[OSM-talk] What do you wish you'd known?

[Tirkon]

John Smith <deltafoxtrot256 at gmail.com> wrote:

>you shouldn't have to know this.
I am the opposite opinion, because ...

It is really hard, to setup in particular a long route relation. You
need excellent knowledges of all places in detail. Because this is not
possible i.e for an e-road with about 5000 km length, people set up
projects in the wiki in order to establish this relation within month'
and years as teamwork. The same applies i.e. to the public transport
net, which is collected in many towns nearly complete, the relations
of motorways, national- and other referenced roads, the borders of
towns and suburbs, by relation splitted lanes of multilane roads with
left-turn, right-turn-function etc etc. One of the most important
advantages of the cycle- and hiking-map are the routes, which are long
in many cases as well. With destroyed routes these maps lose much of
their sense of exist. 

And all these routes can be destroyed within seconds by "harmless
editings" and shoot down this long lasting work within seconds. Cause
it is really hard, i.e. to insert a short OSM-way (misleaded by the
editor-software) at the correct position of the relation, if you do
not have excellent knowledge 1) of the object and 2) of every place in
detail. Try it and you know, what I mean. That means, you have to wait
for a person that has both and finds this dispersed way. And that
could last very long. If the one, who established the route possibly
in a rurely area, does not come back, the chances are good lasting
years. If one founds this mistake in his home-area, he has no chance
to heal it, if he has no clue i.e. from this bycycle-route or the
public-transport. 

In the case of navigation systems, their users could be misguided
because of such "harmless editings". I.e. in case of a destroyed
left-turn-lane-relation you have to "Go straight ahead!"

Thus I am the opinion, I should have to hnow "this".