User talk:Stefanb/TrustPoints

I thought it would be easy to critique inline on the discussion page.

Goal

Prevent creation of new sock puppet accounts for potential acts of vandalism on larger scale and spam. Gradually give trust to users, and give them additional privileges. It should not be in the way when new users want to contribute normally. It should not encourage competition so that itself doesn't become an abuse target.

Comments

These all sound reasonable and would be enhanced by the ability of wikistyle history of ways/nodes/boundary boxes and the ability to do rollbacks. I understand there are technical limitations to do this, and I don't pretend to have the answers, just stating I think it would be easier to moderate with the ability to easily revert abuse. Tylerritchie 04:34, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Use

• Allow editing
• allow larger daily bbox for changes
• allow more daily edits (number of affected nodes, ways...)
• Allow more daily diary entries and comments
• allow sending larger Geomessages

I believe defining useful limits is the most tricky part. I don't think limiting a bounding box makes any sense. Adding should always be unlimited as it is easily undone. New users should not be allowed to delete things, this is the prime method of vandalism and it also happens accidentially with new users - the key shortcuts in JOSM make it really easy. I am not sure whether it makes sense to limit the number of edits, there should rather be rules what you can edit. --Nop 07:15, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that reverting any change is really easily undone, it's certainly not as wiki-easy. Tylerritchie 17:28, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Measures

• Accepted the licence (as it is done already today) Extra points for digitally signing, extra points if signed with a PGP key in a strong set (permanent, doesn't decay)

Comments

Eh, I don't use PGP, and I think the extra points would be mostly lost here and it's probably not necessary Tylerritchie 04:34, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

+1 --Nop 07:25, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

• Confirmed, active email address (as it is done already today)
• Time since signing up

Comments

I don't think early non-participatory adopters should necessarily have more privileges than late adopters just because they've been around longer Tylerritchie 04:34, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

only the last 6 months would make some difference, later it's the same max points for all. It's easiest to implement, but i agree this should have very little weight -- Stefanb 05:39, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Instead of the mere time of joining, the number of objects last edited by this user should be taken into account. It is a good measurement of activitiy and can be easily calculated from the DB. --Nop 07:25, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Only the number of edited objects might encourage nonsense mass edits. There needs to be a clever balance --Stefanb 06:31, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Not when we are talking about old objects. If they are nonsensical, they will have been corrected or deleted by other users, so they are not there to count. --Nop 08:15, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

True, but then only those older than a certain period (a week, a month...) should count. Those should be seen by others by now and fixed if really wrong. Or they might be in the middle of an ocean where noone is looking frequently enough :) --Stefanb 17:06, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

• Regular editing activity
• Track uploads

Comments

Should not be taken into account. There are many users that don't upload tracks because of the tracability of their movements, it is hard to judge the validity of track uploads while it is very easy to bulk upload invalid data in order to fake a high number here. --Nop 07:25, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

• Passed a quiz involving some tagging and some legal questions (just making sure user reads the licence and tagging FAQ and understands it). Points decay, but user can re-take it to regain points.

Comments

I like the idea of a quiz regarding licensing issues and etiquette I think a quiz regarding proper tagging would require there be some sort of bare minimum standard and consensus, you can't say both "tag things however you want" and "but make sure to tag them properly" Tylerritchie 04:34, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I think a quiz makes no sense at all as there are no fixed rules at all. When people cannot agree on basic concepts ("What is a footway?") on the mailing list, what answers would you expect from a newcomer? --Nop 07:25, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Of course the quiz should consist of answers that have clear and not disputed answers (some basic tags and rules) --Stefanb 19:25, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

• Regular activity in other systems? (mailing lists, forums, wiki, svn repository, diary/blog, trac...) Perhaps totally different systems shouln't be mixed - one who can program or is very vocal doesn't necessarily yet know how to map well and shouldn't be trusted with enormous imports and vice versa)

Comments

I think that points for a complete user profile and participation in tag proposals make sense. I think trac and svn need to be their own separate world Tylerritchie 04:34, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't think other systems should be taken into account. It is a matter of taste if you use them and what you use. There is an awful lot of them. Who's to decided which system is worthy of points and what contributions are worthwhile? --Nop 07:25, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

• Rated by other users (manualy: reverted changesets, reported spam in diary, getting comments to a diary entry while not being flagged as spam...) ?

I think this is the best way (after number of edits) to gain and especially loose points. But it requires implementation of a complaint system. And probably rarely an arbiter to resolve edit wars. --Nop 07:25, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

• Friend of a trusted user (mentor, introducer, bot owner)
• only the last 12 months count, points start to gradually decay after 6 months. Moderate activity should be enough to maintain high-enough score.

I think degradation is a bad idea. There is always a shift in the priority of hobbies and there is a natural shift of mapping activity with the seasons - but there is no reason to trust a user less who has done good work in the past and is returning to mapping after a pause. --Nop 07:25, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Simpler alternative?

Thanks for putting up this topic - I think OSM will need a mechanism to preserve the existing data against vandalism and the like. Your system appears very sophisitcated with many different ways to earn points. I would prefer something more simple:

• Implement a mechanism where you can contest a user's edit if you think it is bad and should be undone (for vandalism, spam whatever)
• You earn trustpoints for every uncontested contribution
• You loose considerably more trustpoints when a contribution is contested and undone
• (All existing edits older than x weeks are considered good)

Rules for what users with fewer trustpoints are allowed to do are more tricky to define. I would allow adding things (as they are easily undone), I would not allow deleting objects by another user/a user with more trustpoints. But when it comes to modifying and connecting things it becomes really tricky.

I was also thinking about a confirmation system where users can confirm another user's edits, thus adding their trustpoints to the feature. But that requires some brainstorming yet. --Nop 07:12, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps combine trust points (by somehow estimating quality of edits, see above for ideas) and some warning points (award them for certain suspicious edits, like deleting stuff, moving lots of points all in one direction, etc ...) and publish some feed or list of such edits above certain threshold - so they can be spotted and either marked as false positives (by trusted users) which will cause them to "lose" warning points, ultimately moving them off the list, or dealt with (reverted, etc ...) --Bilbo 22:47, 11 July 2009 (UTC)