3 ms·

I tried to edit Google Maps once and had someone ask me for supporting documentation to prove that the road across the street from where I live really was close

by bhousel 13y ago

I tried to edit Google Maps once and had someone ask me for supporting documentation to prove that the road across the street from where I live really was closed. Total nonsense. This heavy-handed moderation was what pushed me to Openstreetmap in the first place.

RestlessMind 13y ago
Don't you think that kind of caution is warranted for a popular service like Google Maps? If/When OSM gets really popular, I am sure there will be efforts to spam/vandalize the data. At that point, "heavy-handed moderation" is essential to maintain quality. (Another example - wikipedia articles are sometimes heavily moderated).
- bhousel 13y ago
  No I don't think it's necessary. I think changing 200 ft of road across from where I live to "closed" while construction happens for the next year is a minor enough edit that it should be accepted no questions asked. I was tired of having navigation send me down a closed road.
  - ghshephard 13y ago
    So what would prevent vandalism? There is an enormous amount of effort in Wikipedia to repair the damage that vandals constantly do to it, and I'm sure that OSM/Google have run into the same issue.
  - hangonhn 13y ago
    You can imagine how this can easily be gamed to change how Google routes people right? If I was a shady business, you can imagine how I can mark all the roads in front of competitor as closed. Or I can mark the streets in such a way that traffic gets routed to go in front of my business.
    - br78 13y ago
      Hell, I'd seriously consider marking my commute route as closed if it thinned the traffic.
nevi-me 13y ago
There's an oke who I caught trying to change random listings in a small township in South Africa into something related to him. One small edit that was allowed was for him to map an existing road, but he named the street after himself. Map Maker has its flaws, many of them (like bots that go around changing information for whomsoever knows reason, the heavy-handed moderation in itself) but the moderation is sometimes necessary. We (or whoever is contributing and editing) also have to use common sense when making and approving edits. For me "documentation" could have meant going outside and taking a geotagged photo with a time stamp, if the moderator still wants more then to hell be with it. Most of the edits that I have made have been for areas where I'm interested in walking paths, because I use the Maps API quite a lot, but going out of my way to map a city or something, I'd rather do that on OSM where it's free for all.

by bhousel 13y ago

RestlessMind 13y ago

Don't you think that kind of caution is warranted for a popular service like Google Maps? If/When OSM gets really popular, I am sure there will be efforts to spam/vandalize the data. At that point, "heavy-handed moderation" is essential to maintain quality. (Another example - wikipedia articles are sometimes heavily moderated).

bhousel 13y ago
No I don't think it's necessary. I think changing 200 ft of road across from where I live to "closed" while construction happens for the next year is a minor enough edit that it should be accepted no questions asked. I was tired of having navigation send me down a closed road.
- ghshephard 13y ago
  So what would prevent vandalism? There is an enormous amount of effort in Wikipedia to repair the damage that vandals constantly do to it, and I'm sure that OSM/Google have run into the same issue.
- hangonhn 13y ago
  You can imagine how this can easily be gamed to change how Google routes people right? If I was a shady business, you can imagine how I can mark all the roads in front of competitor as closed. Or I can mark the streets in such a way that traffic gets routed to go in front of my business.
  - br78 13y ago
    Hell, I'd seriously consider marking my commute route as closed if it thinned the traffic.

nevi-me 13y ago

There's an oke who I caught trying to change random listings in a small township in South Africa into something related to him. One small edit that was allowed was for him to map an existing road, but he named the street after himself. Map Maker has its flaws, many of them (like bots that go around changing information for whomsoever knows reason, the heavy-handed moderation in itself) but the moderation is sometimes necessary. We (or whoever is contributing and editing) also have to use common sense when making and approving edits. For me "documentation" could have meant going outside and taking a geotagged photo with a time stamp, if the moderator still wants more then to hell be with it. Most of the edits that I have made have been for areas where I'm interested in walking paths, because I use the Maps API quite a lot, but going out of my way to map a city or something, I'd rather do that on OSM where it's free for all.