Very interesting. I had the same experience with mobile applications. All of them (except perhaps Every Door, which I haven’t tried it yet) were either way too slow or too limited/opinionated.

My tool of choice was a helmet camera with a microphone for audio commentary. It made surveys extremely fast, and the combination of video and audio worked very well together. Video alone lacked the clarity to resolve house numbers, especially when in motion and at dusk, and audio really needed a point of reference - just pointing the camera at an object was perfect for it. As a side effect, people were probably assuming I am a lost and a very confused delivery guy. Great for residential neighbourhoods.

It wasn’t ideal, though - it couldn’t be used in traffic (don’t even try it, even if legal, at least back then, it was surprisingly distracting) and it needed a lengthy process of re-watching the video and editing the map at home. With two screens and JOSM editing was still reasonably fast (~4 times the length of the recording) but I simply found it too boring to re-watch my own videos. Perhaps it would make a good material for YouTube, for others to pick up, if I wasn’t embarrassed of my often idiotic commentary.

With video recordings I rarely needed GPX traces but I was still collecting them just in case of coming across a new build area etc.

Thanks for all the tips.

Wow! This is a very impressive piece of work. Thank you. I haven’t used it for surveying yet but I can already see it matches my work style very well (at least when surveying on foot) and ergonomics look very good too.

It would be good to have a way of recording quick video notes (audio or photo could be useful as well but I’d likely only use video) and store them locally on the map.

Some kind of a hands-off surveying mode would be useful as well but I have no idea how to approach it. I record most of my addressing surveys on a helmet camera along with audio commentary. I can’t use my hands, obviously, but when there is no traffic I can point my head/camera at an object I am describing. This works very well but it is a completely separate workflow and it requires lengthy postprocessing.

Given that Ukrainian residents would be required to break their law when working on OSM (for example cleaning or organising 3rd-party changes), and they expressed a wish of not modifying OSM data in Ukraine, I would support locking down the Ukrainian OSM database at a DWG level.

As far as I know, this would be the first case of locking down the database at such scale, but that’s justified by the scale of the conflict and local regulations.

I would appreciate if you didn’t call me a racist. All your allegations are made up either by you or by people with strong pro-government agenda.

Disagreeing with the Chinese government is not racism (yes, I refuse to equate the government with Chinese people). Being concerned about mismatch between the government mandated vision of the world and the reality is not racism. Being concerned about safety of Chinese mappers that do copy government’s guidelines into the database is definitely not racism.

I stand by everything I wrote in this and previous threads and I don’t have anything more to add. The arguments are getting increasingly circular and discussion drifts toward labelling people, so I am out. If DWG needs an assistance with concrete technical data please contact me directly.

@ff5722 several corrections:

Nationalism, like any form of hatred, is not allowed in OSM. Any users local or otherwise are free to correct the map and remove factual errors. Having said that, if local users were someday outnumbered by nationalists that would indeed be a serious issue for OSM in China. OSM is more about the community that it is about data, so having the community compromised would be a disaster.

Having local tagging rules is a norm but falsifying OSM data is definitely not OK. If you think mapping something could put you in danger, don’t map it or ask other users for help. Certainly don’t just add incorrect data or remove the correct ones.

There are many examples of valid data OSM community considers harmful and consequently removes them. I’ll just give two: (1) Spam - it may be factually correct and may match the on the ground truth, but it is removed from OSM on the grounds it adds no value to OSM and is harmful to the community. (2) Organised edits. Undisclosed organised edits are not allowed and qualify for removal regardless of their quality, and we have significantly higher standards for disclosed ones.

@FreedSky with all the missing data why do you engage in mapping contested areas in Bhutan? You have clearly used government data - names can’t be seen in satellite imagery. These structures exist for propaganda reasons only and adding them to OSM makes the project a Chinese government’s weapon. I can see why nationalists wouldn’t think twice about it but many members of the community don’t want to be dragged into it. I was shocked a mapper with your track record would engage in that campaign - you are exactly the kind of person a community would rely on when balancing difficult issues like safety of the mappers and quality of Chinese OSM data.

@Adamant1 I sense you are still hurt about past discussions about discrimination. I understand that and I want to assure you we are on the same side. I just focus on other issues first, which in my opinion threaten more people, more strongly. It is outside of this topic but I recommend you familiarise yourself with the Chinese government’s stance on discrimination. That part is public and widely publicized in official documents and Chinese state media (usually the Chinese language version only, though).

The second link was supposed to be https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/111658688

@SomeoneElse I suppose DWG is already aware there are two areas in Bhutan currently being edited by Chinese mappers. I can see one of them, in the north of the country, is already being monitored (https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/111486876), the other, further west, is near the Indian border (https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/111486876) and is therefore of higher strategic importance to both China and India. The conflict is just starting. Bhutan is not equipped to tackle the threat, but may for example trade one area for another. It is also highly likely India will respond to the new threat to its borders.

What is different from the usual military action is that the Chinese government is relying entirely on propaganda and spreading their message via media (OSM included). We, the OSM project, are a weapon in this war and editors are the soldiers.

