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[OSMOpinion] STOP discrimination against China and Chinese mappers in OSM community
Posted by ztztztz on 25 September 2021 in English. Last updated on 26 September 2021.Discrimination against China and Chinese mappers SHOULD NOT exist in OpenStreepMap
This is a reply to a previous diary that has spoken evil of China and Chinese Mappers. As a Chinese OSM user I feel terribly offended, outraged and disappointed about the opinions conveyed from the diary - and I feel obliged to write a reply.
This reply is solely my own words and does NOT reflect the opinion of OSM China community, if any.
“Chinese Commies”? Whoever doesn’t want political nonsense in OSM is talking the most political nonsense.
Yet here we are again, the Chinese Commies just spit on everything they thought was rightful.
That was the beginning of the diary. The message was pretty clear: The author was NEVER really meant to exclude political nonsenses from OSM communty, and interestingly, he who referred Chineses as “Commies” is the most political nonsense-maker.
Typical ad hominem attack, and even as a non-communist I feel offended. Communist is called Communist, not the word commie that the author has disrespectfully spelled. And I really don’t see the point of the author mentioning communist or communism.
What I have perceived between the lines from the author is merely discrimination and hostility against China and OSM China users. And given such discrimination, I wouldn’t believe there would be any fruitful and meaningful discussion with the author.
Long story short, OpenStreetMap should not be biased against any ideology / politics / religion.
The Truth of Vandalism
Thanks for the detailed list that summarizes the existing vandalism from Chinese users. I believe that OSM China is also positively coping with such vandalism - and that IS what OSM China is doing right now - please refer to the so-called “Wonderful poppycock from zh-CN users”.
Vandalism from Chinese users does exist, but please do not cherrypick, exaggerate and attack.
It is pretty interesting that some of the vandalism changesets shown in the list can actually date back to seven years ago (c.f. 26571815). So I assume the list (with ~20 vandalism entries) is a rather comphrehensive list? I also carefully checked the account blockings given by the Taiwan Moderator Supaplex as well as the DWG Activity Report, and there is no account blockings issued ragarding to China-Taiwan border vandalism.
Moreover, many of changesets shown in the list do NOT constitute a valid vandalism. This is well explained in the comment 1, 2 in the original diary. I don’t want to waste my words here, please refer to the original comment.
Vandalism is prevalent in OSM, and China is also one of the victims.
OSM China is also suffering from vandalism - bascally we are facing the same situation as Taiwan. While I cannot show a comprehensive list to iterate those vandalisms, I can confirm there is a lot of vandalism among the borders / disputed areas with Vietnam and Bhutan/India (not sure if there’s any from Taiwan or Japan). Two examples:
- 中建岛 near Vietnam, de facto controlled by China but was modified by pro-Vietnam users a couple of times;
- 拉郊乡 near Bhutan, de facto fully controlled by China but was modified by DWG (?!!) a couple of times;
- …
However, when facing vandalisms, we will NEVER explode with anger on OSM platform, spit swear words on them and refer them as “**”. What we do is just simply reverting those changesets.
Vandalism is per-user action, not a per-country / per-community action.
There are a lot of vandalism happening all the time. Some are politics-related, some are not; and most of them are performed by the newbies who are unfamilliar with OSM policies. Please, follow the “Assume Good Faith” principle and do not make presumption of guilt. Do not assume that they are performed by gov’t puppies - unless you have concrete proof for that.
Elevating certain vandalism of OSM China users to a national level is clearly a form of prejudice and discrimination against China and OSM China community.
The stance of OpenStreetMap should be neutral.
But DWG fails to act neutrally.
I feel EXTREMELY DISAPPOINTED.
The comment from woodpeck, a DWG member is the most infurating part for me, way more infurating than the main content of the diary.
One thing to keep in mind is that China is not a country with freedom of expression. If China officially claims to control a certain territory, then a Chinese citizen who knows that this claim is wrong would risk getting into serious trouble for saying so - they endanger national security, they’re terrorists, and so on, just look at Hong Kong.
Woodpeck knows NOTHING about how mapping works in China, and is full of prejudice and discrimination. It is hard to believe that such ignorance is from a memeber of DWG. According to China PRC law, mapping whatever content on openstreetmap would be illegal - if we don’t want to get into troble, then we would not map on OSM AT ALL! The illegality has NOTING to do with freedom of expression, it’s all about national security. South Korea bans google maps for the same reason.
So it is very hard, from the outside, to trust a Chinese mapper on matters of international interest. Not because they are bad people (they’re not!), but because they live in a country that is at place 160 of 169 on the world freedom index.
Again, OpenStreetMap should not be biased against any ideology / politics / religion. And as I have just stated before, mapping at OSM has nothing to do with freedom of expression. Please stop prejudicing against China and Chinese users.
And also, what is “international interest”?
In a twist to usual OSM rules (“local mappers know best”), in order to give Chinese users the best map, it might be best if citizens of China refrained from editing anything of international interest (including China’s borders) - or really anything their own government might have an opinion on.
LOL. Speaking of China’s borders, DWG itself is the largest vandalizer. First of all, could DWG devote more time to investigating the unsolved China-Bhutan border, or 拉郊乡 before making such comment? It has been 20 days since the investigation and there has been NO response. And such DWG investigation itself can be regarded as vandalism in following ways:
- The way to start the investigation is improper. DWG presumes that 拉郊乡 belongs to Bhutan and modifies OSM data BEFORE investigation starts;
- The current imported country border (LSIB) is of US interest and hence not reliable;
- The investigation process is not clear, DWG refuse to answer any of the questions or comments from Chinese user;
The reason is well written in the comment section of the changeset. DWG hasn’t replied to any of the comments from us. The failure to act from DWG is totally NOT acceptable.
Long story short, the stance of OpenStreetMap should be neutral, but DWG fails to act neutrally. As a result, I feel EXTREMELY DISAPPOINTED. And so are many other OSM China Users.
Once again, I do not represent the opinion of OSM China users in this diary. In fact I have been living in Europe for years and I’m not an active OSM China mapper anymore. However, that’s also the exact reason why (I think) I can make a more objective observation on what’s happening out here.
From my observation, there is prevalent and systematical prejudice and discrimination against China and Chinese mappers, from Taiwan and even from DWG members. OSM community MUST take action to eliminate such prejudice, otherwise it will evolve to vandalism towards the OSM China community.
(end)
ztzthu 25.09.2021 Zürich
Discussion
Comment from ndrw6 on 25 September 2021 at 15:11
This is a continuation/fork of an older discussion in @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.
Comment from ztztztz on 25 September 2021 at 15:47
Hi @ndrw6,
Thank you for the comment.
As FreedSky and I have repeated many times before (in OSM diary as well as in changeset comments), there is concrete proof showing China controling the China-Bhutan distributed area.
The proof include:
Satellite imagery showing roads towards the distributed region; although there might be issues with the licenses (?) but I think it should be good if we do not use it for mapping purposes - *and China gov’t obviously cannot make up map satellites;
Chinese documentaries (or “propaganda”, you name it) that films the distributed region - well, videos cannot be faked either, even though it might contain propaganda stuffs
Wikipedia pages that states that China is controlling the area.
I wonder why would you insist on that this place cannot be independently surveyed ? We are not nationalists, we are just angry and disappointed that our voice are not being heard and OSM seems to dealing this issue with biased attitude agains Chinese mappers, instead of sticking to the so-called “on the ground rule”.
