[OSM-talk] OSM relation ID property in Wikidata

[Christian Quest]

Linking to OSM objet ID looks like a bad idea because they are not stable.

We had a recent long talk on talk-fr@ about permanent IDs that could
help linking external data to OSM, instead of multiplying ref:xxx in
OSM to link to external data.

I've proposed something that can be summarized like some generic
geoURL that could be used to describe something/somewhere in the form
something at somewhere

'something' could use some hierarchical semantic description, and
'somewhere' could use for example geohash.

Example for a bakery nearby my place: saines_saveurs.bakery.shop at u09v8s9fd5mc

These geoURL can be compared with some level of fuzzyness on something
and/or somewhere by reducing the level of details if necessary
(exemple: shop at u09v8s9fd5 has less details and can be matched with a
simple "contain" text search).

They can be translated into whatever query like an overpass-api query
to actually resolve to the current matching objets in OSM or somewhere
else as the geoURL are not OSM based in any way.

This mechanism works pretty well for node/polygon based POI, but needs
to be extended for more linear features (like a street), maybe using
more than one geohash (one at both ends ?).