4 ms·

> There is the occasional vandalism edit that simply can't be shown to an end-user. I remember the same sort of arguments being made about how web sites could

by teddyh 3y ago

> There is the occasional vandalism edit that simply can't be shown to an end-user. I remember the same sort of arguments being made about how web sites could not possibly ever accept user comments or submissions, or could not ever risk having users sending links to one another. Those all proved to be false.

sneak 3y ago
There are many links to legal content that Instagram and FB messenger will not allow you to send to your friends, so I'm not sure how vindicated you are.
- teddyh 3y ago
  That’s more of an indictment of Meta than an argument against uncensored user-to-user communication.
OfSanguineFire 3y ago
> I remember the same sort of arguments being made about how web sites could not possibly ever accept user comments or submissions The heyday of comments sections on news websites is now in the past. Not long ago, Lonely Planet took down its renowned Thorn Tree forums, which had been a big part of the travel internet since the 1990s. Friends who run a major website for a particular hobby told me that they canceled their plans to launch a forum, since their site is advertising-supported and a forum could damage their relationships with advertisers. Reliable moderation costs money, and if you don’t moderate heavily enough, you’re going to get user comments that tarnish your brand (or at least scare execs into thinking that the brand will be tarnished).
uneekname 3y ago
Editing OpenStreetMap isn't quite equivalent to commenting on a post. OSM allows you to edit anything, which is fantastic but also allows for more serious vandalism. We have seen major cities renamed to racial slurs, for example. As with Wikipedia, the community is generally very good about correcting these issues quickly. It's an uncommon problem that a lot of people work to mitigate. But I stand by what I said: vandalism on OSM is in many cases unacceptable to show to end-users. The OSM basemap is used in many official publications, in many social media applications, etc. I'd actually recommend using the basemap for most simple mapping cases, as long as it's being continuously updated from upstream (or, it is the upstream basemap). If you take a snapshot of that data, however, you risk capturing some bad stuff. That is a real risk for a company like Meta.
- Doctor_Fegg 3y ago
  > We have seen major cities renamed to racial slurs, for example. Once in 19 years, I think? It’s not great but let’s not pretend it’s more of a problem than it is.
  - uneekname 3y ago
    No, it's not a huge issue within the OSM community. But surely you see why it's an issue for large companies looking to use the OSM basemap in their projects.
    - teddyh 3y ago
      Perfection is an impossible standard to uphold. Even if you do everything in-house, and even if you are Disney, you cannot avoid the occasional scandal: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Rescuers&oldid=1166920486#Nudity_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Rescuers&oldi...
- SOLAR_FIELDS 3y ago
  I used to work in the industry. A few things I’ve seen make it into production maps shown to largeNumberOfUsers are phallic objects drawn as lines on the map and series of what appear to be random test lines drawn as roads in the Arctic. Neither of these examples are great publicity if they are discovered on a finished and shipped product people are paying for. Interestingly, they’re also a lot harder to catch than the slur naming example
justapassenger 3y ago
Comments are not core parts of content. What this is taking about is closer to Wikipedia. And vandalism is a real thing there, so portion of topics is moderated.
pojzon 3y ago
> not possibly ever accept user comments or submissions, or could not ever risk having users sending links to one another. Those all proved to be false Funny thing is that this part is most often the cause of a data breach when looking at majority of pentesting reports. One thing is to expose something to few ppl you know and another thing is a possibility to send things to millions of ppl that are constantly abused like Twitter or Youtube.
lmm 3y ago
Did they? I've seen a lot of e.g. newspaper sites removing comment sections, or switching them to not display comments until they've been moderated.

by teddyh 3y ago

sneak 3y ago

There are many links to legal content that Instagram and FB messenger will not allow you to send to your friends, so I'm not sure how vindicated you are.

teddyh 3y ago
That’s more of an indictment of Meta than an argument against uncensored user-to-user communication.

OfSanguineFire 3y ago

> I remember the same sort of arguments being made about how web sites could not possibly ever accept user comments or submissions The heyday of comments sections on news websites is now in the past. Not long ago, Lonely Planet took down its renowned Thorn Tree forums, which had been a big part of the travel internet since the 1990s. Friends who run a major website for a particular hobby told me that they canceled their plans to launch a forum, since their site is advertising-supported and a forum could damage their relationships with advertisers. Reliable moderation costs money, and if you don’t moderate heavily enough, you’re going to get user comments that tarnish your brand (or at least scare execs into thinking that the brand will be tarnished).

uneekname 3y ago

Editing OpenStreetMap isn't quite equivalent to commenting on a post. OSM allows you to edit anything, which is fantastic but also allows for more serious vandalism. We have seen major cities renamed to racial slurs, for example. As with Wikipedia, the community is generally very good about correcting these issues quickly. It's an uncommon problem that a lot of people work to mitigate. But I stand by what I said: vandalism on OSM is in many cases unacceptable to show to end-users. The OSM basemap is used in many official publications, in many social media applications, etc. I'd actually recommend using the basemap for most simple mapping cases, as long as it's being continuously updated from upstream (or, it is the upstream basemap). If you take a snapshot of that data, however, you risk capturing some bad stuff. That is a real risk for a company like Meta.

Doctor_Fegg 3y ago
> We have seen major cities renamed to racial slurs, for example. Once in 19 years, I think? It’s not great but let’s not pretend it’s more of a problem than it is.
- uneekname 3y ago
  No, it's not a huge issue within the OSM community. But surely you see why it's an issue for large companies looking to use the OSM basemap in their projects.
  - teddyh 3y ago
    Perfection is an impossible standard to uphold. Even if you do everything in-house, and even if you are Disney, you cannot avoid the occasional scandal: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Rescuers&oldid=1166920486#Nudity_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Rescuers&oldi...
SOLAR_FIELDS 3y ago
I used to work in the industry. A few things I’ve seen make it into production maps shown to largeNumberOfUsers are phallic objects drawn as lines on the map and series of what appear to be random test lines drawn as roads in the Arctic. Neither of these examples are great publicity if they are discovered on a finished and shipped product people are paying for. Interestingly, they’re also a lot harder to catch than the slur naming example

justapassenger 3y ago

Comments are not core parts of content. What this is taking about is closer to Wikipedia. And vandalism is a real thing there, so portion of topics is moderated.

pojzon 3y ago

> not possibly ever accept user comments or submissions, or could not ever risk having users sending links to one another. Those all proved to be false Funny thing is that this part is most often the cause of a data breach when looking at majority of pentesting reports. One thing is to expose something to few ppl you know and another thing is a possibility to send things to millions of ppl that are constantly abused like Twitter or Youtube.

lmm 3y ago

Did they? I've seen a lot of e.g. newspaper sites removing comment sections, or switching them to not display comments until they've been moderated.