>affected unless they want to make further edits.  To do so they will need
>to explicitly change their user settings to make their identity public.
>All previous edits made will then become public, so previously anonymous
>contributions by that user will no longer be anonymous.
>
>New users, creating fresh accounts, have not been given the option to make
>anonymous edits for some time now, so this change will only affect a
>relatively small number of long standing OSM contributors who have not yet
>voluntarily opted to make their edits public.  Anonymous editing is already
>prohibited for users of Potlatch, but is still permitted by JOSM and other
>tools that use the API.
>
>Unless serious and legimate objections are raised, then the board will
>recommend that anonymous editing be prevented as of implementation of the
>0.6 API (and hopefully a developer will be kind enough to make some code
>changes for us).
>
>For clarity, if you want to make a serious or legitimate objection please
>prefix your response on this thread with -1.
>
>Etienne
>
>
>
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