[OSM-talk] Undo request button for changesets

[Russ Nelson]

On Jul 15, 2009, at 7:10 AM, Frederik Ramm wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Yann Coupin wrote:
>> I completely agree with Pieren here. Unless you're part of the happy
>> fews, if case of vandalism/error, you're forced to painstakingly
>> repair by hand the problems
>
> That is true, but we also have to look at the potential for problems.
>
> ("If everyone had a gun, it would be much easier for everyone to  
> defend
> themselves, and the streets would thus become much safer for  
> everyone."
> - Can you spot the problem?)

No, in fact, I can't, because you're using the wrong analogy. Try this  
one:  "If only police and criminals have guns, it is much easier for  
everyone to defend themselves, because when a criminal is threatening  
you with his gun, you just call a policeman, wait for him to arrive,  
and he uses his gun."

> If we make these things too easy, then they will get abused.

Do you realize that you're also making this argument:
"If we make map editing too easy, then abusers will edit the map, thus  
we must put horrible user interfaces in place to make it harder to  
edit."  One might argue that this has already happened.  :)  (just  
teasing!)

> Also, it is quite a challenge technically as well. A good revert  
> system
> would have to visualise what it is about to revert,

Fair enough!  Perhaps a revert should be couched in terms of a .OSM  
file which you load into JOSM, and then preview?  If you like what you  
see fixed, then you hit the upload button.  If there are conflicts,  
well, then there are conflicts and you deal with them as any other  
edit conflict.

--
Russ Nelson - http://community.cloudmade.com/blog - http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:RussNelson
russ at cloudmade.com - Twitter: Russ_OSM - http://openstreetmap.org/user/RussNelson