[Imports] Reducing primary key damage (Branch from OpenMetaMap discussion)

[Bryce Nesbitt]

>> A simple example is that often I'll see a POI node, and I'll go ahead
>> and draw the building outline and put the data on the building. I draw
>> the building and delete the node.
> Good case. Do you just delete the node without checking whether it has useful tags and relations which need to be copied to the polygon?

Here's a case where a tool fix could do a world of good.
The Potlatch/2 "R" shortcut does not work to copy tags from a node to a way.
Converting a POI node to a building outline is thus a skilled task if 
you don't want to damage the original tags.

Imagine instead two new icons in the bottom right corner of Potlatch/2:
         Convert node --> way
         Convert way --> node
Which preserve tags.  The GNIS 
<http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:USGS_GNIS> import data would 
benefit greatly.  Potlatch mappers could take all those point features 
and turn them into outlines, but not disturb the most important keys.

I'd even like to see a feature in the API to "lock" certain keys.  At 
the time of import you could declare certain keys (e.g. 
*gnis:feature_id*) as read-only.  The API would reject an attempt to 
modify those fields.  Of course you could still delete the entire 
feature, but I think it would be step to preserving data needed for 
conflation.

Would import folks get behind improvements to Potlatch to reduce damage 
to imported features?
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