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I made edit #11020647 to move the coastline for some reclaimed land but those changes have been deleted. I have sent a message to the user who deleted them, but now I am wondering whether the user is in fact a bot which has just got the coastline from the out of date Bing satellite photo. Does anyone know:

  1. How do I know whether the user is a bot?
  2. How can I reapply the edit?
  3. How can I prevent the edit being deleted again?

Regards

Geoff

asked 29 Apr '12, 19:52

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Geoff
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edited 29 Apr '12, 20:04

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Gnonthgol ♦
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  1. Bots should say so in their desctiption and their bot maintainers, and they should put bot=yes in their changesets. This user is probably not a bot.
  2. Do not revert someones edits without contacting them (unlike the user that reverted your changeset), that only lead to edit wars. If the user does not respond you should contact the data working group.
  3. The general answer is 'do not do stupid edits', but that might not be your case.
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answered 29 Apr '12, 20:25

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Gnonthgol ♦
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accept rate: 16%

Re (1) I'd have a look at the edits that that user has made. In this case their recent edits seem to be in one local area in Germany and across most of Turkey. I'd say it's unlikely to be a bot as most of those are more wide-ranging. The changeset comment contains "created_by = JOSM/1.5 (5113 de);reverter_plugin/28089". I'm not particularly familiar with JOSM; perhaps this means that they did a changeset revert?

Re (2) and (3) you'll need to talk to them (or get someone who can speak German or Turkish as appropriate to do so on your behalf). I suspect it's something of a misunderstanding - in your changeset comment you said "not sure exact line"; maybe they thought that they were correcting the exact line that you weren't sure of, not knowing that you know that Bing is old/wrong here? Maybe some kind of note on the ways concerned that "I know Bing is wrong here" might help prevent problems like this in the future? Just re-reverting their changes won't help, since they can re-re-revert yours, which just wastes everyone's time.

Maybe try asking on one of the IRC channels on the contact page to see if anyone either knows the mapper personally or is familiar with their work?

There is a wiki vandalism page (which is misnamed in my opinion - I believe that most problematical edits aren't vandalism) which gives a few more pointers.

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answered 29 Apr '12, 20:23

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SomeoneElse ♦
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1

"reverter plugin[...]" inside a JOSM comment always means that the reverter plugin has been involved to revert something. Though it is not mandatory that the reverted data has been uploaded (speaking positively :))

(29 Apr '12, 20:30) malenki

So presumably someone could do some work, revert a small changeset, and then do lots more work, all in one big changeset?

(29 Apr '12, 20:46) SomeoneElse ♦

Good suggestion to add a better comment. I will write "I know this isn't sea any more as I enjoyed a picnic on the grass today." (my Turkish is just enough to put the comment in that language too).

I do not want to revert the whole of the other change as it seems to be much more wide ranging than mine. So can I just re-revert the part of the other change which reverted my change? Or can I reapply edit #11020647 in some way? Or would I have to redraw it all again when I get round to it (by that time the council will likely have reclaimed more land anyway)?

(29 Apr '12, 20:55) Geoff
1

Given the size of the changesets involved, I'd be tempted to reapply your changes again**, but you will need to talk to the other user first (so that they understand what's going on). They're using JOSM, and may not have seen your message if they haven't logged into the site and have email pointing somewhere that they don't check regularly.

** If it was me I'd use either Potlatch 1 or "rawedit.openstreetmap.fr" to do the revert - but coastlines are funny beasts and I'd make 100% sure (and check with the other user concerned) before doing so.

(29 Apr '12, 21:13) SomeoneElse ♦
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question asked: 29 Apr '12, 19:52

question was seen: 3,874 times

last updated: 29 Apr '12, 21:13

NOTICE: help.openstreetmap.org is no longer in use from 1st March 2024. Please use the OpenStreetMap Community Forum