[Talk-us] dubious church node

[Martijn van Exel]

I sense a topic for the next Many Mappy Minutes or a BOF at State of the Map US —> cleaning up old imports.
I sure appreciate all the knowledge shared here! So much I didn’t know about GNIS data.
Martijn

> On Sep 30, 2017, at 11:54 AM, Wolfgang Zenker <wolfgang at lyxys.ka.sub.org> wrote:
> 
> * Carl Anderson <carl.anderson at vadose.org <mailto:carl.anderson at vadose.org>> [170930 17:21]:
>> ​A little history on GNIS data, and the Board of Geographic Names.
> 
>> The US Board of Geographic Names manages names for places and features
>> shown on US govt maps.  They have been using a database to manage the names
>> across maps and map scales. That database is the GNIS.
> 
>> The ​original GNIS data was populated from all text labels shown on USGS
>> maps.  The most common source was 1:24,000 scale topo quarter quads.  Text
>> from 1:100,000, 1:250,000 and 1:1,000,000 scale maps and larger were
>> included.
> 
>> The stated map accuracy of these scales  (
>> https://nationalmap.gov/standards/nmas.html ) is approximately
> 
>> 1:24:000        40 feet
>> 1:250,000     416 feet
>> 1:500,000     833 feet
>> 1:1,000,000   1666 feet
> 
>> The GNIS dataset includes the most precise location for text, when the text
>> appears on maps of different scales.
> 
> You can look at the full database entry for an individual GNIS feature
> if you search for the GNIS Feature ID at geonames.usgs.gov/apex/f?p=gnispq <http://geonames.usgs.gov/apex/f?p=gnispq>
> 
> This will give you the source of the database entry, possibly a list of
> alternate names, sometimes a note like "location approximate", and
> sometimes the history of the decision process if more than one name
> had been proposed for the feature. Also documentation of official
> name changes.
> 
> One more thing to know about GNIS: entries are never deleted. If a
> feature no longer exists, the name gets "(historical)" appended to
> it. This may have happened after the feature was imported to OSM,
> so it may not show in the OSM database.
> 
> Unfortunately the GNIS database is no longer fully maintained due to
> budget constraints, so you can't be sure if features still exist even
> if they are not flagged as "(historical)".
> 
> As to mapping in OSM: I usually remove any "(historical)" feature.
> For the others, I improve the location if possible, and if the feature
> can be represented as an area, I draw that area/polygon.
> Instead of deleting the original POI, I now reuse that node as part
> of the outline of the feature and only move the tags to the area, so
> someone looking at the object details can notice that one of the nodes
> is a lot older than the others and still find the osm history of the
> feature on that node.
> 
> Wolfgang
> ( lyx @ OSM )
> 
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