[OSM-talk] Request for Romano-British features

[mick]

On Fri, 13 Jan 2012 23:40:13 -0500
Russ Nelson <nelson at crynwr.com> wrote:

> Felix Hartmann writes:
>  > The thing is - historic data that doesn't exist anymore is inappropriate 
>  > because it is confusing for anyone contributing to OSM.
> 
> Yes and no. When you have buildings laid out in a rectangular grid,
> but there are triangular bits cut out of them, that begs for an
> explanation. When that explanation is a not-longer-present railroad, I
> feel confident in adding it. That allows people to go on-site and find
> other railroad artifacts, like rails still embedded in the street, or
> buildings which still have railroad boxcar-spaced doors.
> 
> So in this particular context, as long as there is still evidence of
> the Roman road, even if the road no longer exists as a right-of-way,
> it makes sense to add it to OSM.
> 
Much Of what I am working on remains only of short stretches, if visible, then only as regular lumps in the ground, more often it is reflected by sections of parish boundaries, fence lines or lines of trees and can only be verified by archaeological digs that could little more than than the foundation trench of up to an almost complete road surface.

Many sections of the Roman roads were looted in the 18th & 19th centuries for material by the Turnpike Trusts, so in a sense are still there in the foundations of modern roads.

At the other end of the scale are many main highways that follow the same course as the Roman roads with relics of them to be found were recent re-alignments have left them exposed.

Whatever the case, OSM is not really the natural home for the network, except were they remain on the surface or as a Scheduled Monument, and in those cases only the particular sections.

My goal was to create a 'Bastard Son of OSM' as a means to share my work with those people of similar interest but, as OSM has no ability to offer user selected layers I'm looking at other options. 

mick