[OSM-newbies] Church, or not?

[Isaac Wingfield]

It's becoming clear to me that some of the entries on my local part of  
OSM are based on old, out of date information, and I've been fixing  
these as I become aware of them. Some of the entries are easy -- a  
"Golf Club" marker on what is now clearly an industrial site -- but  
one I'm unsure about is when a location has a "place_of_worship"  
designation, but on-site inspection reveals that there is no obvious  
church there, or even a sign designating one.

I've tried web searching on the names (wondering if the icons somehow  
got displaced), but that's been very frustrating. It would appear that  
a lot of "information sites", such as lists of churches offered by  
religious organizations, take their data from the same obsolete  
information sources that OSM used; they all point precisely to the  
place where the OSM "church" icon is, where there is nothing  
resembling a church (I even found the same thing regarding the "golf  
club" I mentioned above, on a site offering information to traveling  
golfers).

So here's the question: It's easy enough to tell a golf club from an  
industrial site just by walking past it, but a "place_of_worship" is  
perhaps not so clear; could one by located in a private home, with no  
external markers? If I find nothing but a house at a location where  
OSM has a place_of_worship icon, can I just delete it?

Isaac

--

Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.