[OSM-dev] OSM XML declaration, JOSM, Osmosis et al.

[Toby Murray]

On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 1:44 PM, Paul Norman <penorman at mac.com> wrote:
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Frederik Ramm [mailto:frederik at remote.org]
>>
>> Thinking about this, I like the stripping of the version number.
>>
>> We're having a lot of trouble with people doing mass edits by using XAPI
>> etc. to download e.g. everything with name=McDonalds world-wide and
>> replacing that with name=McDonald's - breaking a lot of correct things
>> in the process. Not serving the version number on XAPI, Overpass and
>> others would send a clear signal that these services are not to be used
>> for editing.
>
> Like NE2's http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/node/682273592?
>
> In spite of the problems with mass-edits based on XAPI queries, it is still
> essential for some parts of my workflow.
>
> I used my local jxapi instance extensively fixing NHD tagging in California.
> See http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-us/2011-March/005438.html
> for details.
>
> I have also used it for mapping highways in large areas, adding highway
> relations and occasionally for normal mapping when I didn't want to hit API
> limits.
>
> If jxapi ever stops serving data usable for editing then I will not pull the
> latest code updates for my local copy.

+1

I have my own xapi instance that I use for editing as well. It can
indeed be risky and the type of edits you can perform is limited but
there are some edits that would simply be impossible without the XAPI.
Granted, most of the use cases are for cleaning up imported data which
of course is an entirely different conversation...

Toby