[OSM-talk] Bing coverage relations, in particular 1298962

[Stephan Knauss]

On 27.04.2012 03:28, SomeoneElse wrote:
> The "Hires coverage of Bing imagery in the Near East" label is from the
> name on this relation:
> Regardless of the "perhaps the map shouldn't render unknown things just
> because of name=blah" issue, I'd argue that metadata such as this really
> doesn't belong in OSM. I've messaged the three previous editors of this
> relation and two haven't objected to it's removal (the other one hasn't
> replied). Can anyone put forward a good reason why it should be kept?

Not exactly about this relation but in the country I map we have a 
similar relation.

The thing is that unlike in many western countries the coverage of 
aerial imagery is limited. So having a way to easily share the 
boundaries was needed.

The boundary is not on the ground like most boundaries. Actually I have 
never seen a boundary. I saw constructions like fences or walls at 
places people say there is a boundary, but never the boundary itself.


So why to keep them?

You can do fancy queries with boundaries. Have you ever tried to make a 
statistic on the number of unnamed highway=residential of an area having 
imagery comparing to a similar sized area (in number of highways or 
area) having no aerials?

Or you could visually compare against other map sources and find an 
unmapped place in case you are into armchair mapping.

Have a look here.
http://compare.osm-tools.org/
It hides streets from a google map if there is a road/water in a similar 
location in OSM. If you see a lake/road on the map than it's not in OSM. 
With the edit button on the left you can open the are in JOSM (button is 
disabled if JOSM is not running).

It can also display the coverage on a map. For this a local cached copy 
is used. Due to load reasons I recommend not to use osm.org for browsing 
such relations.


So what to do with such relations?

In case of local relations please leave the decision to the local 
community. If they consider it useful then it is.
Don't try to decide what's best for people on the other side of the globe.
A boundary relation like this does no harm at all, so just leave it 
there and ignore it if you don't like it.

Stephan