On the contrary, what I have observed is that those who do vandalism are often the newbies who are not familliar with OSM rules, and they are not moltivated by Chinese gov’t. (See the “Vandalism is per-user action, not a per-country / per-community action” part)
Please, do a case-by-case analyze with on-the-ground facts and show whoever you think is vandalizing the openstreetmap, just like what I’ve written about the China-Bhutan case in this comment.
Again, please do not assume that OSM China users are brain-washed by evil CCP and hence not reliable, that is nothing but discrimination.
Best regards, ztzthu.
Comment from ztztztz on 25 September 2021 at 16:08
And just a side note, referring a random OSM China user as “Commie” is absolutely not acceptable.
It’s as offensive as the word “n*gga” - what else can be categorized as discrimination if this doesn’t count? And whoever comments in that post should realize that the OP was deliberately provoking and stigamizing Chinese users (which is totally NOT acceptable).
Comment from redsteakraw on 25 September 2021 at 17:36
I don’t care about all these political BS just ground truth. China recently built up bases on islands disputed by other countries and they got mad and I told them regardless of how you feel ground truth is what the map is representing. The same is here. If China wants to have forced labor concentration camps don’t get all angry if people map them and label them appropriately. The amount of state propaganda that many of these Chinese mappers are subject to is enough to make most just parrot out the government talking points. Furthermore if a mapper is working on behalf the CCP or inspired by patriotism they by the very definition would be Commies. The same would be for Cuban or North Korean mappers. State based vandals don’t deserve any more respect than the spammers or degenerate vandals elsewhere. As for these map laws, it is basically China’s authoritarianism that is a problem, OSM doesn’t bow to China it bows to groundtruth. India has similar dumb laws as other places and you get into conflicts where you can’t satisfy any two authoritarian map laws without conflicting with one or the other. I can’t care less about what dumb law some dumb politicians with inflated egos wrote down on a piece of paper. Does the map describe the on the ground reality, if yes it should be there if not it shouldn’t. Who’s military, police or government is on the ground in an area determines control and borders.
Comment from ndrw6 on 25 September 2021 at 18:04
@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.
Comment from ztztztz on 25 September 2021 at 20:56
@ndrw6
I don’t get it. What do you mean by “artificial constructs that were deliberately built to add them to the maps”?
It is the existence of the “artificial construct” in the REAL PHYSICAL WORLD that comes first, and why do you deny such existence? Mappers are only honestly mapping whatever exists in the real physical world. What are their faults?
If the physical existence is not a proof, then what in your opinion consititues a valid proof of China controlling the area according to the “on the ground rule”? Can you give me any examples?
Ad Hominem. And talking BS without any concrete proof is not welcomed.
Sure you can disagree with a political party, but please do not use this derogative word to refer any specific person. That is racism.
Comment from ztztztz on 25 September 2021 at 21:04
@redsteakraw
Sure let’s talk about ground truth, I’m no less sick of those endless political BS than you.
Speaking of ground truth, have you deliberately overlooked my comments just above your comment? Try scrolling your mouse wheel upwards.
Comment from redsteakraw on 26 September 2021 at 00:11
@ztzthu this isn’t a fight, ground truth is the objective rule that binds all of us. Any that stray from ground truth are the enemies, weather it is motivated by patriotism or just blind vandalism. Ground truth is the objective measure that ends all these stupid political debates. Whether it is the whiny Ukrainians over Crimea or weeping Vietnamese over some random south China sea Island. I will tell you that there is a demeanor and indoctrination to the average Chinese person that lives and is raised in China that is alarming. Especially if you bring up controversial topics. A mix of cognitive dissonance and indoctrination that to many outsiders looks like dumb blind obedience. But there is more going on there. They get it but are too cowardly or set in their ways to think about certain things so they repress it. You can see that in their faces. As far as mapping they can’t be trusted for anything that may be controversial or that the CCP may not like because they are all hostages. With the social credit score they all are at risk of being demoted to 3rd class citizens if they follow ground truth over the fake CCP narrative. I don’t hate the commies I pity them they are like children that fear the parent coming in. It is pathetic in a sense but none of them will ever admit it because they lie to themselves as that is one of the only things that keep them going and functioning in the world.
Comment from ztztztz on 26 September 2021 at 00:21
@redstrakraw
What you’ve said a couple of hours ago:
I don’t want to talk about political bullsh*t either, but apprently you are the guy who can’t stop talking about politics.
If you want to talk about ground truth with me, then you should refrain from all your previous comments and look at one particular changeset in the OpenStreetMap.
Comment from NM$L on 26 September 2021 at 01:13
@redstrakraw Is there any one talking about the building, road or other things on the ground, instead of talking about CPC or xxxism?
Comment from ztztztz on 26 September 2021 at 01:32
@NM$L
Unfortunately no one is willing to discuss the truth, I mean caae-wisely.
That is the most pathetic and problematic part: no one cares the fact, and it seems that attacking China and Chinese users has already become a political correctness in the OSM Community.
Comment from ztztztz on 26 September 2021 at 01:56
*case-wisely, sorry for the typo.
And this is unacceptable in may ways:
OpenStreetMap is not Open and neutral (or even trying to be neutral!) anymore;
OpenStreetMap is used as a weapon for hatred and discrimination;
OpenStreetMap disobeys its own rule of sticking to the ground truth, because no one is willing to talk about the ground truth.
Comment from HikeAndMap on 26 September 2021 at 07:11
I’m going to skip all the political arguments - let’s stick to OSM.
I feel the real problem is - that OSMF continues to reject any proposal for a proper tagging scheme for disputed areas.
There have been several proposals but every proposal is blatantly rejected by the OSMF.
Basically their argument is - the moment a country occupies a territory of another country - that OSMF will officially recognize this occupying country to be the legal international recognized owner of that territory. I know they’re not saying that literally - but that’s what 100% of the users see represented on the map if they go to openstreetmap.org!
Any proposal to add a tagging scheme like: - disputed by ….. - claimed by …. - international court ruling …. etc..
Every a suggestion is totally smashed by the OSMF.
Not a single proposal ever made it.
So what you get then - is that the losing side - will see on the map only:”OSMF recognizes the occupying country the legal international recognized owner of the territory”
Which is wrong of course.
And the occupational force, the aggressor and invader will argue:”but OSMF doesn’t say that literally!”
true - it doesn’t say that literally - but the fact is 99,9999% of the world population looks on a map and will not think about it if there’s something on the map contested, disputed, etc..
They will think:”oh, so this is the boundary - this belongs to that land”
And in the back of their heads they automatically then assume:”that’s then the legal international recognized border”
And of course the losing side - will respond emotionally to this trying to change the tide - human behavior.
So this whole discussion - the way I see it - is that we as mappers have no proper tagging scheme available to mark 1) factual situation on the ground 2) all contested reasoning
because only 1) is endorsed by OSMF and any suggestion to address point 2) OSMF always says:”no we reject this blatantly!”
By doing so - OSMF is basically not neutral anymore - but always in favor of the side with the biggest guns.
Which usually are the bullies.
So then asking mappers in the countries that are being bullied to be neutral - while OSMF taking the stance to always side with the bully and thus not being neutral - that’s a tough one for those who feel they’re treated badly by OSMF
And that then - mappers respond emotionally to OSMF taking the side of the bullies - favoring the bullies - that mappers then respond non-neutral to the non-neutral stance by OSMF - is to be expected and totally human.
well - I can’t blame the people/mappers of the small countries being bullied to respond emotionally to the fact that OSMF policy is to always favor the bully.
