[OSM-talk] Fwd: Historical Data in OSM database

[Martijn van Exel]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Martijn van Exel <m at rtijn.org>
> Date: November 10, 2010 5:55:47 PM GMT+01:00
> To: Ed Avis <eda at waniasset.com>
> Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] Historical Data in OSM database
> 
> On Nov 10, 2010, at 11:37 AM, Ed Avis wrote:
> 
>> Lester Caine <lester <at> lsces.co.uk> writes:
>> 
>>> As I said ... adding the dates on which the new roads appeared around the 
>>> Olypmic village, or a new motorway spur or residential road was opened will be 
>>> history in 100 years time but costs nothing to add today?
>> 
>> When something exists today, it would be nice to add the date it was constructed.
>> start_date would not be my ideal tag name, but it works.
>> 
> 
> I believe start_date is already used for temporary road closures and temporary access, no? It would be too confusing to apply the same tag to features that are more or less permanent. date_constructed or date_built would be a better choice from a semantics perspective.
> 
>> However I don't think it makes as much sense to add an object that doesn't exist
>> today.
>> 
> Do you mean it doesn't make sense to add features that do not exist today in general? A matter of perspective as far as I am concerned. If people want to map the past, they can. The mainstream editors should not show all this historical data, but a plugin or separate web application may very well be developed that handles history editing. Whether the main database is the best place to store it has already been raised as an issue - I think it is, it is accumulating a history as it is, and those few niche historical mappers will not make a huge dent in the resources available.
> 
> Best
> Martijn
> 
> 
> Martijn van Exel +++ m at rtijn.org
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