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Journal ArticleDOI

Defacing the Map: Cartographic Vandalism in the Digital Commons

18 Aug 2014-Cartographic Journal (Taylor & Francis)-Vol. 51, Iss: 3, pp 214-224
TL;DR: A typology of this kind of vandalism is outlined, including play, ideological, fantasy, artistic and industrial carto-vandalism, as well ascarto-spam, and two families of counter-strategies deployed in amateur mapping communities are discussed.
Abstract: This article addresses the emergent phenomenon of carto-vandalism, the intentional defacement of collaborative cartographic digital artefacts in the context of volunteered geographic information. Through a qualitative analysis of reported incidents in WikiMapia and OpenStreetMap, a typology of this kind of vandalism is outlined, including play, ideological, fantasy, artistic and industrial carto-vandalism, as well as carto-spam. Two families of counter-strategies deployed in amateur mapping communities are discussed. First, the contributors organize forms of policing, based on volunteered community involvement, patrolling the maps and reporting incidents. Second, the detection of carto-vandalism can be supported by automated tools, based either on explicit rules or on machine learning.
Citations
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Book ChapterDOI
12 Oct 2015
TL;DR: To operationalize conceptual quality in VGI, this work proposes a multi-faceted framework that includes accuracy, granularity, completeness, consistency, compliance, and richness, proposing proxy measures for each dimension.
Abstract: The assessment of the quality of volunteered geographic information VGI is cornerstone to understand the fitness for purpose of datasets in many application domains. While most analyses focus on geometric and positional quality, only sporadic attention has been devoted to the interpretation of the data, i.e., the communication process through which consumers try to reconstruct the meaning of information intended by its producers. Interpretability is a notoriously ephemeral, culturally rooted, and context-dependent property of the data that concerns the conceptual quality of the vocabularies, schemas, ontologies, and documentation used to describe and annotate the geographic features of interest. To operationalize conceptual quality in VGI, we propose a multi-faceted framework that includes accuracy, granularity, completeness, consistency, compliance, and richness, proposing proxy measures for each dimension. The application of the framework is illustrated in a case study on a European sample of OpenStreetMap, focused specifically on conceptual compliance.

69 citations


Cites background from "Defacing the Map: Cartographic Vand..."

  • ...Vandalism in open mapping platforms has also been identified as a multi-faceted, complex challenge for VGI [1]....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article considers the history of corporate involvement in the community and analyzes historical quarterly-snapshot OSM-QA-Tiles to show where and what these corporate editors are mapping, and raises questions about how the OSM community might proceed as corporate editing grows and evolves as a mechanism for expanding the map for multiple uses.
Abstract: OpenStreetMap (OSM), the largest Volunteered Geographic Information project in the world, is characterized both by its map as well as the active community of the millions of mappers who produce it. The discourse about participation in the OSM community largely focuses on the motivations for why members contribute map data and the resulting data quality. Recently, large corporations including Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook have been hiring editors to contribute to the OSM database. In this article, we explore the influence these corporate editors are having on the map by first considering the history of corporate involvement in the community and then analyzing historical quarterly-snapshot OSM-QA-Tiles to show where and what these corporate editors are mapping. Cumulatively, millions of corporate edits have a global footprint, but corporations vary in geographic reach, edit types, and quantity. While corporations currently have a major impact on road networks, non-corporate mappers edit more buildings and points-of-interest: representing the majority of all edits, on average. Since corporate editing represents the latest stage in the evolution of corporate involvement, we raise questions about how the OSM community—and researchers—might proceed as corporate editing grows and evolves as a mechanism for expanding the map for multiple uses.

54 citations

Book ChapterDOI
01 Jan 2015
TL;DR: This contribution frames a research agenda that draws upon critical cartography but widens the scope of analysis to the assemblages of practices, actors, technologies, and norms at work, and suggests that research into OpenStreetMap might usefully reflect more critically on the contexts in which new geographic knowledge is being assembled.
Abstract: Critical cartographic scholarship has demonstrated that maps (and geoinformation in general) can never be neutral or objective: maps are always embedded in specific social contexts of production and use and thus unavoidably reproduce social conventions and hierarchies. Furthermore, it has been argued that maps also (re)produce certain geographies and thus social realities. This argument shifts attention to the constitutive effects of maps and the ways in which they make the world. Within the discussion on neogeography and volunteered geographic information, it has been argued that crowd sourcing offers a radical alternative to conventional ways of map making, challenging the hegemony of official and commercial cartographies. In this view, crowd-sourced Web 2.0-mapping projects such as OpenStreetMap (OSM) might begin to offer a forum for different voices, mapping new things, enabling new ways of living. In our contribution, we frame a research agenda that draws upon critical cartography but widens the scope of analysis to the assemblages of practices, actors, technologies, and norms at work: an agenda which is inspired by the “critical GIS”-literature, to take the specific social contexts and effects of technologies into account, but which deploys a processual view of mapping. We recognize that a fundamental transition in mapping is taking place, and that OSM may well be of central importance in this process. However, we stress that social conventions, political hegemonies, unequal economic and technical resources etc. do not fade away with crowdsourced Web 2.0 projects, but rather transform themselves and impact upon mapping practices. Together these examples suggest that research into OSM might usefully reflect more critically on the contexts in which new geographic knowledge is being assembled.

