OpenStreetMap
Hi, It’s been some years now that me and other mappers are uncapable of editing in Sicily. Other users check every edit and revert it in a matter of minutes, with other big changesets that have misleading notes like “aggiornamento”, “survey”, “edit”.
Example situation: 1) I put a note online (I am afraid to map because of continue reverts) “on the ground”: that place changed name 2) user X “closes” the bug but doesn’t change that name 3) Osm mails me, I double check because i don’t trust that user anymore. 4) I change manually the name 5) I’ve a strange feeling that my small edit will be deleted soon.. …. then, less than 30 minutes later: reverted.
Ok, now that everything is like before, I’ll go back to another year without mapping or using OSM.
bye bye mapping
Discussion
Comment from michalfabik on 22 November 2019 at 09:38
Hi, can you give an example of such a revert?
Comment from Vincent de Phily on 22 November 2019 at 10:35
I see a lively discussion in https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/77387716, that’s good. Hopefully you’ll reach a consensus (I’m not good enough at Italian to see if that’s the case).
If that discussion doesn’t work, try reaching the https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Data_working_group
Comment from pangoSE on 22 November 2019 at 11:30
Hi @Atlas. Please don’t leave! We need people like you.
You sound really really tired of the specific situation with other contributors in your local area. Thanks for telling us that. I also don’t know italian, but reverting without discussion first is not ok IMO. Also hounding and bossing over other mappers in your area is very bad practice that I have yet to encounter in Sweden. A good mapper can let things slide for a bit and then gently nudge the new contributors in a specific direction via changeset comments and cleanups, preserving as much as possible. For more seasoned mappers in conflict I recommend the country mailing list + wiki and trying to strike a consensus of how to map if anything not specific to a certain object or place.
I urge you to try to edit the map somewhere else. In Sweden we are very friendly :D and have truckloads of work to do with our roads (high quality data from government needs to be traced), paths in nature reserves, etc. Send me a PM if you are interested in joining and have fun mapping (it does not matter if you live here or not).
Lastly I will say that mapping together is not always an easy task because we are so different and have different levels and experience of solving conflicts. I take breaks sometimes when I feel that something is becoming too important.
Cheers pangoSE
Comment from Arlas on 22 November 2019 at 12:35
We had plenty of this cases and reached DWG many times. The only thing that happened was long time wasted and many work wasted with so many reverse edits (now 3 people stopped mapping, me too).
You spend 3 hours working on the map and others spend 1 second reverting everything. That’s so obvious that you can predict them even if you change one name. They check every edit to make sure that nothing changes and delete real time of your life, that’s not a joke.
I’m saying that in some little things (for example bus stops) there can be a lot of work.. I checked every bus stop walking/running on all my city and this took really MANY hours. Other people deleted easily my work and never came in my city. DWG did nothing. People’s work should be respected.
Comment from kucai on 23 November 2019 at 12:17
That’s weird. Usually people just change what they don’t agree with, but not revert the whole changeset. Did you ever contact the user for discussions?
Comment from mboeringa on 23 November 2019 at 14:53
I understand your frustration, but I do think the situation, based on that changeset discussion linked by Vincent de Phily:
is quite nuanced.
The problem here is that both OSM users are right to some extent. The specific place, an ENI fuel station, seems to have changed name, and unfortunately, the owner or responsible public authority, did not bother to change the name everywhere, so both the old and new name are still listed on boards / way-signs or tables for directions:
“Bagali Est è il nome con cui è stata indicata inizialmente, mentre dopo qualche anno hanno installato il tabellone con il nome Priolo Est, senza però rimuovere il cartello di direzione con la vecchia denominazione”
Such problems are unsolvable by individual users in OSM. There is just no “right” or “wrong” here.
Personally, instead of wasting time on such an unsolvable conflict, I would spend time urging the owner or public authority to remove the ambiguity by replacing all way-signs and boards with the updated name.
I realize this last advice may be a tough call in countries with lots of bureaucracy (which country hasn’t?), but it is the only thing that will ultimately solve such issues.
Comment from Arlas on 23 November 2019 at 15:56
This isn’t the problem. The problem is that everything you put will be deleted without notice. Should I partecipate and check every minute that things aren’t deleted without notice? With masked changeset? Both are right you say; I say that I never delete other people’s work, because I respect it. But that user deleted many times things without having been actually in that place. He (and others) had been blocked by DWG many times. Result: I cannot map, he and others are still doing the same things.
That changeset prove this: i put something real and that’s deleted. Can you see my contribution? No. Can you see who did the deletion? No, changeset is “masked”. Why?
You think that i’m going to put big changeset (hours of work) and see them reverted? I make 1 change and sthink: that’s going to be removed soon, and 15 minutes later….
Both are right? One object can have 2 names.
