[OSM-talk] Organised Editing Guidelines now officially live

Mon Jan 21 15:48:12 UTC 2019

Hi Martijn,

I was thinking of disclosed sources that can’t easily be shown, for example, imagery that doesn’t exist yet, or where you have to enter a special agreement to be given access, or out-of-copyright analogue sources that haven’t been digitised.

We agree that this should be exceptional, and I expect the communities to have a low tolerance for bullshit on this :).

Guillaume

> On 17 Jan 2019, at 17:57, Martijn van Exel <m at rtijn.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi Guillaume,
> Thanks, that clarifies it for me.
> Just to be clear, where you mention 'special sources' -- those would still need to be vetted for compatibility with ODbL, and that would need to be done in the open. I don't think anyone, individual or organization, should be able to get away with using some undisclosed source even if the community somehow is willing to accept this and turn a blind eye. Am I misunderstanding that example?
> -- 
>  Martijn van Exel
>  m at rtijn.org
> 
> On Thu, Jan 17, 2019, at 09:51, Guillaume Rischard wrote:
>> Hi Martijn,
>> 
>> Gladly. I seem to recall that this is also one of the points that you 
>> asked questions about during the board meeting.
>> 
>> What we mean is that we’ll intervene for edits the community has issues 
>> with, and that we will not intervene for merely not following the 
>> guidelines. Maybe a few examples will help.
>> 
>> If you organise a mapping activity and miss a topic when adapting one 
>> of the wiki template, and the local community has no issue with 
>> anything, no one is in trouble.
>> 
>> If you use a special source you can’t share, and the local community 
>> understands and is cool with it, no one is in trouble.
>> 
>> If you ignore a part of the guidelines and the community complains 
>> about that but agrees that the actual edits are excellent, we’ll kindly 
>> ask you to try to follow that part, but that’s probably it. For 
>> example, if you’re responding to a humanitarian emergency and don’t 
>> wait for 14 days.
>> 
>> If there’s no wiki entry at all for an activity and the community 
>> complains about the edits, DWG would look into it.
>> 
>> If the community is unhappy with some of the information it has 
>> received, and objects to the edits being made, and you ignore the 
>> objections, and the community complains, DWG would look into it.
>> 
>> If you do everything by the book, but the local community is unhappy 
>> about the edits themselves and complains about it, DWG would look into 
>> it. But that’s very unlikely if you really did follow the guidelines.
>> 
>> So the community truly has an effect on what DWG looks at. The 
>> guidelines are the best way we know to have a constructive relationship 
>> with the community, and a rich discussion is the most important part of 
>> it.
>> 
>> Of course, following the guidelines also demonstrates good faith if the 
>> DWG needs to look into the edits.
>> 
>> I hope this clarifies the intentions.
>> 
>> Happy mapping
>> 
>> Guillaume
>> 
>>> On 10 Jan 2019, at 22:37, Martijn van Exel <m at rtijn.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Hi Guillaume, DWG,
>>> 
>>> Thanks for the conclusion. I asked in a different email on this thread to post this on the OSMF web site, to have a permanent, immutable copy that we can refer to when it comes to enforcing / disputes. 
>>> 
>>> I am a confused about the statement 'not following the organised editing guidelines isn’t an offence per se'. I am trying to make a connection with what you said in the October 2018 board meeting: 'The DWG is going to enforce [the guidelines] just as it enforces anything else which comes from community consensus'[1]. If the guidelines are going to be enforced, could you add some clarity to the decision making process? Who decides when non-compliance becomes an offense and on what criteria? How serious of an offense, or how many, would it take to be banned? 
>>> 
>>> Martijn
>>> 
>>> [1] https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Board/Minutes/2018-10-18#Guidelines_contain_prescriptive_statements
>>> 
>>> -- 
>>> Martijn van Exel
>>> m at rtijn.org
>>> 
>>> On Thu, Jan 10, 2019, at 08:31, Guillaume Rischard wrote:
>>>> The Data Working Group is happy to announce that our new Organised 
>>>> Editing Guidelines have now been officially put online on the wiki at 
>>>> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Organised_Editing_Guidelines
>>>> 
>>>> I'm happy to answer any questions here. In the meanwhile, here's my 
>>>> updated report.
>>>> 
>>>> We at DWG are, first of all, thankful for all the constructive input we 
>>>> have received, from the advisory board, the humanitarian mapping 
>>>> initiatives and the mapping community.
>>>> 
>>>> The organised editing guidelines took a lot of work to prepare. We 
>>>> received and integrated a lot of feedback to reflect consensus and 
>>>> existing good practice.
>>>> 
>>>> We looked at what similar policies would exist, on OSM or in other 
>>>> organisations. I believe that no other project, open or proprietary, 
>>>> has faced this exact issue before. On OSM, contributors generally 
>>>> understand the current policies on automated edits and imports. We 
>>>> wrote the organised editing guidelines in a similar way, while adopting 
>>>> a slightly softer approach – not following the organised editing 
>>>> guidelines isn’t an offence per se. Elsewhere, Wikipedia has numerous 
>>>> policies some vaguely similar, but the problems they face are quite 
>>>> different, and their policies tend to be a lot more complex.
>>>> 
>>>> Internally, we looked back at past problematic edits. We carefully 
>>>> wrote the guidelines and defined the scope to prevent those problems 
>>>> without creating loopholes or negative incentives like encouraging 
>>>> salami tactics. They are not meant to apply to community activities 
>>>> like mapping parties between friends or making a presentation on OSM at 
>>>> a local club, but only to ‘sizeable, substantial’ activities. We wanted 
>>>> something that doesn’t scare casual events off while letting us 
>>>> regulate a geography class gone berserk or a misguided volunteer 
>>>> mapathon.
>>>> 
>>>> We also didn’t want to set hard limits in stone since they would have 
>>>> to go back to the Board constantly if we need to refine exactly what 
>>>> falls under the guidelines.
>>>> 
>>>> Humanitarian activities deserve our fullest support. We therefore 
>>>> adapted the guidelines for them, both implicitly, by requiring only a 
>>>> best-effort approach, and explicitly, by exempting emergencies from the 
>>>> two-week discussion period. Some humanitarian edits have been 
>>>> problematic before, and the guidelines are easy to follow; a blanket 
>>>> exemption would send the wrong signal.
>>>> 
>>>> We saw the amount of corporate good will at SotM, the tensions in the 
>>>> community, and the (dis)organised edits that mappers have referred to 
>>>> us. It is good for everyone that those guidelines are now online on the 
>>>> wiki. Good actors, existing and new, will be able to trust clear 
>>>> expectations. The community will be confident that this is the 
>>>> consensus that will be respected. Confused newcomers will get a 
>>>> blueprint for a successful organised edit.
>>>> 
>>>> We wrote guidelines that are easy to read and follow and provide 
>>>> clarity on how good organised edits should run without having a 
>>>> chilling effect on them.
>>>> 
>>>> I’m glad that this project is now concluded, and am convinced that it 
>>>> will be a good thing both for OSM and for the OSM community.
>>>> 
>>>> Guillaume
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> talk mailing list
>>>> talk at openstreetmap.org
>>>> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
>>>> 
>>> 
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>> 
>> 