[OSM-newbies] removing existing ways & editing in Potlatch

[Alexandros Papadopoulos]

On Mon, Feb 15, 2010 at 7:24 PM, Richard Fairhurst <richard at systemed.net> wrote:
>
> Alexandros Papadopoulos wrote:
>> 1. Am trying to edit
>> http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/AlexandrosPapadopoulos/traces/609142
>> - why is it not automatically converted to a way when I ask potlatch
>> to do so, forcing me to re-trace 100+ km manually on the map?
>
> When I click your link, I get "Trace not found!".
>
> However, if I try another one of your tracks - for example,
> http://www.openstreetmap.org/edit?gpx=522327 - then it works exactly as I'd
> expect. Could you try, and report back if it doesn't?

Other tracks do work as expected, but that one doesn't. I changed it
to "identifiable" and that must've made it public enough for the link
to work now - please try the link again.

>> 2. I recently also captured this [...]
>> but how can I get rid of the old, pre-existing way, while
>> maintaining routability by joining my new route's first and last
>> points with existing OSM data?
>
> Shift-delete a way in Potlatch to delete it.
>
> To connect points in Potlatch, click the first or last point to go into draw
> mode ('elastic band'); then mouse-over another way so the points light up
> blue; double-click one of them to make a junction and stop drawing.
>
> Potlatch has built-in help - it's worth reading.

Your guidance is much appreciated. During my recent trip in India I
captured hundreds of kilometers that were missing/inaccurate in OSM.
But as a newbie, I am still quite reluctant to make big changes to the
map, especially when replacing existing inaccurate routes. New routes
are not so much of a problem.

So when I ask "how do I do X?" I am also silently asking "is it OK to
do X?" and hoping someone more experienced might have a look at my
edits and sound the alarm if I'm jeopardizing the quality of the data
in any way.

I'm still not sure how much confidence one needs to have before
editing OSM and how peer review, versioning, roll-backs etc work. I
don't know if it's worth erring on the side of caution and NOT editing
a way if I'm not 100% sure how to do it. Newbieness illnesses that I
hope will be sorted out soon. :-)

Cheers

Alex