[Talk-us] Ghost Towns
stevea
steveaOSM at softworkers.com
Tue Nov 18 17:41:43 UTC 2014
Martin Koppenhoefer writes:
>The latter example shouldn't probably be mapped in OSM, as there is
>literally nothing left now, while the former is still there, it is
>simply degraded by the water and not visible most of the time due to
>the lake.
Another like your latter example, here in Silicon Valley. Lexington
reservoir is where a usually submerged ghost town (one of several of
these former small communities around this mountainous area)
re-appears during prolonged droughts. In the real world, smeary
foundations are vague when and as this happens. In OSM, we tag a
node with place=locality and historic=yes in the middle of a moderate
sized dammed body of water. Lightly tagged and might I assert
correct and effective for "what it is" (not much). Yet it is (in my
local though shared opinion) right where we mean when we use the name
"Lexington" to talk about a place, so that is what its name= tag is.
OK!
We have former communities (a synonym for ghost town? maybe here but
not there, maybe that or not this...) like small ones wiped out by
landslides in the 1960s and 1980s. I "listen local" (others do this,
too) and if others know it or use it in conversation (like it might
be included in directions, "you'll go through Davenport to get
there") I think it should be in the map. The place=locality tag does
an adequate job of representing this. (When I use the name in
conversation, it means "here.") Though if it means a populated
place, I'll start up the isolated_dwelling, hamlet, village, town...
chain. (Can we declare most of those are in? Another topic.)
In the USA we have a lot of "rail names" which are partly/largely
historic. Maybe it is people who look at maps a bit more who know
this or agree, but some of these (rail, ghost,
dissolved-by-a-reservoir...) do stick around in conversation and are
handy to describe "here." Their names get used, they mean someplace.
Improvements welcome. Sometimes two things are not like each other.
YMMV. We have free form tagging in OSM, which I like very much as it
allows sharpening of syntax to occur. Giving shape to what a set of
tags means. Such discussion (sharing) is good.
SteveA
California
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