[OSM-talk] Bitcoin Spam

Tue Dec 3 23:04:11 UTC 2013

Hi,

This is a good problem to have. The http://coinmap.org/ web site has a
video on how to had POI to OSM. We should ask them to update the
video.

Thanks
Jason.

On Tue, Dec 3, 2013 at 5:10 PM, Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
>    we're seeing a rising number of new ways and nodes which seem to be
> added by people who create an account for just one purpose, namely
> adding a business to the map.
>
> This could be great - if every business were to add themselves to the
> map, we'd have a nice collection of POIs.
>
> However, in the case at hand, it seems that the interest is not to
> improve OSM but instead we're just a vehicle for people to show up on
> the "coinmap", a business directory for bitcoin-accepting businesses.
>
> It seems that a name and "payment:bitcoin=yes" is sufficient for that
> site, with an optional advertising slug in the "note" tag. But for us,
> not so much. First of all because advertising has no room in OSM; second
> because many of these businesses seem to be not really "on the ground"
> (but just a mail-order place that wants to have some marker somewhere),
> third because they often don't contain even minimal information that
> would make them useful to us. I've collected these objects created in
> the past couple of days here
>
> http://www.remote.org/frederik/tmp/bitcoin.osc
>
> A few examples:
>
>     <node id="2520077777" version="1" timestamp="2013-11-04T17:56:44Z"
> uid="1795331" user="The Tobacco Seed Company" changeset="18716456"
> lat="51.5442768" lon="0.7236584">
>       <tag k="name" v="The Tobacco Seed Company"/>
>       <tag k="payment:bitcoin" v="yes"/>
>       <tag k="website" v="http://www.tobaccoseed.co.uk"/>
>     </node>
>
> This is blatant advertising for a web site. It doesn't even say what
> kind of shop this is supposed to be.
>
>     <node id="2523904649" version="1" timestamp="2013-11-08T04:46:05Z"
> uid="1798995" user="mkondratov" changeset="18776505" lat="41.4183069"
> lon="-81.694649">
>       <tag k="name" v="Noosphere Ltd, Computer Repair"/>
>       <tag k="note" v="Computer Repair Services"/>
>       <tag k="payment:bitcoin" v="yes"/>
>       <tag k="phone" v="1-216-459-1994"/>
>       <tag k="website" v="http://www.noospherecomputers.com"/>
>     </node>
>
> This, too, is little more than a name on our map. We don't usually
> include the field of business in the name - this should have been
> expressed through a proper "shop" tag.
>
>     <node id="2526590372" version="1" timestamp="2013-11-10T15:46:58Z"
> uid="1801179" user="79s VOF" changeset="18818705" lat="52.372218"
> lon="4.8653634">
>       <tag k="name" v="79s VOF"/>
>       <tag k="payment:bitcoin" v="yes"/>
>       <tag k="website" v="https://store.79s.co"/>
>     </node>
>
> Spam.
>
>     <node id="2537387222" version="1" timestamp="2013-11-18T01:07:54Z"
> uid="1809524" user="webhostpl" changeset="18964238" lat="50.0727563"
> lon="19.8938861">
>       <tag k="domeny" v=""/>
>       <tag k="hosting" v=""/>
>       <tag k="name" v="Webhost.pl"/>
>       <tag k="payment:bitcoin" v="yes"/>
>       <tag k="strony internetowe" v=""/>
>       <tag k="website" v="http://www.webhost.pl"/>
>     </node>
>
> Broken tagging (quite frequent).
>
>     <node id="2540057545" version="1" timestamp="2013-11-19T18:09:14Z"
> uid="1651798" user="oldenburg69" changeset="18998877" lat="36.2026532"
> lon="-115.0597195">
>       <tag k="addr:city" v="Las Vegas"/>
>       <tag k="addr:housenumber" v="5216"/>
>       <tag k="addr:postcode" v="89156"/>
>       <tag k="addr:street" v="Glendale Ave."/>
>       <tag k="name" v="Hannig Fab Works"/>
>       <tag k="note" v="Hannig Fab Works LLC is a custom metal
> fabrication shop specializing in creating high quality metal fixtures,
> custom fabrication and metal art to customers in the Southern Nevada and
> abroad via the internet."/>
>       <tag k="payment:bitcoin" v="yes"/>
>       <tag k="website" v="http://www.hannigfabworks.com/"/>
>     </node>
>
> Tagging is ok as far as the address node is concerned, but without a
> shop tag the rest is kind of useless, and the "note" tag is not for your
> marketing tagline.
>
>     <node id="2548748273" version="1" timestamp="2013-11-24T14:38:32Z"
> uid="1817212" user="l337 PLace" changeset="19091714" lat="60.1491622"
> lon="24.6551426">
>       <tag k="addr:city" v="Espoo"/>
>       <tag k="addr:housename" v="1337Place"/>
>       <tag k="addr:housenumber" v="4"/>
>       <tag k="addr:postcode" v="02320"/>
>       <tag k="addr:street" v="Espoonlahdenkatu"/>
>       <tag k="name" v="1337place.com (Logistics only)"/>
>       <tag k="note" v="Quality products shipping worldwide starting
> @5EUR. BeagleBone Black and much more. U can pay with Bitcoin! #BTC
> #Bitcoin"/>
>       <tag k="payment:bitcoin" v="yes"/>
>       <tag k="phone" v="+358466401678"/>
>       <tag k="website" v="http://www.1337place.com"/>
>     </node>
>
> Whatever BeagleBone Black is, this house is certeinly not called
> "1337Place"...
>
>    <node id="2563617422" visible="true" version="1" changeset="19261838"
> timestamp="2013-12-03T21:42:21Z" user="EcoBox" uid="1828695"
> lat="29.4561384" lon="-98.4193203">
>       <tag k="moving boxes" v="moving boxes"/>
>       <tag k="name" v="EcoBox"/></node>
>    </node>
>
> What shall I say. The changeset comment contained something about
> accepting bitcoin.
>
> This is all rather undesirable - people adding their business to OSM
> would be great, but advertising isn't, and we'd prefer if they actually
> used tagging that is used in OSM, rather than simply rushing in a name
> tag and a location because that's enough to get listed on some third
> party web site.
>
> I delete the ones I encounter when they're outright spam but I'm shying
> away from suggesting some kind of automated cleaning job because I'm not
> clear on what the minimum tagging should be on any node. We don't
> currently have any such rules but seeing people dumping things into our
> database that we can't use just so they're shown on coinmap seems a bit
> strange.
>
> Bye
> Frederik
>
> --
> Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"
>
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