[OSM-dev] A better way to watch nodes and ways?

[John McKerrell]

On 12 Aug 2009, at 18:30, Tom Hughes wrote:

> On 12/08/09 18:09, Gioele wrote:
>
>> OpenStreetMaps has two different mechanism, both with some issues.  
>> First,
>> the watch:user=1 tag. The feeds produced by the Xapi using the  
>> watch tag
>> would be interesting but they don't seem to work (at least in the  
>> past
>> hours) and they expose very little information. Moreover, all those  
>> tags
>> pollute the database. Second, OSMMapper. OSMMapper is an  
>> interesting project
>> but it is less structured than one would hope. It is based on areas  
>> so it is
>> impossible for a user to follow just a street or certain nodes (f.e.
>> attractions) in a crowded area. The number of commits would be just  
>> too
>> high. Also, it is graphical-only tool and this reduces the ability to
>> integrate it in other projects: f.e. JOSM could not use that  
>> information to
>> zoom to changed ways. More, it is a separate project and I think  
>> this watch-
>> list stuff should be part of the main infrastructure.

If you don't know about www.itoworld.com then you should take a look.  
I wonder if the ITO guys would be interested in adding something like  
this to their "osm mapper" product. Perhaps if you entered your  
username it could report all the elements that change away from your  
username?

John