Changeset Discussions just don't work

In my experience, the current communication concept with the changeset comments doesn’t really work because it feels like that half of the comments and questions are not answered.

One solution is to contact the DWG then to give a 0-day block, but even this solution is far from optimal. For example, I reported these two users (Victor Hugo MM | OpenStreetMap, THALES HENRIQUE MARQUES MARANGONI | OpenStreetMap) a month ago on 4th Sept. because they constantly enter incorrect data (duplicate addresses, wrong addresses, misuse of tourism=wilderness_hut/apartment to enter normal addresses via OrganicMaps etc.) and never reply. I’ve reported them twice via the report button on the OSM website and also emailed the DWG and nothing has happened (Why?). It’s just frustrating because I’d rather spend my free time doing other things than to pick up after others and writing dozens of changeset comments that never get read anyway.

Especially with regard to simple editors suitable for the masses such as Organic Maps (and previously Maps.me, where there were also so many problems), the question arises as to how communication within and editing of OSM should take place. It is precisely with these editors that most users do not respond and it is precisely these users who make a lot of mistakes. Communication should be shifted to the app and users should have to do an introduction to OSM like in the iD Editor. If you want to participate in OSM, you simply have to familiarize yourself with the OSM basics, even if it only takes 5 minutes. The access barriers to OSM are (compared to wikipedia, for example) quite low with a laissez-faire atmosphere. But that’s exactly why there needs to be more awareness and responsibility on the part of users. Or what do you think?

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Local to OP area, I opened/commented on the organic maps issue tracker regarding mappings of named contributors. They (OM) seem to be aware of the issues, but they do not have time to investigate thoroughly. I fully understand, their user base must be quite large and diverse and this probably only a small fraction thereof and problems about at all edges. At least, they changed some localization strings, the effect of that, their users no longer map tourism=apartment for residential buildings missing in the osm-data but tourism=wilderness_hut for such.

BTW: OM users also keen in adding addr:street in places where there are no named streets, so addr:place the canonical OSM tag, even if latter already present. Their router cannot deal with that, so people adjust OSM data to make OM router work.

I have had this problem too. I think many people sign up for an OSM account with a “throw away” email address that they don’t monitor. Even when I just say something that is purely nice, like “thanks for the great work on the buildings in xyz city” I seldom get a reply. Perhaps we should required that to keep one’s account active they have to periodically respond to an email from the system.

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You actually reported the first user on 23 April 2024, 15 May 2024 and 15 May 2024. At the time I replied to you (August) the last changeset comment was from April, so I suggested “If they are still problems, then please comment on a recent changeset and we will make sure that they read it”. You did comment (about another month after my message to you) but didn’t report them again or reply to the ticket so we didn’t know any further action was needed. I’ve now asked them to reply.

The second user doesn’t ever seem to have been reported.

Edit: To clarify what I wrote a bit below, when “I replied to you (August)” you never got that email, because (for various technical reasons) the mechanism for sending it was broken. However now (22nd October) it’s now been fixed and therefore that part of the issue shouldn’t reoccur. The “root cause” problem with Organic Maps users not expecting messages and/or not replying of course does still exist.

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Part of this might be cultural - if I saw a statement like that I probably wouldn’t reply, and if I wrote “thanks” in a changeset I wouldn’t expect a reply either. I suspect that the best changeset comments are:

  • In the same language as the recipient
  • Ask a direct question about something
  • Don’t start by saying “you’re doing it wrong”

Obviously this won’t work where the recipient never sees the messages (which might be the case with throwaway email addresses and Organic Maps) - at least some of the previous comments to this user were specifically asking questions, so that approach has not worked here (yet).

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Unfortunately I never got a message from you (did you send an email?), but I wrote an Email:
Wed, 04 Sep 2024 13:41:39 +0000
From: road-runner/a/riseup.net
To: data/a/openstreetmap.org
Subject: Report of vandalism

Anyway, the response rate is pretty low (and I ask questions). So I think it should be emphasised at the beginning of account creation that it is important to communicate in the changeset discussions, because OSM is a community project. I also wonder if it would be possible to get a notification on OSM.org (like you get a message) when there is a comment on your changeset. I think that would help too.

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I agree. But the biggest problem is when people don’t respond, but continue to edit dubious things. So maybe it would be helpful to send a message/notification directly to osm.org or to Organic Maps if there is a changeset comment.

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If they can’t fix it and it’s due to technical reason, they should stop the editing feature until it is fixed.

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It should have reached you as an OSM message, sent 7/8/2024, 16:17 UTC. I’ve just sent another one.

That’s “pull requests welcome” I think. There are a bunch of issues around this already

Edit: Following a private exchange of messages with @Road_Runner , it appears that part of the problem is that one of the methods that the DWG uses for outbound messages is down currently. ETA on that being looked at is tomorrow. That’s separate to the “App X users don’t see emails” problem, but it did contribute to the communication delay in this case.

Absolutely people do, e.g. me. :grin: I don’t want any of my other personal and professional email accounts cluttered up with OSM-related stuff.

As such…

… I couldn’t disagree more with this. I don’t want to communicate by email. That’s why there’s a changeset comment interface in the first place: so that I don’t have to communicate by email. Forcing me to check emails so that I can continue to use an entirely separate communications channel on openstreetmap.org is stupid. Checking my emails to see if I have changeset comments to address is stupid.

