[OSM-talk] Historical Data in OSM database

[Andrew Errington]

On Fri, November 12, 2010 06:46, john at jfeldredge.com wrote:
> It would be more logical to have the date construction started be
> start_date, and the date construction completed be completed_date.
> Having the completion date tagged as start_date doesn't make sense.

I agree.  We have this 'opportunity' in Korea to record the start and end
dates for construction of bridges, tunnels and buildings.  This
information is often visible on a plaque on or near the structure:

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Korea_bridges

At the moment there is are 'temporary' tags to record this:

construction_start_date=2003-05-09
construction_end_date=2004-12-09

Since there are only a few instances of it they would be easy to change.

I asked on the tagging list if there was a better way to do this but we
didn't really reach a conclusion.

I think 'start_date' on its own is insufficient, and really not the right
tag to mean 'construction has ended and people started using the
building/structure/whatever'.  However, if it's defined that way then it's
fine, but we then need a way to tag the start of construction.

Best wishes,

Andrew