The solution lies in OSMF to stop favoring the bullies - and actually address this and respond to these issues with a true neutral mapping scheme..
Which sadly even in 2021 OSMF officially declares it will NOT accept any tagging scheme to neutrally address this issue but will always promote the tagging scheme to favor the bullies.
So instead of we mappers bitching at each other and claiming from one another that some among us are not neural - we better finally convince OSMF to stop favoring the bullies and give us a proper tagging scheme to reflect the issues I raised like
contested by international recognized to international court in the The Hague ruling and other tags/keys we’d need to resolve this peacefully
Comment from FreedSky on 26 September 2021 at 08:46
@redstrakraw
*I don’t care about all these political BS just ground truth.
我非常同意你的第一句话，所以无论现实多么让所谓的“西方价值观”难以接受，也应该中立体现。 OSM应该如此，这才是OPEN的，而对于中国这些“西方价值观”难以接受的控制区域，解决的方法只有一种，让关注这些小国的OSM编者前往现场驱赶中国的居民，政府，军队。 是不是觉得很可笑？对的OSM应该是体现现实，而不是成为“西方价值观”嘴上帮助小国的政治工具。 OSM的DWG强调on ground原则也是为了避免无意义的政治，OSM应该是更多热爱地图、地理、公路、铁路、交通和城市发展等用户的聚集地，用on ground能最好的避免无意义的争论，很简单不管你在OSM上将南海争取给越南或者菲律宾等国也改变不了现实。
I very much agree with your first sentence, so no matter how difficult the reality is to accept the so-called “Western values”, it should be reflected in a neutral manner. OSM should be like this. This is OPEN, and there is only one way to solve the control areas of China that are difficult to accept by “Western values”. Let OSM editors who pay attention to these small countries go to the scene to drive Chinese residents, government, and military. Is it ridiculous? The right OSM should reflect reality, rather than become a political tool for helping small countries on the lips of “Western values.” OSM’s DWG emphasizes the on ground principle to avoid meaningless politics. OSM should be a gathering place for users who love maps, geography, roads, railways, transportation and urban development. Using on ground can best avoid meaningless politics. The argument is simple, whether you win the South China Sea to Vietnam or the Philippines on OSM will not change the reality.
Comment from FreedSky on 26 September 2021 at 08:55
@Hike&Map
I feel the real problem is - that OSMF continues to reject any proposal for a proper tagging scheme for disputed areas.
台湾怎么办？
韩国朝鲜怎么办？
互联网如此发达的年代，特别是senitel卫星能维持几乎每周都更新的情况下，很多地区的近一年变化很好确认。
OSM要做的就是在WIKI上建立很多争议地区的专题页面，记录维护这些地区实际控制情况，当变化趋向于稳定后就应该按照实际情况渲染。上述中国两个村庄建立好几年了就非常符合这个点。
比如中国南海日常被破坏，DWG经常要维护，奈何不同语言的维基百科存在一定程度的偏向性，很多文献虽然可以被搜索到但是没有统一的页面记录，如果有就能对每个岛屿的实际情况关注，是否还是岛礁还是已经填土建设了。
What about Taiwan?
What about South Korea and North Korea?
In the era when the Internet is so developed, especially when the Senitel satellite can be updated almost every week, the changes in many areas in the past year are well confirmed.
What OSM needs to do is to establish a lot of thematic pages of disputed areas on the WIKI, record and maintain the actual control situation in these areas, and when the changes tend to stabilize, they should be rendered according to the actual situation. The above two Chinese villages have been established for several years, which fits this point very well.
For example, the South China Sea is destroyed daily, and DWG is often maintained. However, Wikipedia in different languages has a certain degree of bias. Although many documents can be searched, there is no unified page record. If there is one, you can check the actual situation of each island. Pay attention to whether it is still an island or reef has been filled with soil for construction.
Comment from FreedSky on 26 September 2021 at 09:31
@Hike&Map
I feel the real problem is - that OSMF continues to reject any proposal for a proper tagging scheme for disputed areas.
然我修改下
台湾 和 中国大陆 还有蒙古国已经俄罗斯某块争议地区岂不是不要画了？ 您可以搜一下台湾当局的声称区域是啥样的。
I am going to modify it
Taiwan, China, and Mongolia, and a certain disputed area in Russia, shouldn’t it be left unpainted? You can search for what the Taiwan authorities’ claimed area is like.
争议地区无处不在，OSM对于稳定由一方控制的区域应该体现出来。而我认为这个时间有半年以上就可以了，而有建设房子等比较永久性的建筑特别是建立了一个村落有普通民众居住的区域更可以直接修改归属。
Disputed areas are everywhere, and OSM should reflect the stability of areas controlled by one party. And I think this time is more than half a year, and if there are more permanent buildings such as houses, especially the establishment of a village where ordinary people live, you can directly modify the ownership.
Comment from ztztztz on 26 September 2021 at 10:02
Well said, @Hike&Map. Thank you for bringing up the interesting topic of bullying and legality, I haven’t thought of that way before.
So here comes a couple of interesting questions:
How is the term bullying and legality defined? There should be more context, including jurisdiction and/or values in both sides.
Should any bullying in the real physical world be honestly rendered in OSM according to OSM on-the-ground rules, and does such rendering constitute any bullying in Openstreetmap? That being said, should OSM bear any responsibility for such bullying?
Is the discrimination and non-neutrality from OSM/OSMF a projection of discrimination and non-neutrality in the real physical world? Should OSM be aware of such discrimination and take action towards it?
Imho, OSM should be, and should only be an honest mouthpiece of the physical real world, no matter what is happening in the real world. Any potential fault is not at OSM, it is at what’s happening in the real world, and OSM/OSMF shouldn’t bear any responsibility or take actions, as long as they keep neutral (by neutral I mean honestly reflecting the world). That is why I call for eliminating discrimination and non-neutrality in OSM/OSMF, and it is also consistent with what the real physical world is trying to do (eliminating discrimination).
And I agree with you and @FreedSky that OSM should have a proper way for tagging the ditributed area, e.g. rendering the disputed area, establishing a webpage or database to show the on-the-ground truth related to the disputed areas. (but again, how do we promise such webpage will not be vandalized?)
Comment from ndrw6 on 26 September 2021 at 10:07
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.
Comment from ztztztz on 26 September 2021 at 10:16
@ndrw6
That’s true, I believe that the hidden moltivation of China relocating residents and builidng architectures is actually trying to claiming control of the area. But it kinda works like this:
rather than
Controling is controling, no matter how mappers map will not change the status quo right? And mappers are only honestly mapping what is on the ground. That’s not politics-driven but rather OSM-on-the-ground-rule driven. And it is not any kind of propaganda.
Comment from ndrw6 on 26 September 2021 at 11:12
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.
Comment from SomeoneElse on 26 September 2021 at 11:33
To address just one issue raised above:
@Hike&Map You said:
(rest of rant snipped)
Can you link to what actual proposal(s) you’re referring to here, say where and when the OSMF rejected then, and also who within the OSMF rejected them (the board, a working group, the membership, some other body?).
