Proposed mechanical edit - remove is_in:continent in USA

[Mateusz Konieczny-3]

is_in:continent=* is subjective as both division Earth landmass into continents[1] and boundaries between continents[2] are mostly subjective. There are many competing ways to split world into continents and OSM is not proper place to record all of them or one selected system.

In rare cases where one desires to assign locations to continents it can be done using location data inherently included in OSM objects and explicit tags added to part of objects are not really useful anyway.

is_in:continent tag should be removed to avoid confusing newbies and discourage adding new instances of this undesirable tag.

I propose to run an automated edit restricted to USA that will remove all instances of this tag.

Please comment no matter what you think about this idea! I will not make the edit without a clear support so please comment if you think that it is a good idea and if you think that it should not be done.

Plan is as follows:

I will take full responsibility for all edits and if anything goes wrong I will fix it.

Each changeset contains a single element or group of close elements to avoid edits spanning across large areas (it is impossible in cases where edited object itself spans very large area).

This is proposed as reoccurring edit and may be made as soon as new is_in:continent tags appear.

Documentation page on OSM Wiki is at https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Mechanical_Edits/Mateusz_Konieczny_-_bot_account/remove_is_in:continent_in_USA

I have experience with automatic edits. I already made automated edits to remove tags across Poland and I recently processed old-style Wikipedia tags across USA.


This message is crosposted to OSM USA slack channel

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Continental_models-Australia.gif
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boundaries_between_the_continents_of_Earth

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[Frederik Ramm]

Mateusz,

as far as I am concerned, *all* is_in tags are unnecessary at best and
potentially misleading, and could be removed. I'd prefer adding these
tags to the auto remove list in editors though, rather than running
mechanical edits to remove them.

I strongly object to doing this in a *recurring* fashion for two reasons:

1. I don't want us to go down the wikipedia route where we have an army
of bots running to "clean up" contributions. If there's a consensus that
a tag is unnecessary then put it in the major editors.

2. I am in favour of mapper freedom. It is ok to recommend not using a
certain tag, but it is a whole different game to automatically and
regularly remove certain tags from the database so that even if someone
made the conscientious decision to use a tag, they are *still*
overruled. If you intend to run a bot like that in regular intervals
(which I would recommend not to do), then you need to provide a
mechanism for individual mappers to ask the bot to keep its hands off
something ("matkoniecz:bot=no" or so).

Bye
Frederik

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[Mateusz Konieczny-3]

Mar 20, 2019, 9:21 AM by [hidden email]:

Mateusz,

as far as I am concerned, *all* is_in tags are unnecessary at best and

potentially misleading, and could be removed. I'd prefer adding these

tags to the auto remove list in editors though, rather than running

mechanical edits to remove them.

Unfortunately there are some people that see value in keeping some

of them, that is also reason why this edit is proposed only for

one that is utterly broken.

I was not considering auto remove list before, I will think about it

and maybe I will propose adding it to a delete list of JOSM and iD

(maybe also Vespucci if it has one).

For "prefer" - is it "against automated edit" or "against automated

edit if auto remove list would be rejected" or "some other solution

would be better but automated edit is acceptable"?

I strongly object to doing this in a *recurring* fashion for two reasons:

OK, I will drop recurring part. Documented:

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Mechanical_Edits/Mateusz_Konieczny_-_bot_account/remove_is_in:continent_in_USA&diff=1823334&oldid=1823287

If you intend to run a bot like that in regular intervals

(which I would recommend not to do), then you need to provide a

mechanism for individual mappers to ask the bot to keep its hands off

something ("matkoniecz:bot=no" or so).

So far nobody requested it (there is opt-out section in documentation on wiki

that explicitly mentions it as a possibility), but I would implement it probably by

skipping objects ever edited by specific user (would require making

one more call before editing each object).

Certainly I would not require adding pointless tags to OSM database

(this would be ridiculous especially as most my bot edits are "this tag should be

gone as it is pointless/confusing").

