[josm-dev] Data management

[Lester Caine]

There is currently a discussion on the osm talk list about 'Not attaching 
polygons to roads'. The discussion has opened up a little, but as I see it the 
main problem is that of managing multiple overlapping ways? Personally I would 
prefer to enhance 'area' with a basic structure which uses existing ways to 
identify an area. This will allow correctly tagging - for example - the 
boundaries of a field or property lot without ending up with three ways all 
stacked one on top of another.

The particular problem that the thread relates to is taking the boundary that is 
currently overlaying the road on that side, and producing a separate parallel 
boundary way with all of the related elements separated from the road element. 
This does open a can of worms currently with each of the joining polygons since 
essentially their adjoining corners should also move creating two more 
additional ways, but since they are currently isolated elements that 
relationship is not recorded properly anyway?

In the absence of the addition of a new object type, how difficult would it be 
to identify an overlay of this type and simply update the existing polygon 
splinting it from the incorrect overlapping way and creating a new one which can 
then be adjusted? Since it is only working with the one polygon, the adjacent 
elements would each have to be moved manually. Or WOULD it be possible to select 
a row of areas ( fields or property lots ) and move all to split from an 
identified common way?

I'm still of the firm belief that maintaining the ways making up the boundaries 
of an area in isolation to individual ways is the real fault here, and things 
like 'landuse' could be considerably tidied up if adjoining areas could simply 
automatically loose the currently overlapping ways that make up the common 
boundary, potentially just leaving a hedge or fence way providing the internal 
fine detail? This is essentially a 'relation', but is required to consist of 
closed elements to ensure data integrate.

-- 
Lester Caine - G8HFL
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