[OSM-talk] Exceeded API bandwidth limit, now what?

[Alan Mintz]

At 2010-09-13 23:20, Tom Hughes wrote:
>On 14/09/10 03:01, Michal Migurski wrote:
>>Can anyone tell me what the limit is so I know not to exceed it, and how 
>>long I have to wait until I'm allowed back in?
>
>The limit is not some sort of game where you try and download at exactly 
>the maximum rate allowed - it's a way of cutting off the people who are 
>downloading vastly more than average.
>
>It basically cuts off the top fraction of a percent of users - the same 
>sort of people that got banned by hand before when they were noticed.

I've been getting this error lately as I'm working on an overly-dense area 
(Kern County, CA, USA), where imports that include every structure, 
individual trees, overly-digitized landuses, etc. have resulted in very 
high data density. I found that a large amount of data can be removed 
without any noticeable effect on quality by simplifying the landuse areas, 
using JOSM and a very conservative simplify-way.max-error setting of 0.3. 
However, after a short time, I'm now getting these 509 errors.

This isn't a game. It's not abuse. I'm trying to work and being stopped. 
The limit was apparently set to absolute numbers, without regard for the 
density of the area being worked on, which may be hundreds of times what it 
is elsewhere.

Note that I'm working on very small areas (like 1-4 sq mi) anyway because 
anything larger exceeds the object count limits :( This is why I'm spending 
(now) days on cleaning up all these unnecessary nodes - so I can get back 
to mapping the area from my survey.

Please fix this.

BTW, I updated the API 0.6 wiki page to include this error with a link to 
the comment about it in the Dev FAQ, since searching for the text of the 
message or error 509 resulting in nothing.

--
Alan Mintz <Alan_Mintz+OSM at Earthlink.net>