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[Rihards]

On 20.03.19 12:14, Mateusz Konieczny wrote:

>
> Mar 20, 2019, 9:21 AM by [hidden email]:
>
>     Mateusz,
>
>     as far as I am concerned, *all* is_in tags are unnecessary at best and
>     potentially misleading, and could be removed. I'd prefer adding these
>     tags to the auto remove list in editors though, rather than running
>     mechanical edits to remove them.
>
> Unfortunately there are some people that see value in keeping some
> of them, that is also reason why this edit is proposed only for
> one that is utterly broken.

What use do they see?

> I was not considering auto remove list before, I will think about it
> and maybe I will propose adding it to a delete list of JOSM and iD
> (maybe also Vespucci if it has one).
>
> For "prefer" - is it "against automated edit" or "against automated
> edit if auto remove list would be rejected" or "some other solution
> would be better but automated edit is acceptable"?
>
>
>     I strongly object to doing this in a *recurring* fashion for two
>     reasons:
>
> OK, I will drop recurring part. Documented:
>
> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Mechanical_Edits/Mateusz_Konieczny_-_bot_account/remove_is_in:continent_in_USA&diff=1823334&oldid=1823287
>
>     If you intend to run a bot like that in regular intervals
>     (which I would recommend not to do), then you need to provide a
>     mechanism for individual mappers to ask the bot to keep its hands off
>     something ("matkoniecz:bot=no" or so).
>
> So far nobody requested it (there is opt-out section in documentation on
> wiki
> that explicitly mentions it as a possibility), but I would implement it
> probably by
> skipping objects ever edited by specific user (would require making
> one more call before editing each object).
>
> Certainly I would not require adding pointless tags to OSM database
> (this would be ridiculous especially as most my bot edits are "this tag
> should be
> gone as it is pointless/confusing").

--
 Rihards

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[Mateusz Konieczny-3]

Mar 20, 2019, 2:59 PM by [hidden email]:

On 20.03.19 12:14, Mateusz Konieczny wrote:

Mar 20, 2019, 9:21 AM by [hidden email]:

Mateusz,

as far as I am concerned, *all* is_in tags are unnecessary at best and

potentially misleading, and could be removed. I'd prefer adding these

tags to the auto remove list in editors though, rather than running

mechanical edits to remove them.

Unfortunately there are some people that see value in keeping some

of them, that is also reason why this edit is proposed only for

one that is utterly broken.

What use do they see?

Cached geocoding results.

IMHO not a good reason to keep it.

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[EthnicFood IsGreat]

> Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2019 08:03:04 +0100 (CET)
> From: Mateusz Konieczny <[hidden email]>
> To: Talk Us <[hidden email]>
> Subject: [Talk-us] Proposed mechanical edit - remove is_in:continent
> in USA
>
> is_in:continent=* is subjective as both division Earth landmass into continents[1] and boundaries between continents[2] are mostly subjective. There are many competing ways to split world into continents and OSM is not proper place to record all of them or one selected system.
>
> In rare cases where one desires to assign locations to continents it can be done using location data inherently included in OSM objects and explicit tags added to part of objects are not really useful anyway.
>
> is_in:continent tag should be removed to avoid confusing newbies and discourage adding new instances of this undesirable tag.
>
> I propose to run an automated edit restricted to USA that will remove all instances of this tag.
>
> Please comment no matter what you think about this idea! I will not make the edit without a clear support so please comment if you think that it is a good idea and if you think that it should not be done.
>
> [...]

I'm in favor.

Mark




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[Shawn K. Quinn]

On 3/20/19 02:03, Mateusz Konieczny wrote:

> is_in:continent=* is subjective as both division Earth landmass into
> continents[1] and boundaries between continents[2] are mostly
> subjective. There are many competing ways to split world into continents
> and OSM is not proper place to record all of them or one selected system.
>
> In rare cases where one desires to assign locations to continents it can
> be done using location data inherently included in OSM objects and
> explicit tags added to part of objects are not really useful anyway.
>
> is_in:continent tag should be removed to avoid confusing newbies and
> discourage adding new instances of this undesirable tag.
>
> I propose to run an automated edit restricted to USA that will remove
> all instances of this tag.

[...]

I'm in favor; good riddance. (Cue "Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead")

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Shawn K. Quinn <[hidden email]>
http://www.rantroulette.com
http://www.skqrecordquest.com

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