I reiterate OSM should document status quo, not create it. Most of us have no desire to engage in a political or military conflict, certainly not on the CCP or PLA side, just by being associated with OSM.

There are accepted exceptions from on the ground truth rule and deliberately working it around to create fiction should void it in this case. On top of that, we all agree on not carrying advertising, why do we actively push government propaganda then?

In this and previous thread all voices from China were strongly supportive to the Chinese government narrative and IMHO should not be taken into account when making a decision. These are the exact people that cause the problem. What is however worrying is a distinct lack of moderate messages from Chinese mappers. This could be simply because they prefer to stay quiet but the proportions are worrying nevertheless.

This is my opinion about the state of artificial islands in the South China Sea and Chinese excursions in two areas in Bhutan (just to keep it simple, but there are more politically motivated edits) and on the ground truth rule:

On-the-ground truth rule enables us to map the reality, without concerns about the legal status(es), which are often contradictory with each other and with reality. For the most part, that’s good. However, like any simple, catch-all rule it has some accepted exceptions:

Taking sides in an ongoing conflict, especially a major one. In some cases OSMF and DWG has decided to wait and see how the conflict ends. Mapping one variant, even if matches on the ground truth means taking sides in a political and military conflict and puts mappers at risk.

Mapping fictional/fabricated data - we have a rule against that but the government of China has bypassed it by actually building some structures in disputed areas. These structures exist mainly to justify map changes and we are effectively giving the Chinese government a free hand to change OSM the way it suits their interests. By doing that we are giving credibility to their propaganda message and lose our credibility in the process. Fair to say we did not expect someone to go to such lengths to fabricate fiction but in practice, it costs the Chinese government almost nothing to build a few “villages” here and there.

There are also practicalities, these data are worthless - other than propaganda there are no uses for them. Most of them were copied from Chinese government sources and cannot be verified by anyone.

@ztzthu Regarding the discrimination argument. Disagreeing with a political party is not racism or xenophobia. In fact, the opposite is true, Chinese government’s own messaging has recently become very xenophobic, racist, sexist and homophobic.

It is your choice whether or not to spread Chinese government’s propaganda. Just like it is my choice whether or not to spam OSM. If I do, I bear the consequences, not cry racial discrimination.

The situation of honest Chinese mappers is indeed a concern, but the threat comes from inside of the country, and I am afraid you are on the threat side.

Regarding Chinese excursions into unoccupied areas of Bhutan and islands in the South China Sea - these are artificial constructs that were deliberately built to add them to the maps and further Chinese government’s propaganda (call it “on the ground lie”). IMHO any such details should be removed from OSM until a wider consensus is reached. From a practical point of view, these details have a negative value to the project: Chinese officials don’t use OSM to move around there and having them in the database costs OSM credibility as a source of geographic information.

This is a continuation/fork of an older discussion in https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/assanges/diary/397559

Most of the issues described in your post are attempts to weaponize OSM by pushing narrative of the Chinese government into independent media (OSM is seen as one of them). None of the artificial islands in South China Sea, two Chinese excursions into unpopulated areas in Bhutan, status of “re-education camps” in Xinjiang can be surveyed and all data that have been added to OSM originate from the Chinese government. Think of this as a spam, just more evil as it may cost people’s lives. OSM community should not allow such practices, if only to protect the credibility of the project (personally, I’d add moral reasons as well). There is a huge difference between the existence of the “on the ground truth” and manufacturing facts for propaganda reasons.

A separate but related issue is the situation of Chinese mappers and OSM in China in general. Honest Chinese mappers are already vulnerable under Chinese law (the ones pushing the government propaganda are not - they are encouraged). Once the politically motivated editors take control of OSM (there are signs this happening already) the project will lose any checks and balances over the quality of the map in China. The question is, how do we tell apart honest and politically motivated contributors (the latter are some of the most prolific OSM contributors) and how do we help the first staying safe and maintain the quality of the map.

My recommendation is having an anti-weaponization rule, similar to the one used for spam prevention. Adding unverified data to selected areas (there are relatively few of them) should automatically flag the edit for reversion and apply a temporary ban for the mapper.

@SomeoneElse it is now obvious we engaging in a discussion with Chinese nationalists, the very people causing problems this thread is about. The only thing we have achieved is uncovering a few of them. And some (NMSL is a common acronym/slur used by Chinese nationalists) were clear from the beginning.

DWG should decide how to handle weaponization of OSM. Just like spam, it only benefits editors and/or their sponsors and damages credibility of the project as a whole. In this particular case the Chinese Government encourages using Wikipedia, OSM and other non-Chinese media as an outlet for its rhetoric hoping that anything that gets through will stick or at least will provide a “counter argument” for other publications. Just like with spam, OSM and DWG should not apply a good-will rule to these edits.

