Talk:Automated Edits code of conduct

Discuss Automated Edits/Code of Conduct here:

Uncontroversial edits

A more general objection to this policy is that it imposes an excessive amount of bueraucracy even for uncontroversial edits. Creating a wiki page before fixing, say, straightforward typos like "traktype=grade4" is totally unnecessary in my opinion - that much can be adequately documented in the changeset comment. I think it is fine to use your judgement whether or not an edit is potentially controversial, and skip the paperwork when it is not. --Tordanik 02:57, 20 May 2012 (BST)

Makes sense to me. It gets more political when one decides that 'yes' should be 'true' of course. Typo fixes, like converting 'tru' to 'true' or 'ys' to 'yes' for a boolean tag sounds good. Wikipedia uses them all the time. PeterIto 11:51, 31 May 2012 (BST)

But what's an "Uncontroversial edit". Talking to people after they've done a bad thing with a wide-scale bot edit, they almost always believed they were making an uncontroversial change at the time. Creating a wiki page is easy, but if it's too much hassle for somebody... It begs the question, are they going to the hassle of thinking about what they're doing at all??

In fact I think we should start back-dating the rule about a wiki page per import/edit to all previous automated edits. With a page naming convention we could seek to catalogue a lot of them. We can create stubs with some information even if we have zero input from the user concerned. Then in these cases we start to build a list (wiki category) of users who didn't bother documenting their activity (name and shame)

I can accept that there are shades-of-grey cases where it's only sort of very semi-automated (searching over a small area in JOSM) These cases go under the radar anyway, and if for some reason they're not under the radar, then the policy applies. Wiki page please.

- Harry Wood 18:44, 31 May 2012 (BST)

If you think that "uncontroversial edits" is too broad, let's look specifically at a common class of truly uncontroversial edits: "typo fixes". You will usually not mistake your mass edits for typo fixes if they aren't. These are practically never being discussed in advance, happen frequently and often cover a wide area. Nevertheless, they don't cause trouble, and they are useful, not the least because due to the way some editors work (e.g. using nearby tags, including possible typos, for auto-completion). --Tordanik 19:14, 6 June 2012 (BST)

I agree with this 100%. Otherwise it is sad to see typo-ed data sitting in OSM without any way to fix them (this policy is too complicated and even unacceptable to some users) and knowing users even took the effort to put data into OSM but it will be ignored by software due to accidental mistakes. - aceman444 23 Aug 2013

Just one problematic issue which came to my mind: Hmm, and what if you did not think of the "traktype=grade4" which describes the type of "trak"? A trak is a special type of meadow in South Korea for child play and sports... (no, not really, just an example). Others may spot such problems if you discuss it before. --Aseerel4c26 (talk) 18:53, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

In the very unlikely case of undocumented and unmentioned tags which look like commonplace typos, we can still correct the mistaken edit after the fact. It's not as if discussions are a panacea: Even with a discussion, mistakes will slip though, and if people would really discuss every trivial correction, then soon nobody would even read such threads anymore. Ultimately, the goal of any rules should not be zero risk - there has never been a zero-risk edit in OSM -, but the best ratio of risk, effort, and reward. And after proper research, typo corrections in general have a very low risk of going wrong. Most of them just silently make the database a little bit better. --Tordanik 05:59, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

The problem is that it is not possible to know what is controversial and what is not without a discussion Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 11:19, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

For uncontroversial edits (like typo fixes) I think it is acceptable to rely on community consensus only and skip the Wiki documentation. This still forces users to think about their edits and to discuss them, and the discussion itself can be the documentation. --501ghost (talk) 13:29, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

You would think so! See https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/148979715 https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/149026774 https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/149024167 https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/148995504 - I am still processing some feedback, and this is for typo-fixing bot edit that went through bot proposal! Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 11:23, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Veto

The clause "Provide a means for mappers to "opt out" of your changes, i.e. if someone contacts you and asks you to stop making automated edits to things that they have edited, you must comply with that wish, and you must modify your software or procedure to leave those objects untouched in the future" is impractical and over-restrictive. Where - if ever - was consensus for it reached, and does that still hold? Users should not have a veto over others' edits. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 18:52, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Good point. To be clear, although I have done a lot of editing on the wiki over the past months, I have tried not to change the meaning. However, I do think it will be useful to discuss and challenge this statement. The guidance from WP, Ownership of articles may be worth reading. PeterIto (talk) 15:57, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

Users don't have a veto about other users' manual edits, but about other users' mechanical edits because a manual edit represents a bigger commitment than an automated edit. The latter is considered generally less valuable. --Frederik Ramm (talk) 16:55, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

I understood that the context was mechanical edits when I asked my questions; this is after all the talk page of the "Automated Edits code of conduct", and it is that page which I quoted. Would you care to justify your claim that "Users... have a veto... about other users' mechanical edits", by answering my questions? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 17:31, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

when wiki page is mandatory

I reread the guidelines and encountered "You should normally document your proposed edit at an English-language wiki page". Can somebody clarify that? I am making some Poland-specific changes approved by Polish community - is it still necessary to create Wiki pages? Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 11:12, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Manual automated edit

I added "manually changing tags without adequate review" in https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Automated_Edits_code_of_conduct&diff=1613221&oldid=1613220 about year ago without a proper explanation.