If you check and delete other people’s work in minutes I think that’s personal, it’s not unintentional
Comment from Arlas on 23 November 2019 at 16:09
How many times Ludovic Druard should put name on the same street? No matter, that will be deleted, sooner or later. Example : https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/438184733/history
that’s not respectful
Comment from mboeringa on 23 November 2019 at 16:30
If both names are officially recognized by a public authority, one of them could go in the “alt_name=x” tag.
And yes, that again means making an arbitrary descision which name should go in “name” and which in “alt_name”, that again could result in conflict because one user would like to see name A displayed in the Standard rendering, and the other B.
Alternatively, concatenating the names might be an option:
“Peroli Est” / “Bagali Est”
But I would personally only do this if it was based on official record that both names are still valid.
This Google maps image exactly shows the ambiguity of the situation regarding this fuel station:
https://www.google.nl/maps/@37.1703335,15.159215,3a,60y,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sX-vdO-eOnDXPLoDgtOX1Yg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
Clearly, the small blue way-sign says “Bagali Est”, while the ENI fuel station sign says “Peroli Est”. Why you say this “Isn’t the problem” eludes me…, this is at the heart of the conflict you have with the other user.
Only persuading ENI or the public authority to adjust the signs to a common name will ultimately solve this.
Comment from Arlas on 23 November 2019 at 16:38
You know that we cannot map something using google maps? among other things that photo is dated “Street View - dic 2011” I checked last time there 3 months ago. Now i’m 2000km away.
You cannot dig deeper? You cannot see that this user has already 3 DWG blocks?
You cannot see how many deletion and edit wars hare here? you see only the number of edits of a user? nice. I search one street with no name, check in history and see same story happening again with so many time spent trying to make people understand our frustration. It’s not only me. If something that I ever did is deleted now you will never know, and you will never care.
Comment from Arlas on 23 November 2019 at 17:44
You prefer to see deleted housenumbers? https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/2278131166/history#map=19/37.50941/15.08584
I’m wounded
Comment from Arlas on 23 November 2019 at 17:55
https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/4352964326/history ??
Comment from grin on 27 November 2019 at 11:17
I don’t think the problem is who’s right.
I think the problem is that revert shall be the last resort of conflict resolution. I would say that (apart from the obvious, bad faith, repeated edits; and these shall be present at once, not just any of them) the first few steps in case of a “suspected bad” edit is to discuss it with the editor.
I would tend to say that if an editor got into the habit of reverting without discussion s/he has to be warned that s/he will be suspended unless resort to some cooperative mode of work, and if fails to do that should be preventively banned for a short warning period.
Non-communicating editors are bad for community health.
Comment from grin on 27 November 2019 at 11:26
@arlas I don’t believe @fayor is doing it in bad faith:
https://overpass-api.de/achavi/?changeset=77134186
It seems that he is busy updating buildings and sometimes, possibly by mistake, lose hous numbers.
The right way would be to politely and descriptively telling him/her in the changeset description, and let either to explain or to correct it. No need to get angry.
Comment from Arlas on 27 November 2019 at 12:18
He usually does not reply or say that “I should correct this” because he will not do that work. If then I’ll correct mistakes, he will soon or later revert my work. That’s his historical behaviour. How can this be a mistake if he is an expert user? If you see that changeset you will not see any improvement to the map, only deletions.
Comment from grin on 27 November 2019 at 12:43
I can only judge what I see. If he repeatedly not responding to polite requests (or respond with no real information) it’s the same as non-communication, and if it happened to me I would politely remind him to respond, stop reverting or be reported to DWG. (And I would already have plenty of changesets with discussion requesting explanation and getting none.)
I see one recent mistake: https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/77487072#map=10/38.3160/14.9063
And more than one intentional removal of objects against the community: https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/77387716 https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/41250473
Since it seems to be going on for long time I’d say the local community shall be notified (if there’s any) and try to talk to the person, and failing that it should definitely reported to DWG. (Or alternatively reverted immediately, but preferably not by the same person of the community.)
In my opinion.
Comment from Arlas on 27 November 2019 at 12:50
Local community stopped mapping because of plenty of time spent with DWG and nothing resolved at all. 3 bans. With other people bans did nothing because they can create other accounts and continue doing this things, masking deletion in big changesets. If I have some time free to map I cannot spend it talking with DWG, reverting work done, working on the same things over and over and giving nothing to OSM at the end.
Comment from Arlas on 28 November 2019 at 09:34
http://hdyc.neis-one.org/?fayor
http://hdyc.neis-one.org/?Arlas
How can it be that I deleted only 50.000 nodes and he 263.810? I have created 1 876 213 nodes, he “created” 925.404
http://hdyc.neis-one.org/?rondock Mostly deletions over all the city (insane)
Other users of which i don’t remember name, too
So why there is so much unbalance between two mappers? who is doing good and who is doing bad? How can we believe that’s not “bad faith”? This is math.