Documenting the history of OpenStreetMap

I did not participate here recently because I got the impression it wasn’t necessary, and I have already stated that I would be very reluctant with any deletion (besides your own pages, if they haven’t attracted other contributors and tags are not used). There’s no real benefit but some risk involved. Space in the wiki is not limited like it is in a newspaper or book.

I agree with Tordanik‘s basic definition: delete what nobody wants to keep. If you get a sign or idea that someone might care, I would not insist on deletion, and I agree this seems excessively bold.

Originally I was under the assumption that an admin would wait a certain amount of time before deleting pages. Since that’s what Lyx always did. I’ve never seen an instance of a page being deleted the day of or immediately after a request was put up. I can agree that if pages are deleted that quickly discretion should be used though in what gets requested for deletion. Which is why I think good guidelines are necessary and also why I didn’t indiscriminately request pages be deleted in the first place. I was actually pretty choosy about it and reviewed all of them first. Despite accusations to the contrary.

If talk page discussions are out of the question with the delete template, the sentence saying so should be removed from it. A lot of this happened due to the misunderstanding that both deletion requests and deletion proposals required discussion if there was any objections to them.

Although most people were unwilling to discuss things even in cases where I used a deletion proposal instead and I still got them reverted. There was also no attempt to discuss things on my talk page after the reverts either. So I think its as much to do with certain people and their attitudes that its their way or highway, then its an issue about what particular template I used or what the template says. Which again is why I think guidelines are necessary.

I would agree with you on that if there wasn’t the head butting and bad attitudes by certain users from the start of this. Its clear some people don’t respect the admins opinions and expect everything to be done their way, if its realistic or not. So I think the guidelines are as much a necessary thing to keep ego’s out of this and to avoid similar conflict in the future as much anything else.

I’ve talked to more then a few ex users who were turned off from contributing to wiki because of this type of thing. Id like to see that not happen and it only stops by having rules. Otherwise, there will just be endless bickering, some people will abuse the revert system, and others will just leave because they don’t have the will to stick up for themselves. There’s plenty of instances where pages can and should be deleted anyway, like the examples Tigerfell provided. It would be ridiculous to expect an admin to have to jump in every time there’s a dispute about it.

I fully agree with that. It shouldn’t have been an issue in the first place.

  1. There was never any “broad consensus” {{delete}} shouldn’t be used and there was quit a lot of consensus that it was fine. I’m sick of repeating myself about it.

  2. EzekielT never used {{delete}} that I saw. If anything he did more to try and recover pages I requested be deleted then he did anything else. So its not fair to include him in that.

  3. I’ve said multiple times that I will stick to any guidelines we come up with. As long as they are fair to both sides (notice I’ve said both sides multiple times also and not just my side), involve consensus and discussion first, and are also followed by other users. That doesn’t mean I won’t potentially make a bad call once in a while and do a deletion proposal on a page that probably shouldn’t have one, but know ones perfect. Ultimately, I’m fine with some or most proposals ultimately not being deleted. I just want the decision to based on more then fake outrage or because someone who had a grudge reverted the request. That’s not only reflected in the deletion proposal I’ve had reverted that I left alone after because the reasoning for doing it was sound, along with the fact that the pages I have requested be deleted only make up a small portion of the ones I could have done it with or are out there. I’ve actually been a lot more conservative about then I get credit for, but fake outrage tends to override reason. So I understand why people would think otherwise.

Exactly. I’ve been dealing with them here and other places for awhile now and they tend to act the same way everywhere. There’s always an initially reaction to something, but then when it looks like they aren’t going to get their way or have to justify their actions they just disappear and go harass other people. Its a common tactic of bullies. 99% of the time people they harass will just give in and not raise it to the level I have. So its a pretty effective strategy most of the time, just not in this case. They don’t really have to say anything more about it anyway though. Since we already know there opinions. I’m sure they will pop up at some point again though.