Today’s version of:
osm.wiki/w/index.php?title=Disputed_territories&oldid=2196078#Tag_proposals
is a reasonable summary of recent history, I think. Both osm.wiki/Proposed_features/Mapping_disputed_boundaries and https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/tagging/2016-May/029211.html appeared at about the same time. One was more complicated, proposed in the wiki, and was rejected by a wiki vote (unrelated to anything to do with OSMF). The other one was simpler but (despite my private suggestions to the author at the time) was never voted on.
The reasons for rejection of the more complicated one are useful to read.
If you really want to try and help, please help draw up “a true neutral mapping scheme”, explain what tags would be used and how it could apply to existing problem areas. Explain how it would work and how map consumers who want to see a something that doesnt match the on-the-ground reality (which by definition means “who occupies what territory”) on a map could use it to create maps. I’d suggest that you start with a diary entry of your own explaining your scheme, and discuss with other mappers via comments there. I’d love to understand exactly what you mean by things like “contested by international recognized to international court in the The Hague ruling” (I’m guessing you mean the ICC - but a glance at even just the non-signatories on that page suggests that it’s unlikely to solve all the problems that you think it will. In particular you’d need to discuss difficult situations such as Taiwan (OSM thinks that is a country, many international organisations do not), Western Sahara (OSM doesn’t think that is a country, but the UN thinks it ought to be) and Kosovo (UN members are divided roughly 50/50 on that but OSM believes that it passes the duck test as a country).
You’ve seen on this diary entry and others how invested various people are in their particular point of view, and how difficult it will be to try and bring them together. It’s easy to sit outside the process and say “those people trying to solve the problem are idiots”, but it achieves absolutely nothing, and just makes you look like you haven’t really understood the problem.
Comment from ztztztz on 26 September 2021 at 12:45
@ndrw6
Could you explain more about those exceptions of the ground truth rule? Please post the link from OSMWiki or other OSM repositories because I cannot find any examples.
I repeat again, the moltivation of mapping is not China propaganda, but rather the on the ground rule. On-the-ground truth, on-the-ground bullying, on-the-ground invasion, you name it. As long as something is on the ground, then I see no problem mapping it into the OSM map.
Please, refrain from talking about politics if you really want to discuss the ground truth. Open a changeset, do a case-by-case analysis and discuss.
Comment from ztztztz on 26 September 2021 at 13:14
@SomeoneElse
Thank you for pushing forward the disputed mapping problem. Since you’re from the Data Working Group, I wonder if DWG is still working on the China-Bhutan disputed area case opened >20 days ago? It would be nice if all OSM users can know how things are going.
@ztzthu/diary/397732#comment50823
History repeats itself, and from my observation the current situation makes no difference from what was happening in Crimea, 2018 (except that here the disputed area between China-Bhutan was disputed from the beginning while Crimea wasn’t.) Lots of discussion here are basically identical with those discussion in the following OSM archive:
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/2018-November/081683.html
I’d like to make one except from the mailing list:
IMHO that should really be what is so-called neutral.
Comment from ztztztz on 26 September 2021 at 13:16
*one excerpt from the mailing archive, sorry for the typo.
Comment from 渤海西岸 on 26 September 2021 at 13:23
洋人就是自以为是，一群没去过中国的外国人总觉着自己比中国本地人还懂中国，个个都是懂王。
Comment from ztztztz on 26 September 2021 at 13:53
@渤海西岸, Please refrain from political discussions and ad hominem attack.
Comment from SomeoneElse on 26 September 2021 at 14:13
I’ve not been directly involved in this case (other than commenting on a couple of diary entries), but I think we are due to discuss it. I do know from previous cases such as Western Sahara that there’s a lot of investigation needed - wading through all sorts of different evidence, figuring out how up to date everything is and how reliable various textual sources are takes a lot of time.
The challenge is not just making a decision but explaining it and defending to to people who (as we have seen above) have very different visions of what OSM is and should be. I think the DWG broadly got that right with the discussions around Kosovo and Western Sahara, but could have done a better job when it came to Crimea (and that includes communications at all levels, including with the OSMF board of the time). With Crimea we’re still in something of an “agree to disagree” situation, as evidenced by arguments put forward here, here and here. That last one is particularly interesting as among others it includes the views of a number of past, present and future OSMF board members. One big caveat is that all of these links are all to English language OSM discussions, and in OSM that’s just one language among many.
Comment from SomeoneElse on 26 September 2021 at 14:26
@渤海西岸 (re the “foreigners/westerners are self-righteous” comment)**
… well over at the other diary entry I wrote
I think that you’re just describing a sepecific example of what I was talking about generally :) Everybody thinks that they’re right and the other people in the argument are wrong; the problem is how to progress from there to something that allows a working relationship despite the differences.
**I’m relying on online translators and examples for nuance here, which is a risky approach at best.
Comment from ztztztz on 26 September 2021 at 15:00
@SomeoneElse, thanks for the info. I’m gonna take a look at previous discussion that you’ve just posted.
Speaking of working languages, although theoretically English should not take precedence, IMHO it is frustrating that some OSM China users do not use English in a discussion (or do not know how to properly discuss in English). Hopefully translation software wouldn’t have introduced additional misunderstanding in the previous discussions.
Comment from ndrw6 on 26 September 2021 at 15:51
@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 (changeset/111486876), the other, further west, is near the Indian border (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.
Comment from ndrw6 on 26 September 2021 at 15:55
The second link was supposed to be changeset/111658688
Comment from ztztztz on 26 September 2021 at 16:15
@ndrw6
Again, please refrain from politics and ideology discussions, that is beyond OSM’s scope. Only on-the-ground facts.
If you are not convinced by the proofs (or the what-you-called propagandas) from the Chinses side, just take a look at this Twitter post (from India) to have some basic knowledge about what’s happening there.
https://twitter.com/HiddenRoots6/status/1355984494713597954
Apparently China has military presence at the disputed region, which results in a de facto control of the area (no matter it is legal or evil or whatever you describes it as). The OSM mapping at such area is consistent with the on the ground FACTs in the physical world, not Chinese propaganda.
Comment from ff5722 on 26 September 2021 at 21:21
The assertion that Chinese government actors are editing with OSM directly seems unlikely and hasn’t been reported previously anywhere. https://www.google.com/search?q=china+%22openstreetmap%22&hl=en&biw=1536&bih=754&tbm=nws&sxsrf=AOaemvKBTLPS1pPNllYnWFBuvthCdfEW7g%3A1632673752595&ei=2J9QYYnUI_WO9u8PhMyb8AQ&oq=china+%22openstreetmap%22&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0i30k1j0i8i30k1l4.5877.6995.0.7188.2.2.0.0.0.0.152.245.1j1.2.0….0…1c.1.64.psy-ab..0.2.241…0i22i30k1.0.mz-kH5_9lN8
Even if it was the case, why would it matter where someone is based or what their ideology is, as long as their edits improve the map. Users that break OSM rules should obviously be warned and banned if needed. Should we object if Kim Jong-Un himself is micromapping Seoul to prepare an attack? Those could still be useful edits. If you put the boundary issues to the side, isn’t it great that mappers put so much effort in mapping a remote section of the Himalaya?
The ‘quality’ of the map is decided by the local community, if the local community tends to be nationalistic then so be it. If the local community decided to import low quality road data, which could be argued as degrading the quality of the map then so be it as well. If the local community wants to remove military areas, then that was ok too. Regarding the tagging of Xinjiang camps, tagging is decided by the local community. Hence if a community decides that certain types of prison should be tagged as schools, why should administrators intervene, as long as and verifiable data such as their (common) name and location remain present. Data users will still be able to find these objects and tag them according to their own interpretation. Ironically people have raised the complaint that Chinese mappers are modifying data overseas, while simultaneously objecting against Chinese users modifying data added by overseas users within China.