35 citations


Cites background from "Defacing the Map: Cartographic Vand..."

  • ...Vandalism, whether for artistic or commercial purposes, is carefully policed (see Ballatore 2014)....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Six complementary dimensions of incommensurability that recur in the negotiation are identified: (1) ontology, (2) cartography, (3) culture and language, (4) lexical definitions, (5) granularity, and (6) semantic overload and duplication.
Abstract: In crowdsourced cartographic projects, mappers coordinate their efforts through online tools to produce digital geospatial artefacts, such as maps and gazetteers, which were once the exclusive territory of professional surveyors and cartographers. In order to produce meaningful and coherent data, contributors need to negotiate a shared conceptualisation that defines the domain concepts, such as road, building, train station, forest and lake, enabling the communication of geographic knowledge. Considering the OpenStreetMap Wiki website as a case study, this article investigates the nature of this negotiation, driven by a small group of mappers in a context of high contribution inequality. Despite the apparent consensus on the conceptualisation, the negotiation keeps unfolding in a tension between alternative representations, which are often incommensurable, i.e., hard to integrate and reconcile. In this study, we identify six complementary dimensions of incommensurability that recur in the negotiation: 1 ontology, 2 cartography, 3 culture and language, 4 lexical definitions, 5 granularity, and 6 semantic overload and duplication.

34 citations


Cites background from "Defacing the Map: Cartographic Vand..."

  • ...The success of such crowdsourced cartography largely depends on the ability to coordinate around shared practices, channelling efforts constructively around digital artefacts (Ballatore 2014)....

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References
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In recent months, there has been an explosion of interest in using the Web to create, assemble, and disseminate geographic information provided voluntarily by individuals as mentioned in this paper, and the role of the amateur in geographic observation has been discussed.
Abstract: In recent months there has been an explosion of interest in using the Web to create, assemble, and disseminate geographic information provided voluntarily by individuals. Sites such as Wikimapia and OpenStreetMap are empowering citizens to create a global patchwork of geographic information, while Google Earth and other virtual globes are encouraging volunteers to develop inter- esting applications using their own data. I review this phenomenon, and examine associated issues: what drives people to do this, how accurate are the results, will they threaten individual privacy, and how can they augment more conventional sources? I compare this new phenomenon to more traditional citizen science and the role of the amateur in geographic observation.

3,633 citations


"Defacing the Map: Cartographic Vand..." refers background or methods in this paper

  • ...Goodchild and Li (2012) propose three families of approaches to ensure quality....

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  • ...Goodchild (2007) used the term volunteered geographic information to describe the complex constellation of amateur mapping projects, while Graham (2010) identified in these phenomena a common drive to create virtual versions of places and geographic realities....

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Journal ArticleDOI
John R. Suler1
TL;DR: Six factors that interact with each other in creating this online disinhibition effect are explored: dissociative anonymity, invisibility, asynchronicity, solipsistic introjection, dissociable imagination, and minimization of authority.
Abstract: While online, some people self-disclose or act out more frequently or intensely than they would in person. This article explores six factors that interact with each other in creating this online disinhibition effect: dissociative anonymity, invisibility, asynchronicity, solipsistic introjection, dissociative imagination, and minimization of authority. Personality variables also will influence the extent of this disinhibition. Rather than thinking of disinhibition as the revealing of an underlying "true self," we can conceptualize it as a shift to a constellation within self-structure, involving clusters of affect and cognition that differ from the in-person constellation.

2,876 citations


"Defacing the Map: Cartographic Vand..." refers background in this paper

  • ...The so-called ‘online disinhibition effect’ consists of a reduction in social inhibitions and constraints, fostered by the perceived anonymity, invisibility, asynchronicity, dissociative imagination and lack of authority in online spaces (Suler, 2004)....