It was based on asking how mechanical edits are understood in practice, how DWG is acting in case of such edits. Also, effect is the same for mass edit done blindly by script and blindly by human Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 12:52, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Resolved: Sounds resolved Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 11:33, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Is typo fixing exempt from discussion?

"Acceptable usage" has separately "Correcting obvious typos, for example changing hihgway=residential to highway=residential." and "Useful edit that would be tedious to do manually - approved by community and discussed" - is it valid to suggest that mass correcting obvious typos does not require bot permission?

"useful edit" part was added (by me) in https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Automated_Edits_code_of_conduct&diff=1613220&oldid=1550737 - but also before that it looks like obvious typos seems exempt. Alternative interpretation is that before that edit only fixing your own work and fixing typos was allowed, what does not fit reality.

Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 22:34, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

If not required - what about more substantial changes? What is the limit? Say "landuse=wood to landuse=forest? Or nawierzchnia=drewno to surface=wood (translating to English from Polish) Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 22:40, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

If required - what about edits such as removal as unprintable characters from a tag (I did it for https://github.com/taginfo/taginfo/issues/254 - U+202C character removal, without bot permission). Should I get one in such case? Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 22:40, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Now I think that intention was that clear typos are OK, but tag migrations require discussion (or review of each individual case), but I am not sure...Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 22:42, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

See also https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/2021-July/086856.html where I tried to bring it to a wider attention Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 06:34, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Linking wiki page

"you must link to the wiki page or user page documenting your changes from the description=* tag" - is it useful to make this specific tag mandatory? What is wrong with say https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/99575819 ? I will weaken it a bit, feel free to revert it. Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 18:23, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

mention that it is also about community

"The purpose of this policy is to avoid the database being damaged." - I would mention that it is also about respecting community of mappers Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 08:08, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Remove or rewrite text that discourages large bboxes

About " If your bot creates one changeset for a bunch of changes covering the whole planet, that, too, becomes hard to read, and pollutes the history in places nowhere near the changes."

Automated edits that intentionally span the globe or other large areas, especially ones that are limited in thematic scope, are best done in one or a few changesets that are not necessarily split into geographical areas. Limiting the size of boundary boxes (bboxes) would not improve the edits, because smaller bboxes, like country- or province/state-sized bboxes as part of a global automated edit, won't change how easy or hard reviewing the changes is. See for example the discussion at changeset 140960804. The point has been made in several discussions that the history viewer on osm.org is an imperfect tool for this.

Likewise, the comment about pollution of the history is disputed, because the history viewer on osm.org only shows bboxes and intentionally ignores whether or not changes are made at all within the current map view. Other tools that do bypass these impracticalities have been suggested on several occasions. See for example changeset 140962068 and the last comment on changeset 108430155.

I suggest that these lines are removed or rewritten to only discourage global and other international changeset areas in situations where it makes sense split the changesets geographically, like this edit to French charging stations that includes French overseas territories. --501ghost (talk) 13:01, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

"Automated edits that intentionally span the globe or other large areas, especially ones that are limited in thematic scope, are best done in one or a few changesets that are not necessarily split into geographical areas. " - I strongly disagree with this.

"won't change how easy or hard reviewing the changes is." - it will change, as it will not show up in history of irrelevant places where no edit has taken place

"Other tools that do bypass these impracticalities have been suggested on several occasions" is any such tool existing and operational?

Though personally I am not strongly opposed to rewrite, large bboxes are not a very big problem in my opinion. But I suspect that community consensus will be strongly opposed Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 06:28, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

"Is any such tool existing and operational?" - Yes: Changeset by Comparison Visualization by Pascal Neis --501ghost (talk) 19:07, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

be more clear about reverts and vandalism

"Ignoring this policy will be treated as vandalism and will be responded to as such if it persists."