Comment from FreedSky on 27 September 2021 at 03:44
@Adamant1 Thank you for the double standard phenomenon; it is obvious that these problems are only for China, just because it is China. This is where the Western values are terrifying.
Regarding these values, I just want to say: shut up and maping, do you really want to win by suppressing Chinese editors by OSM? This will not change the people who die every day in the lighthouse country (the United States) due to the epidemic (I feel sorry for the passing of these lives).
Do you feel that there is no point in continuing the discussion? OSM is only a small part of this society. OPEN is its characteristic, and OPEN must be neutral. The best way for the community to avoid meaningless political disputes is on ground. This is also my criticism of the previous article. Woodpeck’s response in the article discrediting China’s OSMmaper was surprised. Although Woodpeck had no problem with my previous ban, when a DWG manager took the initiative to make such remarks, it would undoubtedly undermine the neutrality of OSM. And on ground principle, this is why so many Chinese OSMmapers feel uncomfortable this time.
感谢你提出的双标现象；很显然这些问题只针对中国，只因为是中国。这就是西方价值观恐怖的地方。
对于这些价值观我只想说：闭上嘴好好画图，难道真想通过是OSM压制中国编者来获得胜利吗？这也无法改变 灯塔国家（美国）每天因为疫情死去的人们（对于这些生命的逝去我感到惋惜）。
是不是感觉继续讨论下去已经没有意义了？OSM只是这个社会的小一部分，OPEN是他的特点，而OPEN就要做到中立，而让社群避免无意义的政治纠纷最好的方法就是on ground，这也是我对之前那篇带有抨击抹黑中国OSMmaper的文章中Woodpeck的回复感到惊讶，虽然Woodpeck对我的有过的禁封并没有什么问题，但是当一位DWG管理者主动发表这样的言论，毫无疑问是会破坏OSM的中立性和on ground原则，这也是这次为什么这么多中国OSMmaper感到不舒适。
Comment from ndrw6 on 27 September 2021 at 11:47
@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).
Comment from ndrw6 on 27 September 2021 at 15:21
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.
Comment from HikeAndMap on 29 September 2021 at 22:57
Well my point I say again - I don’t care much about the politics who controls what.
I want a clear tagging scheme! That’s my major concern really. I can’t change what countries around the world are claiming.
But I do feel there where there is conflict, people on both sides usually feel treated badly.
And I understand the losing side - just wants some sort of recognition that they have legal claims - regardless if this reflects who has the biggest guns in town.
Therefore I’d wish we had a proper tagging scheme that includes: disputed by claimed by international court of the UN ruled ownership to
the term “Physical” is a point of perspective.. is an administrative boundary physical? No - it’s a construct of politics. A wall can be physical, a fence can be physical, ownership of land by definition is NOT physical! It’s a STATUS!
when I look out of my window - the land itself is physical, the ownership is NOT - that’s juridical, political, whatever you wanna call it.
So then someone claims:”if country X controls it - that’s the physical reality”
I’d argue - no that’s juridical and political reality. physical reality is that there’s a piece of land. Physical reality is there’s a tree, a house, a road, mud, grass, concrete, anything I can touch!
I think the whole issue here is hat literally NO ONE recognizes that countries, boundaries, borders it’s not physical ever! You can’t touch a country. How can I touch Norway? How can I touch Italy?
I can touch mother earth and everything on it. But the political entity, the administrative boundary, that’s just on paper when you think about it.
And this is the main issue why at OSM we keep arguing about it.
Some village in Bhutan claimed and controlled by the CCP - then the CCP supporters say:”yeah you can physically touch China - physical reality - and thus ours” and the Bhutanese and others claim:”but it’s stolen - it doesn’t belong to you, it’s illegal”
Not going into it who’s right or wrong here but the main concept that a country is a physical entity or a boundary is, is wrong.
when I walk from the Netherlands to Germany - and I did so many times - there’s never ever a single time I could physically touch anything..
I wouldn’t know where NL ends and Germany starts.. how can I? Since Germany, Netherlands, the border it’s NOT physical reality, there’s nothing physically to touch! Netherlands, Germany, the border are administrative/political/juridical and thus virtual objects!
So at this point I explained enough WHY I think the whole concept of considering a country or a border a “physical reality” is wrong as it’s a virtual reality - and therein lies then the problem in OSM.
The ones with the guns - who are in control - claim it’s a physical reality on the ground.
but the ones opposing it want their wishes to be expressed as well since OSM should be neutral.
And when we leave the assumption that countries/borders are physical realities but accept these are man-Made artificial objects and not actually physical objects you could touch - A country or a border it’s like a virtual layer over a physical presence.
Then we can all agree that to this tagging of virtual entities like countries and borders we can easily have an official endorsed tagging-scheme to deal with this.
owner by controlled by claimed by disputed by etc..
I feel this community is in a deadlock here, because OSMF on such a sensible topic where emotions are involved is silent or plain out rejects any proposal!
I honestly think:”ANY ENDORSED/RECOMMENDED tagging scheme is better than the situation right now - everyone thinks for themselves their claims are legit - so without actually going into the topic if it is or not - we can maintain neutrality in OSM by indeed simply mapping how it is and we can do that with a proper tagging scheme where everyone can enter their claims/disputes while maintaining who’s actually in control”
And the lack of this tagging scheme - is why we keep fighting over this topic - which serves none of us here.
Comment from HikeAndMap on 29 September 2021 at 23:06
As for people accusing me of ranting: https://www.thefreedictionary.com/ranting
where do I write aggressively? Emotionally charged? Rave?
sorry but I just expressed my opinion that although I usually agree to the “community self-regulation policies” of OSMF in this very specific exceptionally case where mappers are emotionally charged - all I’m asking is OSMF to come up with an endorsed/recommended solution to settle this.
That’s a rant?
I usually never get personal, I usually don’t attack any specific country or take a position who’s right or wrong. But here I’m personally being attacked by someone who claims him/herself being supreme superior to personally assault me?
Nice one!
Comment from HikeAndMap on 29 September 2021 at 23:22
After drinking some coffee…
Here’s my final conclusion..
OSMF maintains several core concepts. Among these the concept of “self regulation by the community” and “Physical reality”
This is a very good move by the OSMF. And I think everything that in fact is physical this works extremely well. If there’s a tree then there’s a tree. If there’s a field of grass then there’s a field of grass and if there’s a building, hut, bridge, whatever then that’s the case. If there’s a port, airfield, river, so is it.
There will be no argument here by people - the arguments that do arise are pesky and thus easy for people to eventually accept proposals and agree on it. We all accept nothing is perfect and you can’t always get everyone to agree on something but if the issues are pesky - is the river a river or a stream - we all understand the concept sometimes you just gotta go with the flow.
So self-regulation of a community where it really concerns physical entities is doable.
The limitations are shown on topics where the “physical reality” isn’t actually a physical reality but a artificial reality. A reality that is no part of the physical world. A reality created artificially by humans.
10.000 years ago we didn’t have countries, borders, administrative boundaries. 10.000 years ago the world was 100% physical.