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Journal Article

2,500 citations


"Defacing the Map: Cartographic Vand..." refers background in this paper

  • ...From a more conservative standpoint, Kelling and Wilson (1982) outlined their widely discussed ‘broken window theory’, claiming that minor crime such as vandalism alters the environment, and the resulting physical disorder tends to generate more serious crime....

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  • ...In this context, Kittur et al. (2009) pointed out that belonging to a clearly defined group within the community increases the likelihood of participation in anti-vandalism and other ‘good citizenship’ behaviours....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Analysis of the quality of OpenStreetMap information focuses on London and England, since OSM started in London in August 2004 and therefore the study of these geographies provides the best understanding of the achievements and difficulties of VGI.
Abstract: Within the framework of Web 2.0 mapping applications, the most striking example of a geographical application is the OpenStreetMap (OSM) project. OSM aims to create a free digital map of the world and is implemented through the engagement of participants in a mode similar to software development in Open Source projects. The information is collected by many participants, collated on a central database, and distributed in multiple digital formats through the World Wide Web. This type of information was termed 'Volunteered Geographical Information' (VG!) by Goodchild, 2007. However, to date there has been no systematic analysis of the quality of VGI. This study aims to fill this gap by analysing OSM information. The examination focuses on analysis of its quality through a comparison with Ordnance Survey (OS) datasets. The analysis focuses on London and England, since OSM started in London in August 2004 and therefore the study of these geographies provides the best understanding of the achievements and difficulties of VGI. The analysis shows that OSM information can be fairly accurate: on average within about 6 m of the position recorded by the OS, and with approximately 80% overlap of motorway objects between the two datasets. In the space of four years, OSM has captured about 29% of the area of England, of which approximately 24% are digitised lines without a complete set of attributes. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of the findings to the study of VGI as well as suggesting future research directions.

1,493 citations


"Defacing the Map: Cartographic Vand..." refers background in this paper

  • ...Play carto-vandalism arises from human– computer interaction, as part of the playful exploration of affordances (Haklay, 2010b)....

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  • ...While the vast majority of literature analyses volunteered geographic information data – particularly OpenStreetMap (e.g. Haklay, 2010a; Mooney and Corcoran, 2012) – fewer studies directly observe the underlying communities....

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Proceedings ArticleDOI
11 Feb 2008
TL;DR: It is shown that opinion spam is quite different from Web spam and email spam, and thus requires different detection techniques, and therefore requires some novel techniques to detect them.
Abstract: Evaluative texts on the Web have become a valuable source of opinions on products, services, events, individuals, etc. Recently, many researchers have studied such opinion sources as product reviews, forum posts, and blogs. However, existing research has been focused on classification and summarization of opinions using natural language processing and data mining techniques. An important issue that has been neglected so far is opinion spam or trustworthiness of online opinions. In this paper, we study this issue in the context of product reviews, which are opinion rich and are widely used by consumers and product manufacturers. In the past two years, several startup companies also appeared which aggregate opinions from product reviews. It is thus high time to study spam in reviews. To the best of our knowledge, there is still no published study on this topic, although Web spam and email spam have been investigated extensively. We will see that opinion spam is quite different from Web spam and email spam, and thus requires different detection techniques. Based on the analysis of 5.8 million reviews and 2.14 million reviewers from amazon.com, we show that opinion spam in reviews is widespread. This paper analyzes such spam activities and presents some novel techniques to detect them

1,385 citations


"Defacing the Map: Cartographic Vand..." refers background or methods in this paper

  • ...To automatically detect opinion spam, the sophisticated techniques of naturallanguage processing, sentiment analysis and social network analysis discussed by Jindal and Liu (2008) need to be...

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  • ...To automatically detect opinion spam, the sophisticated techniques of naturallanguage processing, sentiment analysis and social network analysis discussed by Jindal and Liu (2008) need to be combined and tailored to the cartographic domain....

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  • ...The same issue arises in review websites, such as TripAdvisor(9), where promotional reviews are generated by the businesses’ owners and skew the user ratings, in what has been called ‘opinion spam’ by Jindal and Liu (2008). In OpenStreetMap, carto-spammers add specific tags to increase the visibility of businesses, for example by adding the tag tourism5attraction to night clubs....

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  • ...The same issue arises in review websites, such as TripAdvisor9, where promotional reviews are generated by the businesses’ owners and skew the user ratings, in what has been called ‘opinion spam’ by Jindal and Liu (2008)....

    [...]