Automated edits/Baly

Baly uses the OpenStreetMap API to submit a portion of its map corrections. This page documents those API-based edits, as required by the Automated Edits code of conduct and the Organised Editing Guidelines.

It is the companion to Organised Editing/Activities/Baly, which covers Baly's mapping activity as a whole. Changesets produced through this pipeline carry the #baly_api hashtag.

Rationale

Baly's applications collect map problem reports from passengers and drivers — a street recorded in the wrong direction, a road that is closed, a name spelled incorrectly, a business that has moved or closed. These reports arrive in volumes beyond what manual review can absorb, so a validation pipeline resolves part of that stream and submits the resulting corrections through the OpenStreetMap API.

Improving road attributes in Iraq — names, direction, access and speed limits — improves routing for Baly's services and for everyone else using OpenStreetMap data.

Contact

• Organisation: Baly (baly.iq), map editing team, Iraq.
• Activity page: Organised Editing/Activities/Baly
• Contact: maps@baly.iq — monitored on working days. Questions, concerns and reports about a specific edit are answered within two working days while the activity is running.
• Responsible person:

Account

All API-based uploads are made from a single dedicated account, declared on Organised Editing/Activities/Baly. Baly's members edit manually from their own accounts; those accounts are never used for scripted uploads.

Scope of the edits

• Area: Iraq. The uploader rejects any element outside Iraq, so this activity does not edit across the border.
• Elements: modifications to existing ways (roads) and POI nodes.
• Tags touched: name, alt_name, oneway, highway, maxspeed, surface, lanes, access, and POI name and category tags.
• Not touched: the geometry of existing ways is not rewritten by this pipeline, and administrative boundaries, landuse and relations are out of scope.
• Cadence:

How changes are decided

Every report runs through a chain of checks before anything is uploaded, and most reports are rejected — they never reach OpenStreetMap. The checks confirm that:

• the report actually changes something;
• the text is not spam, abuse or nonsense, and a proposed road name does not look like a business name;
• a direction or road-closure claim is not contradicted by observed driver trajectories;
• the change is not a repeat of a report already pending on the same element;
• the reporter is not a known abusive account.

Some changes are applied by rule; the rest are reviewed and edited by a member of the map team by hand. Every upload is tagged mechanical=yes either way, since the upload itself is scripted.

Data sources

• Map problem reports submitted by passengers and drivers in the Baly applications, with their free-text notes.
• Anonymised, aggregated GPS traces recorded from driver devices during trips, used to corroborate road direction and road existence. The traces themselves are never uploaded, and no passenger location data is collected or used.
• Existing OpenStreetMap data.

No data is taken from other map providers.

Changeset tagging

Every upload from this pipeline carries:

• created_by=baly_osm_api/<version>
• comment — a description of the change, always including the hashtag #baly_api
• url=https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Automated_edits/Baly
• mechanical=yes — on every changeset from this pipeline.

Changesets are kept small in area — one changeset covers one small patch, named in its comment, and contains one kind of change.

Opting out

Write to maps@baly.iq, or comment on any of our changesets. We will:

• stop automated edits in a named area, or on named objects or tags, on request;
• stop modifying objects last edited by a mapper who asks to be left alone;
• revert any specific changeset on request.

Reverting

For every uploaded change Baly retains the originating report, the rule that decided it, the element version before the change, and the changeset id. Any batch can therefore be reverted on request; reverts are uploaded from the same account with a revert comment referencing the original changeset.

Consultation

• Announcement and discussion thread:
• Objections raised there are answered within two working days, and the pipeline is paused for the area under discussion while the question is open.