[OSM-talk] Thoughts on an enhanced GPX api

[Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason]

On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 10:49 AM, John Smith<delta_foxtrot at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> --- On Tue, 28/7/09, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> * The data is versioned, and anyone can edit it
>
>> I have a lot of GPX tracks that could be improved, e.g. by
>> deleting
>
> I'd say deleting sections, but not editing... Only very erroneous information should be "touched up" by deleting information.

Waypoint names & descriptions for one are something that makes sense
to edit. When I'm out surveying I use cryptic abbreviations like
"ohtup" for "on highway=track unpaved". I'd like to mass-edit my
tracks to expand such abbreviations later through an API.

But in any case the API supporting editing of an object doesn't mean
that it /should/ be edited. With full editing allowed we'd still have
version history and could simply revert edits that were inappropriate,
just like with the rest of the data.

>> point clouds. I'd like to edit them using normal OSM tools,
>> have those
>> edits versioned (so they can be rolled back), and have
>> other users do
>> those fixes for me. Just like with the OSM data I upload.
>
> Who can roll back changes, this is ongoing with the OSM data itself, at least in this case it won't effect changes with anything else.

Anyone. Why not?

>> Free-form tags could obviously be used for other purposes,
>> e.g.
>> marking the trace as surveyed with a given GPS model.
>
> This would be a good idea regardless, as would exposing other meta data already being stored.
>
>> How does this sound? I'm pretty happy with the 0.6 API
>
> Sounds like a good start but some of the finer points probably need to be fleshed out a little more.