[OSM-talk] Redaction of inproperly imported protected areas data

Paul Norman penorman at mac.com
Wed Nov 6 11:45:47 UTC 2013


During other work the DWG recently became aware of an improper import of 
data about protected area from World Database on Protected AReas (WDPA), 
a proprietary data source. I had initially thought the data was confined 
to Bolivia, but it appears to be in the following countries: 

- Mexico
- Guatemala
- Honduras
- Ecuador
- Peru
- Bolivia

Unfortunately, there's not really much to do but remove and redact the 
data as WDPA was previously contacted and declined to license their data 
under an open license. 

This message is just to let people know as it impacts more than one 
country. 

I expect all of this redaction to be done by the end of the week. 

It may sound like redacting data out of OSM is an easy thing to do but 
apart from using up time better spent on other aspects of OSM, 
redactions often also damage data that was built on top of an improper 
import. Redactions also tend to lead to confusion, with people reporting 
vandalism because something that used to be on the map isn't any more.

Paul Norman
For the Data Working Group




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