The whole reason were even having this discussion in the first place is because I was “set off” enough to make it an issue. Otherwise, I would have been all apologetic and submissive like I’ve seen other people act. Which isn’t effective at all. So give me a little more credit. There is a method to my madness. :wink:

EzekielT is pretty middle of the road on this. As much as he seems to take my side, there’s been plenty of times where he hasn’t and has gone against me on things. So I wouldn’t clump us together.

I completely agree with that. I see Tigerfell as a neutral mediator and this as a negotiation as much as anything else. To that end, his guidelines are a little more strict then me and others would like, but loser then some other people would prefer. So we negotiate, refine things, and meet somewhere in the middle. At least that’s how I imagine it. He hasn’t taken a side on that though.

Exactly. People are making this out as if its way more black and white then it is. There wasn’t any guidelines or established practices one way or another anywhere though. A few people just thought it was “there way or highway” and tried to force everyone else to conform to there standards. Which is a big part of why the problem exists in the first place and can only be solved by having guidelines.

There’s plenty of benefit to deleting pages besides just freeing up space. As it is the proposal pages are hard to find and sift through, because a lot of them are irrelevant junk. Especially in the proposal categories, where they are listed completely nonsensically. It also causes problems with the search. Where the search prefers empty proposal pages and other irrelevant articles over the actual tag pages. Keeping empty proposal pages also requires people to maintain them and keep their categories up to date. Which isn’t done consistently. There’s more important things people should be spending their time on. That’s just a few things I can think of and only covers blank pages. There’s plenty of other instances where it would be of benefit to delete pages though.

Know one is insisting on anything. We are simply saying there are some cases where it would be beneficial to delete pages and also that there should be a discussion about it. Personally, I never once said pages should be deleted and I don’t really care in most of the cases if they aren’t. Its only specific instances that I take issue with, that only represent a small percentage of pages out there, and I also take issue with the approach people took who were against it. It doesn’t seem like anyone else here is advocating for the whole sale deletion of pages either. Know one has said as much. I’m not sure why there is even an insinuation we think otherwise or what is excessively bold about any of that. Like EzekielT said, there were no guidelines or established practices about any of this in the first place anyway.

I knew that was coming ;).

Well, I actually have used {{delete}} quite a few times and reverted those who reverted you multiple times, to be fair. Which Nakaner complained about on my talk page (resolved through archiving them). I’ve also reverted you quite a few times and restored pages too (mostly in that mass reversion spree of mine, which you complained about and I apologized for). And in that spree I started reverting not just you but your opponents again and I also repeatedly reverted myself over and over again, blanking and refilling and blanking and refilling and repeat, spurring that famous self-edit war of mine. So I apparently didn’t even agree with myself then, with one side of me wanting to do this, another to do that, etc. (also I was in a weird state of mind then, where I admittedly lost all reason and went way overboard with not taking sides / taking everyone’s side, which I luckily managed to snap out of, see my talk page apology for the story behind it). It basically became a speedy race to be on everyone’s good side by repeatedly reverting their opposers and vice versa. Little did I realize that by repeatedly reverting everyone on all sides I would only make all of them mad at me… that may seem obvious, but I was in a sticky situation at the time.

Confused yet ;)?

So it’s not personal. Note: I am not performing any more reversions until this discussion is finished, and I hope no one else does either.

I try to keep middle ground ;).

Well, I’ll admit that when I first stepped in to the deletion war (through looking at Polarbear’s contribs) last summer I at first saw it as an opportunity to take Polarbear’s side just so he could, err, maybe have a better image of me than he used to. And I actually went along with that crazy plan… but once I was blasted by that one adamant sea of fire (yes, I’m reining in the puns again ;)), which knocked some sense into me, I realized that I was wrong. I was so consumed in trying to get Polarbear’s respect after what happened between us in 2017 that I didn’t even bother to consider why you were deleting pages in the first place, or have an opinion of my own. Since that second message I gave you in July 2018 I have been authentic to my views instead.

(What I just said was admittedly an over six months old secret ;)).

Like you said about RicoZ, you’re not my enemy either. In fact, none of you are. We’re supposed to be a community, work things out, hold discussions first.

