OpenStreetMap
Stuff like this is what I really hate about mapping in the Balkans. The memorial nearby is supposed to represent a mass grave and the tourist information name tag says “Mass grave of Bosniaks killed by the members of the HILLBILLYSTAN army!”, where “Hillbillystan” is a Bosnian mocking nickname of the so-called Serb Republic, the Serb-controlled territory within Bosnia and Herzegovina. Now I can either delete it and draw flak from Bosnian users, some of whom will certainly perceive it as an insult to their nation, or I can leave it alone and live with the fact that the map contains such utterly unprofessional childish garbage. (I actually contacted the author in a somewhat-related matter a while ago but got no answer.) And I’m certainly not helping matters by running into this just a couple of days after the Srebrenica massacre anniversary. Oh well.
EDIT: missed a word
Discussion
Comment from Richard on 13 July 2017 at 11:01
Suggest reporting it to the Data Working Group who, I imagine, will ban the user in question, and rightly so.
Comment from SomeoneElse on 13 July 2017 at 14:21
DWG here. Yes, drop us a mail (to data@osmfoundation.org ) and include any extra info you can as per the “I’ve seen a problem; what should I do?” section of http://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Data_Working_Group .
With regard to bans, there’s actually an OSMF policy on that - http://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Ban_Policy . I’ve been active in trying to calm down the “language wars” in Kosovo - trying to ensure that names used match names used locally and name:XX language names are available for use by anyone making maps. The “ban list” is at the top of https://www.openstreetmap.org/user_blocks/ , and most of those are vandals, spammers and fantasy mappers.
Usually with people making politically-motivated changes we change it back to a reasonable “on the ground, non-inflammatory” version and ensure that enough info is in there to allow everyone to make their map too. Occasionally this takes a bit of to and fro, and sometimes where the answer is less obvious we try and ask all interested parties to put their views forward and arbitrate on that (as we did with Western Sahara / Morocco / Spain last year).
Comment from michalfabik on 14 July 2017 at 12:49
@Richard: I don’t think this particular user deserves a ban. He’s quite experienced and did quite a lot of work, as far as I could see. I could only find two or three similar edits by him and he doesn’t seem to vandalize work of other users, it’s just that he got a little, shall we say, too emotional. Thanks for pointing out DWG though, I actually might have more than this to discuss with them.
@SomeoneElse: Thanks for the info, I’ll email you as soon as I find some time to write stuff down in a little more detail.
Comment from Richard on 14 July 2017 at 12:52
Understood. Happens to us all. :)