Today we have these artificial constructs which are physically not present. They are virtual. One among them moving between 2 countries. Physical is a wall, a fence, a river, that marks such a border - but the border itself is not physical, it’s virtual. It exists only on paper or in the mind of the human observer.
So the extend of dispute here - is significantly higher then when we’re going to argue if something is a main road or a minor road; is it a river or a stream; or is a waterfall intermittent or permanent if at some seasons the waterfall itself is fed by just 1l/minute?
There’s always room for argue but in the physical world we usually all see what we see and thus self-regulation and agreeing on what we see is doable because we’re all looking at the same thing really.
And hence not so with artificial man-made virtual objects like countries or borders.
And thus I feel - here the 2 main concepts of OSMF of “self regulation of the community” and “map physical reality on the ground” both to which I strongly agree - are not alright for virtual artificial objects.
Clearly the community is not capable of self-regulation here.
So dear OSMF - give us a clear mapping scheme as neutral as possible for these very exceptional cases where we - all of us mappers - aren’t actually looking at the same physical thing but at an artificial virtual object.
That’s all I’m asking.
Comment from Mateusz Konieczny on 3 October 2021 at 11:50
If you restrict freedom of expressions for reasons of national security (either sincerely or as a pretext) then it definitely is related to freedom of expression.
and
is true.
Mapping at OSM in China is illegal, which is quite significant restricting freedom of expressions.
Even if enforcement is not typical (and likely reserved to people who really irritated ruling regime).
Comment from Mateusz Konieczny on 3 October 2021 at 11:52
Note that tagging schemes are created and designed by mappers - not by OSMF.
If you want tagging scheme that fits your needs: feel free to design it!
(are you aware of some attempts to handle disputed boundaries?)
Comment from HikeAndMap on 4 October 2021 at 06:45
What Adamant1 is saying is very troublesome indeed. The allegation is here that the USA just like the CCP is censoring data that belongs to the public.
yet I wish to refrain from politics altogether. I am just and only concerned about OSM really. And most importantly the question that rises here is the legality of information! I have to admit I don’t agree with all laws and rules and regulations worldwide - but as mapper I have no choice:”I must follow the law!”
So I want to turn this comment into a perspective from a legal point of view without my personal opinion if I like certain laws, or not.
I think it is very important here to understand what is data that belongs to the public and what is data that does NOT belong to the public.
It is very clear that when you’re walking on a public road and can see my house - that’s public data! However, when I build a wall 2m high and you then climb a ladder or whatever to peak over it that’s a clear violation of my rights and the data you couldn’t see otherwise is not public data. It is my land and my right to pull up a wall so you can’t look into my garden. It’s now not publicly available anymore. And just as much as you shouldn’t climb a ladder to look over the wall, it also means any shed or whatever behind that wall you wouldn’t see it from public space and thus shouldn’t map it.
if I don’t pull up a wall - then it’s data available to public space and thus you can map it. You don’t have to get on my private land to see it.. the photons - whether I like it or not - leave my territory from my private land and go into public space where everyone can detect these photos and thus see my shed and thus that’s then public.
This of course especially concerns anything inside a building! Whether that’s a private home, an office, a city hall, or even a restaurant. Even if it’s open for public as in publicly accessible - it’s still private land/building and the data inside is not public. It belongs to the private space where I ALLOW anyone to enter, yet that doesn’t mean I allow the data to be taken outside by someone else. Before you start measuring tables, arrangements, seats, etc. you should first ask the owner if that’s okay with him. Before you make photos in a museum you should ask permission, etc etc.. the logic here is obvious. The photons don’t go into public area, they remain in the private area. And the OWNER decides if that data, the photons can leave the private territory or not.
These 2 short examples surely don’t even cover 0.1% of all possible cases but I want to point out here simply there’s a difference between data that’s meant to be publicly available and data that is not. I agree this is a thin line - but generally if there’s no barrier between private land/territory preventing photons (data) from leaking into public space - then it’s intended or at least consent that the public can see it, thus public data. If there’s any form of obstruction, wall, trees, fence, anything you can think of hindering photos (data) from leaking into public space then obviously that data is NOT intended for public nor consent!
So generally there’s a consensus whatever you can look at from public space (as from public accessible territory, roads, paths, fields,) is public data and whatever you can’t see - at least not without technical aid or going somewhere inside leaving public space is then not public data.
Again - there are slight variations to the general rule and these amount in thousands of cases which are always a bit different but I think the majority of people switching on their brains get what I’m saying here.
And at this point then we have to distinguish between the countries and how they define public vs private. CCP criminalizes mapping completely as I understand. Which means basically there is no public data in CCP occupied territories. If that’s how they define the law - the whole of CCP occupied territories are never public but everything even the slightest square-nanometer is private property of the CCP - then all mappers have to accept that the whole of CCP occupied territories doesn’t know public space and it’s the right of the private owner, in this case then the CCP is the private owner, to say that he as owner does not want anyone to map anything.
basically they then legally define their whole occupied territories like a huge government office, or a museum, or whatever you wanna call it. But if they declare:”nothing in CCP occupied territories is public space” - then obviously nothing in CCP you could see from public space and thus they can legally claim from anyone NOT to map anything.
The parts of my garden I’m good with everyone to see I have the photos leaking into public space and I’m okay with others to map it. What areas of my land I don’t want you to map, I make sure no photons are leaking into public space and thus you shouldn’t map these - most notably thus my bathroom, bedroom and toilet ROFLMAO.
You can map whatever you can see from public road/land/terrain. That’s totally fine with me. But if you have to come on my private owned land/territory to be able to see something - then obviously I have no intention for it to be mapped.
And this is my right on my own land!
What I can’t do however, at least I’d consider it wrong - if I let photons of these areas leak into public space, for everyone to see, and then tell everyone:’but you are not allowed to look at it!’
I mean that’s censorship and dictatorship when I’m letting the data leak into public space and then dictate people in public space what they’re supposed to look at or not. You should be able to turn around your head in public space!
So the question concerning the CCP occupied territories is basically this: 1) are roads, freely accessible territories, etc defined as public space? then if they forbid looking at data which is publicly available to be shown to publicly available data - that’s then dictatorship and censorship. 2) if nothing in CCP occupied territories is actually private space but 100% of the occupied territories are privately owned by the CCP, juridically their culture doesn’t know “public space” then all of the data is private owned by the CCP and it’s their right like a Museum, School, government office, private company or in my own, to declare that they do now want this data to be leaked into public space (which would then exist outside of their occupied territories)
So when we look then now at the USA, does the US government forbid Americans to map data available in the public space? That’s the big question here.
Public roads, parks, etc does the USA forbid people to map here?
So as I understand from Adamant1, the USA does not forbid this.
But he claims the USA does only forbid mapping in “national parks” Then just as with the CCP the question is what is the status of the national parks? is a US national park status public space or privately owned by a government agency?
If it belongs to a government agency or any other juridical non-public entity then the question is - what can I see from the area that is public space?
All the photons (data) that is leaking from the park (which then is not public ) leaking into public space I can map. They can’t forbid that. Because I’m just registering the photons I can detect in public space. If they forbid that, that would be censorship.
but all the data I can’t see, because trees or whatever is hindering the data from leaking outside, that’s then non-public data and they can just like a museum or any other place that’s hindering photons to leak to the public space demand not to record the data and make it available in public space.
Note here:’publicly accessible like restaurant, mall, museum, etc doesn’t mean it’s public property!”