And I also noticed how you could have been treated better, by the way. Like how Nakaner, Mateusz, and Tordanik reverted you without discussing with you first. How multiple users discussed you without you knowing and mass complained on your talk page in the span of less than a week, leaving you to have to juggle 7 conversations at once. How Polarbear analogized you with a book burning iconoclast. How RicoZ talked behind your back. And then someone (me) comes and reverts all of you (sorry about that).

To be fair to them, maybe they actually have an emotional attachment to them (for unknown reasons). Which would explain why they did what they did. Some people don’t want to let go of anything. And it’s tricky to draw the line. I thank Tigerfell for the great work at drawing those lines though.

I also admittedly have some reservations about deleting pages that have actual content in them, somewhat like RicoZ (although I see the benefits Adamant1 outlined of deleting certain pages). At one point (July 2018) I wanted to keep them all, at one point (November 2018) I didn’t care if (and in fact hoped) all of them got deleted, and at another point (February 2019) I didn’t even care if they were deleted or kept during my mass reversion spree. So I’ve changed my mind multiple times during this deletion war. However after what happened a few weeks ago I think I’ve finally formed a concrete opinion.

You, adamant one, are very adamant about this, adamant Adamant1 ;).

Hmm, so my apology about my mass reversion spree of literally everyone on all sides (pro-delete and anti-delete) in the deletion war, including myself, wasn’t effective ;)? I thought it was (and much needed) :).

Thanks Tigerfell ;). Nakaner hasn’t replied yet though.

There is a possibility that Polarbear could persuade the other DWG members to go on his side though. And he could also extend official DWG business over to the deletion war (I haven’t seen a rule that prevents something like that). Especially if a) the other DWG members are doing other things and no one’s in his way, or b) he did enough to persuade them that they follow along.

I completely agree with that ;). But in this case, an actual member of the DWG is involved in the conflict.

By the way, Adamant1, what do you think of my idea about moving (most) old proposals to the original proposers’ userspaces? It solves the category and the search problem. Maybe it’s a chance to cool down the angry mob.

Now I’m actually sick of repeating myself about how I’m sick of repeating myself :roll_eyes:

You actually have a much better memory then I do about all this stuff. I had forgot about a lot of it, including Constantine being involved at one point. That was quit awhile back if I remember correctly.

I won’t preform anymore deletion requests until its resolved either. Although I don’t want it to be used as a stalling tactic by people who aren’t commenting to get their way. If need be, at some point we should just go ahead with the next step in the process without them (that includes Nakaner not responding).

Maybe. I guess we will see. I don’t think he will though. I think he’s slightly more reasonable then he initially lets on and he also cares about his imagine. Everything we do here comes at the cost of some social capital with other users. I imagine I have way more of it I’m willing to burn in this then he does.

Although I could be wrong, I still don’t think that means a single DWG member has more clout for how things should be ran compared to say a larger group of Wiki members, wiki and forum admins, or even other DWG members. There’s still a process that has to be followed also. The only instances where I’ve seen that not be the case is with a semi unspoken social contract type thing where people that have been here longer or have special “geography” degrees get preferred treatment, like not being called out for bad behavior when they should be. That doesn’t cover things like edit warring though in my opinion.

I’m still undecided on it. I guess its an option and I can see some situations where it might be useful, but I agree with Tigerfell’s critique of it. Ultimately id like some more robust guidelines put in place. It could be used to complement them though. One instance where I think it might be helpful is with abandoned proposal drafts that have very little or no content, and its not clear why the proposals was abandoned. In those instances a lot of times reasons for the abandonment aren’t given and in some cases it might not be clear if deletion is necessarily the best option.

So, I think a good alternative would be to send the person who created the proposal a message saying that its being considered for deletion and if the user doesn’t mind we would like to move it to their user space instead. Along with also asking them why the proposal was abandoned so it can be factored in. In cases of older proposals though there’s a good chance the user isn’t even around anymore. So if there’s no response the page should be deleted, because generally I think its a bad idea to screw with peoples user pages without their permission. I got chided for it myself a few times even when they were superficial changes to their talk pages. So transferring pages to a person’s user space probably isn’t that good either. I only step on people’s toes when its necessary ;).

