I get notifications for changes in my area (Germany). Of course this sometimes triggers when users upload ‘near-global’ changesets (which happens surprisingly often and also has a surprisingly high correlation with ‘bad’ edits often by newcomers). I don’t think there is any (technical) measure we could/should take against it because in some cases large changesets might actually be necessary (or at least reasonable).
To me it though seems like 6 out of 10 ‘near-global’ changesets have some connection to UK data. Often-times, the actual target of the changeset has nothing to do with the edits in UK (e.g. https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/93719011)).
Do other people also have this impression?
Of course the UK is highly connected globally and a central hub for global travel. But could there be any other cause? Are you e.g. aware of any newcomer introductions (how to osm) or something similar that link to the UK to ‘make your first edit’?
A changeset comment in Hebrew does not seem very likely to be UK originated. Other edits by that user seem to be in Israel (and have been partially reverted). Also look at imagery used.
One possibility is accidentally tapping the “locate me” button on the RHS and thus originating a way or node from wherever the users browser says they are (in which case popular locations may feature).
A quick look for other large area changesets suggest possibly some MapRoulette projects (such as changing solar to area) which are likely done by non-UK mappers (e.g., also changing power infra in Austria). See for instance https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/94952382.
But generally the UK community does not police the area of changesets, so this is unlikely to be of much interest.
sorry, that title seems misleading. I did not mean to say that UK users are more prone to large changesets. Most of the changesets I had in mind are non-UK mappers.
But a changeset boundingbox is defined by its extremes. It seems that making an edit in the UK and somewhere in the world is something that happens more often then I expected and I have no explanation for it.