OpenStreetMap
New users shouldn't be allowed to delete a lot of data
Posted by naoliv on 28 April 2014 in English.Really. It’s tiring to keep fixing deleted administrative boundaries, for example.
Or revert changesets where people play SimCity on the map (and also delete a lot of things).
Discussion
Comment from erickdeoliveiraleal on 28 April 2014 at 21:02
+1
Comment from RobJN on 28 April 2014 at 22:01
Do any of the editors warn you if you try to upload a change that includes a lot of deletions?
Also, we have experienced mappers coming to the local mailing list to ask for a revert. It’s actually very easy to do with JOSM’s revert plugin.
Comment from Rps333 on 29 April 2014 at 00:12
+1
Comment from tmcw on 29 April 2014 at 02:05
The answer is yes. Here’s iD’s implementation.
Comment from marczoutendijk on 29 April 2014 at 08:48
It’s my opinion that the layer with administrative borders shouldn’t be available at all to the regular mapper. When I started mapping I was really puzzled (and confused) by the idea that real things (like roads, mountains and rivers) could be connected to a ‘virtual’ world of borders. And at what point becomes a “new” user an “accepted” user?
So yes, I support your complaining, but I also plea for a non-editable layer of administrative (and other) boundaries.
Comment from AndiG88 on 29 April 2014 at 13:50
I think it would be enough if there just was some checkbox “show/download administrative boundaries” either on your profile or in the editors, that is disabled by default and is semi hidden in some sub menu.
That way a user spending more time editing OSM would find it at some point or could simply look it up in the wiki.
I honestly would want that option for myself, because 99.99% of the time I don’t need them and just risk accidentally moving or connecting ways to them.
Comment from jgpacker on 29 April 2014 at 14:46
I think that’s a great suggestion. But what can be done when the administrative boundary is made with rivers and/or streets?
Comment from Pieren on 2 May 2014 at 11:03
-1 If it’s “non-editable”, then it has nothing to do in OSM. Create a mashup with external data if you are not happy. Admin borders are changing anyway, it shall be possible to modify them and I dont want to see a new elitist caste of super-contributors in OSM. And what after borders ? motorways ? place names ? population ? coastline ? bus routes ? etc… What we need more is QA tools monitoring the quality of the data in general. Special tools are already checking admin borders and coastline.
+1 to create a status of ‘new contributor’ with reduced write access to the db. But this should be limited in time (e.g. max. 3 days of contributions).
Comment from kc0nlh on 8 May 2014 at 15:34
I agree that there should be some form of check and balance on mass edits by new users. I was very grateful that ID did have the warning about deleting stuff when I was cleaning up parking lots and consolidating lots I realized I had accidentally deleted a park in the process so I canceled the save and started all over.