Should I add it to the draft?

Additionally, RicoZ and I discussed about contesting deletion request at the draft’s talk page. The trade-off was that the contesting user undoes the change and the requestant adds the {{delete proposal}} label afterwards. Any opinions?

It might be good to add it. I’m not sure where in the process it should be though. If the original person who wants the article deleted contacts the original creator of it and then moves it before there’s a discussion it might piss people off. But then if its at the end where the two possible options are moving or deleted then people might always favor moving over deleting. Even if its not the best option. So where it should be in the draft is up to you I guess.

As opposed to what? I’m not really sure what you mean. If your talking about if to discuss the deletion request on the drafts talk page or somewhere else, the draft is best (compared to say a mailing list).

If your asking who should put the {{deletion proposal}} up, the original person or the contesting them, id say the person contesting them, because they should have to say why they are contesting it on the discussion page. Whereas the person requesting the deletion already should be justifying it in the deletion request (so if they started the proposal discussion it would just be redundant). Also, it seems like a more natural path for the person doing the contesting.

I.E. 1. revert → 2. place {{delete proposal}} → 3. give rational.

Compared to 1. place deletion request → 2. receive email about being reverted → 3. login → 4. Place deletion proposal → 5. remember what your justification was and how to dispute the short revert comment → 6. Post discussion message.

Its the difference between 3 steps versus 6. Neither the person making the deletion request or the person disputing should have to jump through a bunch of hoops to it, but its clearly easier on the disputing persons side. So I think it should be on them.

Plus it stops people from 1. reverting and calling it a day 2. reverting and deciding to harass the deletion proposer on their talk page before they can start a discussion on the page of the actual article 3. The person doing the reverting talking the conversation to somewhere else inappropriate like the mailing list. All of which currently happens.

Please have a look at https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User_talk:Tigerfell/Crafting#%22In_case_that_a_deletion_is_opposed%22.

I suggested this path, because it is shorter and you do not need to revert anything if the page was not emptied when requesting deletion (simply place “proposal” after "{{delete ". I think there were too many reverts causing aggression and anger, so I wanted to remove this step.

Exactly!

If the editor who originally created the proposal has retired from everything OSM, most likely they wouldn’t care if we moved their proposals to their userspaces. They were the creators of them anyway.

If the editor is still active on OSM and the OSM Wiki and still hasn’t replied then we should probably go along with the deletion process, especially if the proposal was created by accident or has no informative content.

Maybe in that case we should create a voting system where users vote to “keep” or “delete” on the talk pages, through or not through RFC. With the more contentious ones anyway. The ones that have no informative content should probably be replaced with {{delete}} without discussion & the admins can decide themselves whether to delete them or not.

As I said, changing a user sub page is some sort of problem…

Why not using a section of the talk page and the usual templates for feature voting…

Whatever is discussed here it seems almost everyone lost interest in this thread so it will be at best the consensus of 2.5 people (pun intended) and I stopped wasting my time.

Either we agree in the wiki or it will go the normal proposal route with RFC call on ml and voting.

Its clear no one was interested in this in first. Including the the couple of people doing the reverting. Since they where obviously making a much bigger deal out of it then it is. The whole reason this discussion is happening is to satisfy those people. So the thing was a waste of all our times in the first place. Since they could have just shoved off to start with instead of reverting me repeatedly because of some stupid personal problem or something. But that didn’t happen. So here we are. Going by the lack of response here and everywhere else though this is essentially a none issue and most of the pages should have just been deleted originally, but its still worth having guidelines despite that, just to keep them from doing this type of thing again if nothing else (and there’s no other good reason I can think of).

Not that it is the consensus of 2.5 people, but so what if it was? plenty of more important decisions having to do with OSM are made by less consensus. At least in this case we did our due diligence to allow people to provide feedback. Which is more then usually happens. If those people decided not to provide feedback though, that’s on them. We aren’t going to say screw the whole thing because other people decided to stay silent about it though.

