[OSM-talk] Beware Pokemon users

[Oleksiy Muzalyev]

It is a good news that new users got involved. But they should be made 
aware that the OSM is a part of an infrastructure of the whole 
communities. For example, the Public Transport of the city of Stockholm, 
Sweden, is based on the OSM map: http://sl.se/en/ . Delivery services, 
supplying people with limited mobility, police departments, trying to 
maintain an order on vast territories, etc. do use the OSM map, 
sometimes just because there is no alternative.

So editing the OSM map shall not be take too lightly, the new users 
should al least have a look at the corresponding wiki pages or see 
tutorial videos on youtube how to do it right; or even better - attend 
training workshops at an OSM conference.

Best regards,
Oleksiy

On 31.12.16 02:41, Toby Murray wrote:
> ... it turned out to not
> be intentional vandalism, just lack of knowledge.
>
> I do think the bad edits are slowing down though and overall we did
> gain some good new users. There are a fair number of people who first
> learned about OSM through these posts and there are several posts
> about people seeing empty maps of their cities and getting the urge to
> fill them in, regardless of Pokemon activity!
>
> Toby
>
> On Sun, Dec 25, 2016 at 11:17 AM, Toby Murray <toby.murray at gmail.com> wrote:
>> There was a video uploaded to YouTube a couple of days ago that claims to
>> show some possible evidence that Pokemon Go uses data from OSM to determine
>> good spawn locations for Pokemon. There are also several threads on reddit
>> under /r/TheSilphRoad that have similar claims. It is amusing to see their
>> speculation and methods of testing their "evidence" which include adding a
>> footway to OSM and then going out and playing Pokemon Go a couple hours
>> later so see if it affected anything.
>>
>> Anyway, the theory being proposed is that highway=footway features in OSM
>> lead to increased Pokemon spawn activity. Also, nests are supposedly located
>> inside of recreation type landuse areas (golf course, park, play ground,
>> etc) This has led to some players attempting to influence the game mechanics
>> by, for example, adding a bunch of footways around their house. While that
>> is a relatively benign change, some others have taken to retagging paths,
>> cycleways and even residential roads to highway=footway.
>>
>> I have been watching any changesets that come in with the word "pokemon" in
>> the changeset comments and have reverted a bunch of them. However I am
>> worried about users who may not be using changeset comments so I thought I
>> would at least let the wider community know that this is happening and if
>> you see any odd reclassification of features to highway=footway, this is
>> probably why. I have also seen some legit and useful edits so it isn't all
>> bad.
>>
>> Some places where these discussions are happening:
>>
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiJ000T8GbE
>> https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSilphRoad/comments/5jfnrm/how_to_find_the_new_rural_spawn_points/
>> https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSilphRoad/comments/50ni6g/osm_data_spawn_points_relation_confirmed/
>> https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSilphRoad/comments/54sy36/osm_query_to_identify_possible_nests/
>> https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSilphRoad/comments/5jw4ep/new_spawn_points_in_my_area_align_with_osm/
>>
>> I would call their evidence circumstantial at best.
>>
>> Toby
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