I propose to add following after it:

"In practice it means that automated edits made in violation of this rules (for example, without consulting community) can be reverted on sight, without any discussion. Though consulting with community in many cases would be a good idea, to confirm that edits were not misidentified."

to document existing practice and common sense (without it overloading community would be trivial, and yes vandalism can be reverted on sight)

Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 09:01, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

I disagree. What's a revert, except an automated edit? A revert would necessarily have the same scope and risks as the original edit. That mention would defeat the spirit and goal of the code. --Gileri (talk) 18:12, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Note that it is not intended to introduce a new practice, but to document existing one. Reverting vandalism does not require going through consultations. "A revert would necessarily have the same scope and risks as the original edit." - not true, as revert restores status quo. "That mention would defeat the spirit and goal of the code." that would mean that someone could make invalid changes without any discussion whatsoever, reverting them would require a discussion. Then they could make again the same or similar vandalism and community would need to spend time again. It is not an actual practice at all. Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 08:27, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Just because some violate the AE CoC by doing indiscriminate reverts without discussion doesn't mean that it should be documented, and thus encouraged. Of course obvious *real* vandalism does not merit grand discussions before reverts. But just disagreeing about the way of how something is mapped does not allow you to label such contributions as vandalism. Doing mass reverts (with a lower analysis/research about the situation then) and not asking the community would be worse for everyone and the map. Also, the "status quo" (whatever that means) is far from being perfect everywhere at every time, so reverting to it indiscriminately is not a silver bullet.

As I discussed somewhere else, this code is not a law, nobody voted on it, nobody must abide by it before mapping, and it was mostly written without discussion from a handful of people. So while they are good guidelines, those are not hard rules to be enforced on sight. --Gileri (talk) 22:38, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

"nobody voted on it" - lack of tagging proposal over it is not really relevant here. For now I plan to consult with DWG to confirm this. "just disagreeing about the way of how something is mapped does not allow you to label such contributions as vandalism" - yes. But it is not about that. It is about reverting automated edits done without consulting community, not about reverting any edits you do not like Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 09:09, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Explicitly mention reverting vandalism as exempt

It may seem obvious, but maybe clearly mentioning that reverting large scale vandalism (like that troll that edited several thousand name=* to contain slurs) or undiscussed imports is not needing a bot approval?

To be more specific, add to https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Automated_Edits_code_of_conduct#Guidelines in "Acceptable usage" following:

"Reverting large scale bad edits such as vandalism or undiscussed imports - note that extreme care needs to be taken, in case of a slightest doubt consult it with community. If you have doubts about import - make serious attempts to contact author first. In case of ongoing undiscussed import or other bad edits consider contacting DWG so account is blocked from causing more damage"

disclaimer: I posted it here after someone else started complaining that my revert of bad edit should have gone through bot edit proposal. I realised that this page seems to not make it 100% clear that in such case it is not needed.

EDIT: I created https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/automated-edits-code-of-conduct-clarification-proposal/111525 at more accessible location where more people will participate in discussion.

Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 05:13, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

It isn't obvious. The goals of this code include : limit the power imbalance between "organic" contributors and automated ones, and avoid large-scale errors. Both goals are applicable and needed for reverts, as they are nothing else than large-scale, automated edits. One cannot advocate that somebody doing a simple search+replace on 50 objects based on clear consensus and impact analysis to be covered by this code, while doing a "revert" of 500 modifications, based on a personal opinion would not be.

Should this code become enforceable (it is not as of now, and should not become so in this state I believe), the only exception to allow "reverts" without discussion and error-checking by peers would be to remove data doing actual harm to people, or having wide impact on the project availability (denial of service or anything similar). But such cases would be non-existent I believe, as reverts done as changesets and not administrator actions only append data on top of previous data. --Gileri (talk) 14:50, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

"Should this code become enforceable" - as far as I know it is enforceable and enforced by DWG. Also, as far as I know it is widely considered as admirable to make reverts of clear vandalism without discussion Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 18:53, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

This exact point has already been answered in the above thread you started, no need to repeat myself. --Gileri (talk) 19:14, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

In this case you are simply mistaken about the situation. Are you aware of Data Working Group? Thread above has no reply to part that it is in fact being enforced right now by DWG, with reverts/blocks being applied in case of undiscussed mass edits. Obviously DWG is not omniscient robotic executor of this rule - if someone runs undiscussed edits and noone complains and everyone is fine with it then DWG will not do anything. If someone technically complies but annoys people and causes damage they may be reverted/blocked (as noted already at the page!). But if someone is reported to DWG as problematic then not following Automated Edits code of conduct is extremely likely to result in blocks and reverts Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 10:15, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

"If someone technically complies but annoys people and causes damage they may be reverted/blocked" : That is my exact point you rehash, while sealioning. Please behave. The code is both unenforceable, and unenforced by the DWG. But it still is a collection of best practices the DWG may share when reverting contributions that multiple people consider as harmful; we agree on that part. --Gileri (talk) 16:13, 21 April 2024 (UTC)