Are you talking about the guideline proposal or when it comes to certain pages being deleted? If its about the guideline proposal its obviously still being worked on and discussed. As I said above, its on whoever doesn’t participate if they decide not to, not us. Things take time on here sometimes though. That’s life. The 2.5 people that are involved have provided pretty good feedback though that the proposal has been refined based on. So I’m not sure what your complaining about.

If your talking about deletion proposals, its clearly the consensus here that doing an RFC on the mailing list every time someone wants to request a page be deleted is unrealistic, a waste of the mailing lists time, and just not the right medium for it. There’s a good chance that people on the mailing list will just agree with whatever and not actually go over the page. Which is completely understandable. There’s no reason their time should be wasted reviewing a blank page or “bad” page every time someone does a deletion request. Plus, the person doing the deletion request shouldn’t have to manage a discussion about it in multiple mediums. Its hard enough with one. Also, know one really cared or contributed to the discussion when it was brought up in the mailing list. There’s no reason it would be any different, because ultimately this is a completely manufactured none issue, created by a few people that don’t really care about it in the first place.

Either way though, things within the wiki should be dealt with within the wiki. If things can’t be resolved there, then that’s on the wiki and its lack of a good civil community. In cases where consensus or a compromise can’t be reached, the pages should just be deleted in my opinion. In cases where its just a blank or “bad” page getting the deletion request though, which is 99% of the time, I don’t think consensus or a discussion should be used in the first place and the pages should just be deleted. Which I think the 2.5 people here all agree on. So it probably won’t be an issue most of the time anyway.

Its important to remember that not only are we discussing an extremely small percent of proposals out there, the ones out of the deletion requests that might qualify for or merit a dispute conversation is even more tiny. Unless people disregard things by reverting everything, including blank pages. Then they should just be reported to an admin. Before this gets finalized though we should be clear on what deletions requests should be contestable and which shouldn’t.

I am against deleting any proposed features and prefer to keep all of them as an archive. In cases where there is a good tagging for this kind of feature I would create banner at top of proposal template. The exceptions are pages that would fit generally deletion as being essentially blank, created as vandalism etc.

Though I am really dubious on discussing it here - not on OSM wiki where it can be followed and watchlisted or on talk mailing list where it would have larger audience.

Discussing it here combines poor ability to follow discussion and small audience.

I agree with Mateusz, generally we should keep all proposals, with the exception of empty pages and vandalism (and possibly with those pages that the original author wants deleted, and which haven’t had contributions by anyone else, including their “talk” page).
Btw., you can “watch” this forum thread as well, and get notices when new answers are posted

As I already said, you can alternatively discuss that at the draft’s talk page. Current strategy is to formulate a draft which will be posted on the mailing list.

I still do not understand why you want to keep a proposal like https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Proposed_features/Xian (which Mateusz Konieczny and I recently discussed about). There is zero use, it is effectively an abandoned draft that is almost identical to the tag is_in=Xian and it does not follow the guideline “Do not map you local legislation, if not bound to objects in reality”. We are mostly talking about proposals like this.

Can you please name a reason why this would be worth keeping?

there is a key, a value and a definition. And a suggestion on the talk page why it is not a good tag according to the mapper. And this for a tag that is only useful in a country where mapping is prohibited by law.
I would be interested to know why we should delete it. It will probably not be found by anyone else but people looking for a tag for Xian, and they at least will get some guidance from the talk page.

Please elaborate this. I do not understand the relation between using this tag and prohibition of mapping in mainland China.

Basically, you need a key, value, and a definition and then it is worth keeping?

I would say a key is sufficient, plus desirably a definition.

What I wanted to say is that we can not expect the same amount of contributions from countries where mapping is legally prohibited than from other areas. It is natural that such tags that refer to places where mapping is not allowed, are expanding slower than other tags. And it means that it will probably not get in the way of other mappers, because they will not search for the term.

You still should explain why you believe it would be better to delete this rather than keeping it.

And additionally, to focus the documentation of the wiki on currently relevant content and avoid duplication.