We should be notified directly on the openstreetmap.org interface that we have a comment on one of our changes, or there’s a response to a changeset we made a comment on. We have notifications for direct messages: I don’t know why it’s not used for changeset comments.

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That’s a great idea. For those interested, it’s already been discussed since 2021 on the issue tracker for the website, the thread over there has more information, also on why it hasn’t happened yet.

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While this might be a good idea in itself, does it help with the problem stated here? How would a contributor via OrganicMaps, OSMAnd, or StreetComplete become aware of these notifications? Or is the idea that they would be picked up somehow by those apps?

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Fair comment. Let me rephrase: users should be notified by whatever means they contributed to the map, not by third-party means like emails. So yeah, an OSMAnd user should get a notification in OSMAnd.

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I was around at the time the changeset discussion stuff was being developed (if memory serves it was a GSoC project mentored by another DWG person) and I can guarantee that “so that you don’t have to use email” absolutely wasn’t part of the reasoning behind it!

The main reason was to move away from private messages (in any form) and make discussions more public, so that everyone can see what everyone else thinks. An idea also was that, between people who fundamentally disagree, public messages are more likely to be civil than private ones (“sunlight is the best disinfectant” etc.). My recollection as to why messages just go via email is that the project ran out of time - there wasn’t enough time to do a “proper” messaging interface in the time available. At least one misguided onlooker** said at the time “it’ll be fine just linking it to email - everyone has some sort of email address so they’ll always get the messages”. That proved to be not a great prediction…

I don’t think anyone disagrees with the principle; it “just” needs someone to write the code :slight_smile:

** me

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The problem with that would be that for people who only log-in “occasionally”, it could be some time before they see that questions have been asked about their work.

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Call it somewhat unfortunate, even stupid, but you cannot (easily, quickly, soon…) get away from the fact that email “remains” in modern communications. It remains a communication method “today” (2024) even in what you might think of as a world made up of a “modern Internet,” or Web 2.0-world (or even Web 3.0-world).

Call me a dinosaur, but for some people (evidently, like @hoserab), emails are a half-century-later communication reality (some say “vestige”) like telegrams were or are (OMG, via TELEGRAPH! and MORSE CODE!) living well into the middle and even late 20th century (commonly). Heck, a few dozen countries still have working telegram services available right now; see Worldwide use of telegrams by country - Wikipedia . I can send my Congresspersons (federal legislative elected officials in the USA) a telegram anytime I like, and I know they’ll get it. (Will they read it? I don’t know). Yes, I’d feel like I was living in the age of my grandfather to send a telegram (I never have), but we DO have 110-year-old people in this country who are perhaps most comfortable sending a telegram in certain circumstances.

My point is that while YOU might not like to receive emails (ewww!), they remain a reality (in OSM, in the Internet in some circumstances, in the real world…no matter what your preference for SMS or satellite or encrypted-something-or-other-developed in the early 2020s, or whatever sort of modern-mesh delivery scheme you think is better, and maybe it is). So, please don’t bash email. It has gotten us far, and it isn’t dead yet. You might not like emails, but they continue to work for others. (Similar to “If we wish to speak Bulgarian, we WILL speak Bulgarian”).

I resonate with the OP’s frustrations about changeset comments not being answered reliably. But, let’s face it: communications of the sort being attempted here (valiant, well-intentioned, supported by excellent and tried-and-true technology including robust ISO 7-layer communication stacks…) are not 100% reliable, especially roundtrip. Complaints about this are less about the underlying technology (which really does work, in many or even most cases) and more about the personal preferences of the complainer.

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Fair enough, it’s easy for me to say when I’m not the one who’d actually do it.

No worse than someone like me who doesn’t check the email account associated with their OSM account.

My post wasn’t taking potshots at email in and itself, but rather the idea that users ought to have to respond to an email to prove they’re still active contributors. Believe me, I’m well aware that it’s not a dead medium: between my professional account and my primary personal account I receive an email every three-and-a-half minutes or so, all day, every weekday. :face_vomiting:

So yes, it is a personal preference to not use email correspondence for matters related to OSM. I signed up with a “throwaway” that I never check because I get too many damned emails as it is, and I’m not going to let OSM add to the pile. And if my continued participation is contingent on using email then I’m out. Adios, muchachos.

Then you don’t see the notifications. Go figure!

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I can’t seem to get it to do it now, but I seem to remember that mobile editor Vespucci would periodically display a “You have XXX unread Messages in your Inbox” alert when you’re using it. (Or am I thinking of a different app?) Anyway, assuming the relevent API endpoints are available, we could encourage (or possibly even require) developers of apps that have editing facilities to alert their users to new notifications.

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This isn’t an all-or-nothing situation either. I’ve set up my e-mail client in such a way that all OSM-specific e-mails are redirected into a folder which helps me to keep my main folder clean from non-OSM stuff.

And from my experience, most of the e-mails I get from OSM comes from the forum, something which you can disable. Changeset comments and note replies are rarer and I only get them from time to time, rarely in masses (which typically means I commented on if not made a bad changeset or participated in a controversal note).

I’m actually wondering how many e-mails you’ve recently (in last week) received and more importantly, how many of them are from Discourse, the Wiki and from the main site.

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