[OSM-talk] import of dataset for new zealand

[Dave Stubbs]

On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 6:11 AM, Lester Caine <lester at lsces.co.uk> wrote:
> simon at mungewell.org wrote:
>  >> On Tuesday 18 March 2008 23:43:39 simon at mungewell.org wrote:
>  >>> The problem I can see with this is that the source attribute can be
>  >>> altered (or stripped).
>  >> Which is as it should be. If an object originating from that import is
>  >> significantly altered later, then it should be possible to reflect this in
>  >> the source tag.
>  >>
>  >
>  > That's a good question for their lawyers, do we have to maintain
>  > attribution for data which is found to be incorrect and hence
>  > corrected....
>  >
>  > Using another (write once) tag would still enable the original upload to
>  > be recognized, even if the data is corrected at a later stage.
>
>  THIS one is a good point. The wiki/framework I'm working with personally has
>  two user flags per item. Created and Last Edit. The created flag is only
>  populated when an item is created and while it can be changed, the normal user
>  access does not allow this. I would have thought THIS should be a norm for any
>  of the bluk loaded data. How do we currently tag TIGER and other bulk data?

OSM has Full Edit History. You can ask the API for the History Of An
Object and as a side effect of that you can easily determine creator
and last editor, and any original tags and all subsequent edits.
TIGER data has a whole heap of tags that identify it as such,
including the original tiger ID. Even if someone removes this from an
object, you can still find it in the history.
If you delete an object It Is Still Possible to query that object's
History as long as you know the ID. OSM publishes planet files every
week from which you can probably find this ID if you know when the
object was first created, or else you can use the undelete feature of
Potlatch to find the IDs.

If you want an API to explicitly tell you creator and last edit, then
please write it. It'd be a fairly simple query I think.