While checking some features I’ve added a few days ago, I’ve stumbled upon this hedge I had added.
As this is a perfectly straight hedge, I had added this using 2 nodes. (v1)
Now, for some reason, another user added 6 more nodes on that straight line - without changing the path at all. Just added nodes. (v2)
Same with this footpath - which he took from my initial 20 nodes to a whopping 113 nodes. And also added a weird part going around the South Eastern pavement and then arbitrarily connecting to the service road.
I will take this feedback in and work with it the next time I edit.
and then not even fixing the mentioned things don’t instil much trust in me that he’s really going to improve.
Not sure whether this is a weird case of OCD, there’s some gamification going on, or he’s using/testing some kind of AI to do edits. But looking at his profile and seeing all that green scares me.
Has anyone else noticed excessive adding of nodes? Or any idea about why he does this? (Apart from having fun clicking those funny little triangles maybe?)
I’ve encountered this type of mapping before. While landuse micromapping doesn’t bother me, these redundant junctions on highway lines are very annoying when changing these routes. I don’t know if there’s a way to prevent this. I found an article on Wiki that might be helpful:
It sounds like an apology from ChatGPT. “You’re right, my bad,” and then they repeat the same mistake, get reprimanded again, repeat the same mistake, and so on.
I’ve seen some argue that always adding a bunch of points is “good” because, when downloading data within a bounding box, there’s a higher chance of downloading straight lines that cross the box (if the ends of a line crossing the box are outside of it, the line won’t be downloaded; this is an unresolved API problem, not a mapping problem). I’ve always disagreed, as the consequence would be overloading the database with extra points. Therefore, whenever I encounter this kind of thing, I simply simplify the shape to get rid of the intermediate points. (In these cases, I simplify with a higher degree of precision, around 1 m, then check and make adjustments to ensure it is reasonably faithful to the original data. The expected accuracy likely varies depending on the type of element; roads are different from, for example, an important but small, irregularly shaped building.)
There should be official guidance on this.
Over the years, in my region (Brazil), yes, at different times, by different people, using different methods. Some produced this result simply by mapping non-simplified GPS tracks; others actively drew lines clicking repeatedly (obsessively?) to add more points.
Surely 2.9 thousand changesets for a user that created their account 28 days ago does look very suspicious and should be brought to the attention of the DWG.
Their very first reply seems to be Indonesian. Maybe they’re using some translation tool - which would explain why the replies sound so robotic. But yeah - not fixing the mentioned issues and instead promising to do better, then making the same thing again …. is weird.
+365 days - so roughly 400 days ago. Almost 8 changesets a day are possible for a human and sound like they made a serious hobby out of OSM. In one way or another.
While I appreciate the enthusiasm, I don’t know how to get them to use less nodes if @yasslay ‘s, @trial ‘s and my “hints” are ignored.
Based on some of their earlier contributions, I think that they have improved. Things that are “not exactly wrong but perhaps not mapped the best way” are always a challenge.
If anyone has anything they’d like to raise with the DWG privately, please email data@openstreetmap
org with a subject line of “[Ticket#2026010610000278] Issue #40554 forum”.
