[OSM-talk] spammy "survey" questions.

[Cristian Consonni]

Hi,

2015-03-03 0:38 GMT+01:00 Richard Weait <richard at weait.com>:
> I'm no fan researchers sending messages to OpenStreetMap users via the
> messaging system.  I consider them an intrusion.  And I've complained
> about them here, before.  There is another one making the rounds.
> Seems like there are more of these every time I turn around.

[...]

> You could ignore the survey and surveyor.
> Report them to DWG. They are spamming, after all.  And we hate spammers.
> Report them to their university research ethics office.
> I earlier suggested that we retag their university as a day care or
> kindergarten. Or public toilet.  But that would be wrong.  Don't hack
> OpenStreetMap; hack the survey.

I believe that if you consider this surveys to be "spam" you should
do, IMHO, one of the following:
1) ignore it
2) report them as spam to the OSM Foundation
3) contact the author to say you consider this action to be spam

I don't see how giving fake answers is going to help, but maybe it is
just me or maybe you were just kidding.

> To be clear, there is great opportunity for OpenStreetMap to learn
> about itself through research.  But that will have to be done in
> coordination with the Foundation and under our terms.

Out of curiosity, does the OSM Foundation have a policy in this respect?
If no, I think it is a little to much to ask people to respect in
advance a policy with does not exist yet.
The Foundation has all the mean to adopt a clear policy with the
consensus of the community and make it part of some "Terms of Use" of
the OSM messaging system.

For comparison, the Wikimedia Foundation has a Research portal on Meta
wiki[1] and, for example, they can also provide access to non-public
data (e.g. server logs) for research purposes but there are
requirements[2] as for example the pubblication of results with an
Open Access license.

In short, don't wait for people to come up with a solution. propose a
solution! There are examples available so it is not even that
difficult.

Cristian
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Index
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Access_to_non-public_data