Defacing the map: Cartographic vandalism in the digital commons

TL;DR

This paper explores carto-vandalism in digital maps like WikiMapia and OpenStreetMap, classifies its types, and discusses community and automated strategies for detection and prevention.

Contribution

It provides a new typology of carto-vandalism and analyzes community and automated counter-strategies in amateur digital mapping.

Findings

Identified five types of carto-vandalism including play and ideological.

Community policing involves map patrols and incident reporting.

Automated detection uses rule-based and machine learning methods.

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 organise 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.