Note that artificial islands in South China Sea, Chinese outposts in unpopulated areas of Bhutan, “re-education” camps in Xinjiang cannot be independently surveyed (even by Chinese citizens, if they are not affiliated with the government), so any features not present in the satellite imagery (name, usage tags) originate from the Chinese Government only. Any such edits should be reviewed and flagged for a revert or disciplinary actions. As these areas are relatively small geographic locks (after some clean up) may be a good solution. It would be better to not have any data in there than simply carry over Chinese propaganda.

@FreedSky, based on your 50k edits and long history in OSM I assumed you are part of the trustworthy faction of the Chinese OSM mapper. And just then you bring Chinese excursions into Bhutan as an example of DWG bias! You couldn’t have shown a more contentious example. These villages have the same status as artificial islands in South China Sea - no one outside China would call them a Chinese territory.

This brings the question: if an experienced mapper like FreedSky has a strong political agenda, who in Chinese OSM community can we trust? There must be many trustworthy people in there, hopefully still majority of Chinese mappers, but how do we find them and how do we assure they are in charge of the review process? DWG can step in in case of blatant international violations, but someone still has to review changes within China.

DWG, there are quite many name= tags in Bhutan written in Chinese and FreedSky has just added some more. I have no reason to assume they are not valid (even if it is highly unlikely they are based on a local knowledge) but at very least they should be mapped as name.zh= with name= tags reserved for names in local languages as per OSM convention.

@FreedSky, which part of the woodpeck’s comment do you disagree with? And is it really his comment of NM$L’s interpretation of it? To me woodpeck has accurately described the problem OSM (including OSM in China) is facing - a trust crisis. How do you recognize politically motivated or self censored edits? How do you deal with cases where questioning correctness of official information is illegal? How do you deal with propaganda, unreliable information and your own biases?

Our current system can deal with small-scale non-systemic violations if there are enough people who can and are willing to verify edits. New Chinese government policies make these violations systemic and restrict access to information (and sometimes places) needed to verify them. This is dangerous, as it is only the low scale that keeps OSM in China afloat and that can change very quickly.

What will you do if one day you find hundreds of people vandalising your edits, whilst claiming on the ground knowledge? You won’t be able to fix that, even if you know you are right. Or, if you do try fighting back, you will attract unwanted attention to yourself. Even if you were outside China and had nothing to do with it, you would still have better things to do than fighting propaganda and file hundreds of DWG complaints.

Andy, I’ve checked some places where I expected to see fresh vandalism and, I admit, the problem isn’t currently widespread. It is an anecdotal evidence but I’d have definitely found something by now.

Having said that, I wouldn’t treat this matter as yet another border dispute. It is about Chinese government actively encouraging its citizens to exploit international platforms to spread its vision of the world. Borders are an obvious target but all OSM data are at risk. So far we are safe, probably because hardly anyone in China is aware of OSM, but it only takes one WeChat post and we will find it impossible to undo the damage.

This is definitely a matter for OSMF and DWG to act on.

Conventional vandalism resolution techniques won’t work because of the scale of this issue. It is a state promoted malicious mass editing campaign of OSM and other crowd sourced databases. The goal of the editors to exert their soft power on people outside China, needless to say they are not interested in improving OSM. Any discussions only delay fixes, which aggravates the problem.

At very least we need to be able to streamline tracking such changes, moderating them, reverting them and banning the authors or placing them under moderation again.

This is not a new problem but it has been ramping up quickly over the last several years. This year Chinese government’s rhetoric has become particularly aggressive towards their adversaries and the Western world in general, so we can expect this practice to spill over the rest of the world.

hanchao,

My utmost respect to you guys working on OSM in China. Even in its current state, an offline Maps.me in a pocket is a life saver, and it isn’t just my opinion. One challenge is a quickly expanding infrastructure, especially public transport. This is a unique challenge, as it doesn’t compare to any other place in the world.

U32123 Edits 0 Diary 2 Mapper since: 19 January, 2021

Dear U32123, welcome to Openstreetmap. If you look at the map of China, there is still a lot of work needed. China is far behind other developed countries, including Taiwan you are so concerned about. Your contribution would be very valuable.

Hi Rob,

You are right, of course. I should have pointed out that chances of a severe conflict of interest are slim.

This year it is indeed mostly Mike who falls into this category, I didn’t mean to single him out, it’s a broader issue than relation between us and Facebook. As you can see above I also had some concerns about Mapbox.

Conflict of interest should be managed on both sides and board election is part of this process. This is particularly important when we are the smaller party, the interest overlap is significant and there are already contentious issues between us and the candidate’s employer. Not only board members will have a significant impact on the OSM future, we are also giving them and their employers a seal of approval for their actions so far.

There is no “systemic misbehaviour” in OSM. This is not an opinion, it is a fact.

Yes, there are proposals for systemic racial, ethnic and gender discrimination that attempt to bypass OSMF democratic process. See the Heather’s post yesterday, which is by the way far more offensive and divisive than anything Frederik have said.

There’s indeed a lot of discrimination in the world, often codified in law. Changing these laws is a worthy goal but it is outside of scope of OSM and OSMF. The best thing we can and should do about it is to allow everyone to participate in development of Openstreetmap on equal terms and that’s exactly where we are now.