I can open my gate and tell everyone:”you are all free to enter today, or this week, or certain seasons…” it’s still my private property!
So to determine if CCP or USA are censoring data, the question is first and foremost - is that data actually public data in the first place?
again - every data that is on private/corporate/government or otherwise owned land and that is NOT by itself leaking into public space is NOT public data! And it is NOT censorship to ask everyone you allow to enter your owned property - not to leak the private data to the outside world - that’s your right since that is YOUR DATA!
But every data that you let yourself leak to the public space, that then becomes public data of course and that you can not tell people to look away or close their eyes on the road where they are standing/walking/driving as that would be censorship since the moment any data goes into public space, then it’s public and not yours anymore to tell others what to do with it.
this is my opinion and by no means an argument of legality.
it’s just what I think we as mappers should consider…
Ask ourselves:”the data I’m looking at, is that actually private or public data?”
And you should ask that question when you’re in a country (CCP) or a national park (USA) or a road (private public?) or a government office, a corporate office, the bus or train, a museum or even when you’re sitting in the car of your best friend.
You may find it funny to see he has condoms laying there hidden in the center console, it is NOT censorship but HIS RIGHT to tell you:”please don’t talk about what you’ve seen here outside of the car with anyone!”
So how this legality is then being implemented worldwide falls under censorship - well it’s not censorship if you declare privately owned data by any juridical/natural body that’s not voluntarily distributed into the public space should not be exposed into the public space by others.
So I honestly have to explain here:”I do not know how CCP declares their lands, roads, fields,.. if they legally in their constitution have the framework that public space does simply not exist in their country, then forbidding mapping is not censorship. It’s just a different interpretation of what is just or not - which might or might not have its origin in different culture.
And if in the USA national parks are NOT public space but legally owned by the government (which is a juridical person like any company/corporation) that allowed people all year or during specific seasons/times to enter the land then they have the full right like anyone else to declare:”yes you can enter this property but don’t take pictures or leak out other information please”
That’s then not censorship. The government can just as much tell you NOT to make photos or record other data by any means from any other government owned land or property.
it’s their right to allow you, but also their right not to allow you!
For instance I live here on Luzon in the mountains. In the Pine forest here large areas are still US Federal government owned lands. And partially the signs says we’re allowed to walk there and partially we’re not allowed to walk there.
It’s their land, their property! They can allow me or not to enter just as much as they can allow me or not to leak out data.
I think from this legal perspective - it might become more clear the issues we as mappers face and therefore i wish especially with emotionally loaded topics like state-disputes to have an OSMF recommendation.. A recommendation endorsed by OSMF is the very least.
And I agree to everything that OSMF should stay out of everything principally, because principally if you really really really don’t like something, you can always go to court and ultimately there you will get a final verdict that’s binding to everyone!
Yet the issues between states - it isn’t so easy to just go to court and there you and the one you have the dispute with will get a binding verdict everyone has to comply with.
Either way - if exposing data to OSM (freedom) or not (censorship) - isn’t always so clear it really depends from my perspective on the juridical situation and especially the definition of the space where you can record that information?
Is that space where you can record the information public or not - as in that data you wish to record - never leaves private space .. the owner ensures that the data does not leak into public space?
That’s the big question here.
So maybe better not turn this into a political debate about evil CCP or evil US congress or evil French/Germans and everyone else someone might or might not consider evil..
I’m not a fan of any political system to be honest. But when it comes to OSM..
I think all that matter to us is the legality of the data we upload to OSM. After all, none of us wants eventually data being removed from the database upon court order right? Preventing such deletion orders by any court, should be our foremost concern in the first place. Ensuring whatever any of us uploads, is valid and legal.
topics of censorship or not I leave then to the courts..
Comment from Mateusz Konieczny on 4 October 2021 at 10:28
eee, no?
USA has its own share of rampant abuse, but far, far below China levels.
Comment from SomeoneElse on 4 October 2021 at 11:29
(whataboutery snipped; Mateusz has addressed it above)
On the “paths in national parks in the USA question”, I absolutely don’t recognise either part of that assertion (that the DWG “does whatever the American Government asks” or “that no-one cares”). Our perspective has always been map what’s there - and get the tagging right. In the case of paths in US National Parks that would mean accurately determining the current status, ensure that access, surface, trail_visibility and other tags were set appropriately. Often that means asking someone “please don’t delete that path if it actually exists; set access to private” or “please add a lifecycle tag to that ‘highway’ tag if it used to exist and doesn’t any more”; sometimes it might be “does that thing that someone added from Strava really exist at all?”. Also (and I’m not going to “out” the culprits here) it means asking app developers to “please fix your mobile phone app so that it shows where people are not allowed to go”.
Separately to that, the OSM community in the USA has embarked on a project around trails; there’s ongoing discussion in OSM US fora about it too. I’d suggest that anyone interested in mapping trails in the USA get involved with that.
@Adamant1 : However, when engaging with a community of other people sometimes you need to listen to their point of view, and avoid grandstanding yours with unverifiable accusations. That will require a considerable change of tone from your comments above.
Comment from Mateusz Konieczny on 4 October 2021 at 16:48
If they would be fine with deletion of paths in a bird sanctuary on request by government - both in China and Germany, then there would not be double standard.
(There is an extra problem of China being more likely to lie, but lets assume that we can verify it)
Comment from Mateusz Konieczny on 4 October 2021 at 18:43
I tried to read it now and I admit that I get lost at the wall of text (again). It is likely that the same happened with other people reading it.
In addition you have not quoted part that is actually at least partially matches your description
redsteakraw, it is really easy to insult people living under oppressive regime that they do not sacrifice their lives to change it. I am not sure that I would actually be really brave in their place. And some in China tried, sadly for little effect.
And if you meant something else in the last sentence - I would encourage to not insult people based on how they look like.
And if interpretation by Adamant1 was correct - please, see at history where such thinking goes. (spoiler: nothing good, in the worst cases you get piles of skulls).
Comment from westnordost on 5 October 2021 at 15:16
I got here because it was mentioned in weekly OSM.
Sorry, I didn’t read the whole discussion and don’t intend to, but I have a question:
I once heard and again read it in your starting post that creating any map not produced by the government is illegal in China. I assume that you are from China and are apparently contribute to OSM anyway.
What is the reason why you contribute to OpenStreetMap? Do you think this law is outdated and/or not really applicable? Is it something like trivial offense that is not enforced anyway?
Also, is OpenStreetMap blocked in China? And if not, why not - if it is illegal to create/use maps not issued by the government, it would seem logical to block access to it.
Finally, are there any map apps in China people can use and have access to that use OpenStreetMap data? What is your personal experience with the quality of that data?
Comment from SomeoneElse on 5 October 2021 at 18:05
To reply to Adamant1’s point above, there are insults coming form both sides here, and they don’t place any of the people making them in a good light (as I said 3 weeks ago). However, separately to “basic insults” like those there are:
I think it’s important to rebut (1) immediately and to challenge untruths directly. If lies aren’t challenged with at least a request for evidence, a previously uninformed observer might get the impression that the lie has some validity. We’re going through an era where politicians of many stripes have found that they can get away with lying simply by stating their “alternative facts” loudly enough and often enough. We shouldn’t let that happen in OSM by not challenging untruths, and I’ve tried to do that in both recent threads, from whichever side of the argument the claims came from.
