[OSM-talk] Automatically generated changeset discussion comments by OSMCha

[Tobias Knerr]

On 12.01.2018 15:39, Andy Townsend wrote:
> More seriously, any automatic use of OSM messages is problematical
> because it devalues the messages that we want people to actually read -
> the ones that are composed by and sent be a human, and have actual
> useful information in them

I agree. Right now, messages and comments sent via OSM channels tend to
be written by humans for a specific individual recipient, which gives
them a very good signal-to-noise ratio. I enjoy that a lot and would
like to keep things that way.

Subjectively, I also tend to find it a bit off-putting when canned
messages try to imitate human writing. Compared to obviously automated
messages ("your changeset was reviewed by user X"), they can feel
somewhat dishonest. I accept that people will feel differently about
this, though.