[OSM-talk] talk Digest, Vol 144, Issue 39

[Federico]

Hi Frederik,

> On 24 Aug 2016, at 14:00, talk-request at openstreetmap.org wrote:
> 
> On 08/23/2016 06:04 PM, Federico wrote:
>> I've recently developed a Telegram Bot
>> (https://telegram.me/SearchAroundBot) to enable users to easily add POI
>> (currently only drinking water and toilets amenities) into OSM. Here is
>> the OSM wiki page here: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/SearchAroundBot
> 
> Please ensure that everyone who contributes data to OSM with this bot
> actually has got an OSM account (and hence has agreed to the OSM
> contributor terms), and that the data is contributed using that OSM
> account (not a generic account that you have created), and that they can
> be reached by OSM user-to-user messaging if necessary.

Thanks for the feedback.

This is precisely the delicate matter I was talking about. There is a technical issue and a social issue involved here:

- technical: telegram is not a web application and as far as I know there is no way to authenticate users using OAuth (but please explain me how if you think I am wrong here). The only solution would be to ask the user for their username/password and use them to authenticate directly, but this doesn't sound like an healthy approach.

- social: probably the majority of users using the bot does not have a OSM account. They might even have no idea of how to create one, but they might still want to send their contribution if it involves a simple interaction. 

Since i'm the owner of the SearchAroundBot OSM account I will take personal responsibility of the data which is submitted by Telegram users via the bot and I will verify it as best as I can (e.g., checking the picture the user has provided, making sure it doesn't overlap with other elements in the map, etc...), contact them directly in case of problems, or banning them from the bot if running into malicious behavior.

Hope i was able to address your concerns.

Federico