[OSM-talk] OSM Data Scope (was "wikiproject rail?")

[Stephan Schildberg]

The user is not interested whether the map he is looking at runs on one 
or a billion of databases.
He is interested in visualizations of correlations of data, which either 
formerly was not free or just not available.

When the project is going to split into many too independent run 
subprojects, the project runs out of control.
The nice at wikipedia is, that one can write articles, extend their 
profoundness, or even split articles when appropriate. They do not split 
the database then, they still run on the same wiki.
That's what it is so intriguing, that I switched to make my notations to 
certain topics in wikipedia only, instead doing it privately.

They "saw", that for certain types of data, like producing books, 
scanning, digitizing books ( hello Lars), they have to erect a different 
kind of structure than for articles.

Back to OSM: I still see data as street names and bus lines on the same 
level. At least in cities even bus lines are clearly signed as bus stop, 
so as streets mostly are signed with their names. Taking both signature 
away, still streets and bus lines do exist. The attractiveness of OSM 
will loose a lot if we start to scatter bits and parts around again. For 
each project/ Layer you need an extra foundation, and so on.

A split from OSM would make it much easier to build a private database, 
which should be hampered too, - it is annoying enough that a lot of 
people steel wikipedias content and publish it under their label, - how 
boring.

Whether layers are physically run on different servers would be a 
different issue, but the layers should all be accessible on one GUI.

regards, Stephan.