(2) is more nuanced. There’s an argument that says that statements like this the should be immediately hidden as if they had never been made; another that should be left up so that other people can condemn them, and also as an indicator that the person making them isn’t a serious contributor to the discussion; and still another that the person making them should be asked to make an explicit apology. With a DWG hat on with statements in category (2) I’ve tended to do whichever of those three actions that I thought that the current situation needed. Here the statements that redsteakraw made above have already been roundly condemned, and an explicit apology from them might undo some of the damage already made to their reputation.
I don’t claim to have a monopoly of wisdom on this though - there have been vociferious arguments expressed elsewhere in favour of hiding comments like this immediately to avoid causing further hurt; on the other side of the argument some mappers recently objected to a DWG request that they remove some pretty appallling public statements that those mappers had made because “freedom of expression” allowed them to make them. Following an escalation they removed the statements.
With regard to moderation in OSM more generally, following on from this announcement it’s worth noting that further discussion is ongoing.
Comment from ztztztz on 5 October 2021 at 19:38
@westnordost,
Not involving with those political stuff is a wise move :)
OpenStreetMap is not so popular in China because the data quality of OSM is not as good as those local map service providers (e.g. Amap, Baidu Map), i mean, super bad esp. in rural areas. Most people who use and contribute in my opinion are researchers, geo-/carto-geeks or outdoor enthutiasts.
I do not know how many OSM contributors are aware of the illegality of mapping, but it seems that Chinese govn’t choose to turn a blind eye on those offenses - as long as the mapper doesn’t map sensitive stuff on OSM (e.g. military installations).
But still, one risk being accused of illegal mapping/surveying because theoretically speaking it is indeed an offence. The OSMWiki page of China explains it well.
No, OSM isn’t blocked in China (while Google Maps is blocked). And ironically even the official online map released by Chinese Gov’t uses Openstreetmap data - it is a wild fusion of gov’t data (within China boundaries) and OSM data (outside China boundaries). And that might explain why China gov’t choose to connive at the exsistence of OpenStreetMap.
And a side note: Google Map is blocked because all google products are blocked in China :(
Comment from westnordost on 5 October 2021 at 20:14
Interesting map you linked to! I compared OpenStreetMap at a random location
osm.org/#map=16/29.5869/106.5705
with it and the gov’t map seems to be… well, probably unsurprisingly… much more detailed. At least the building outlines are all there. In what way does that map use OpenStreetMap data?
Is F-Droid blocked in China?
Comment from ztztztz on 5 October 2021 at 20:33
F-Droid is not blocked in China. The OSM data is somehow used outside China boundries in the official online map, and OSM is not given credit unless you zoom in a place outside China to the maximum. Notice the credits info:
“自然资源部” means Chinese Ministry of Natural Resources, NavInfo is a Chinese map service provider, and “审图号” refers to a serial number which enables the map to be publicized. (meanwhile openstreetmap.org doesn’t have such serial number so it is illegal in China. Not blocked though probably because seldom have heard of it and it’s not a big threat(?) )
However I do not know how they are using OSM because the official map is not open sourced.
Comment from ztztztz on 5 October 2021 at 22:42
I’m OP and I’ve spent like the whole evening reading those text walls.. Have to admit I failed to follow up most previous discussions (especially those non factual discussions)…
I’m just confused af: Is this post about 1) the illegality of unauthorized mapping in China, or 2) how to properly tag a disputed area, or 3) the evils that CCP has ever made, or 4) how Chinese mappers should be treated and how OSM should act, or 5) something else ?
Comment from HikeAndMap on 6 October 2021 at 05:38
“I’m just confused af: Is this post about 1) the illegality of unauthorized mapping in China, or 2) how to properly tag a disputed area, or 3) the evils that CCP has ever made, or 4) how Chinese mappers should be treated and how OSM should act, or 5) something else ?”
I think you yourself in your OP and following comments touched or at least bordered already some of these aspects and thus widened the topic beyond what you originally might have intended.
The reason for this is that quite often a topic you wish to address, doesn’t stand singled out on verbal/reasoning island disconnected from other topics one could discuss or wish to address.
As such the intended message indeed often gets lost and as more topics are being referred to it becomes less organized or as we say in my country: “can’t see the forest through the trees.”
So I say again my opinion:”the topic of mapping disputed areas”
That’s the origin of these issues and why emotions boil leading to non-desirable conflicts and comments within the OSM community.
Evidently it can not be solved by the self-regulations of the community because it’s too loaded with emotions and intertwined with other topics/concepts where there is no legal body above our heads to which we could refer in our arguments.
In the Netherlands I had a long discussion once with a lawyer for international law. I never forget his comment:”international law you have to consider like this - if in this bar everyone is peaceful and 1 person is starting a fight, then that’s illegal and he’s in the wrong - if everyone responds to that by everyone fighting everyone as you sometimes see in movies - then now it’s okay to fight since everyone is fighting everyone and if you refuse to fight the others might consider that now illegal and wrong.”
So the concept of mapping virtual lines of borders/claims/disputes/occupation relies on this concept of international law - one can clearly recon how easily it becomes disorganized, chaotic and emotional and then insults and other non-desired behavior will result.
What OSMF claims - physical reality on the ground - I agree that’s true for physical objects on the ground. But a border/claim/dispute isn’t physical, it’s not part of physical reality, it’s a virtual man-made reality!
It’s the same when I tell my kids:”Kid1 stay on that side of the bedroom and Kid2 stay on the other side of the bedroom and the line is in the middle!”
There’s no physical reality! That’s a virtual reality where both can argue what the middle is. The moment they build a wall/fence/etc that’s physical reality!
And thus since we’re talking about virtual reality here, man-made virtual lines/borders/claims , I fail to see how the mapping community can be self-regulating here given the fact even international law can escalate between 200 countries [Entities] now imagine you have millions of people [Entities]!
Conflict is predetermined.
Therefore, this is a very exceptional case where OSMF has to step in and lay out the framework how to behave/map/attribute - as long as they refuse - issues, emotions, insults will come back again and again.
As for the concept of being insulted. We might also consider a bit more constraint on our part before complaining about it. At some points in life, ignorance can be a bliss! For all you know it’s a 12 year old making a comment you feel insulted about. Kids do tend to say things they’ll regret ever to have said a few years from now. So I wouldn’t make a big fuss about it.
Stick to facts is my recommendation.
And the fact is: there’s a mapping issue where there’s no guideline, recommendation or mapping-scheme we can rely on - set by the self-regulation of the community. Because the community can’t agree on one, due to the emotional loaded conflicts and the fact there’s no higher authority we can rely on in a fact-based discussion.
As such I conclude, IMHO, OSMF has to step in here in an exceptional 1-time move on how to proceed as mapper as neutral as possible on conflicted areas between nations.
Comment from woodpeck on 8 October 2021 at 19:34
Quick statement about the misleading quote from Adamant1 above - while I have accurately relayed the position of a (lower) German government institution in the German forum, Adamant1 is lacking context here. We (German mappers) get requests from the government to delete paths all the time; we discuss them openly, and more often than not tell the government that we cannot fulfil their request. That’s standard procedure; there have even been cases where government officials have taken matters in their own hands and removed things they didn’t like, only to be reverted by mappers - mappers who can afford to do this with their full name on display without having to fear retribution. There’s nothing untoward about this. The fact that Adamant1 tries to make it sound problematic is just another example of his pathological craving for dispute.