[OSM-talk] Timezones (was: Deleting data)
Nick Whitelegg
Nick.Whitelegg at solent.ac.uk
Tue Oct 22 15:26:22 UTC 2013
I guess I see admin boundaries as something typically shown on rendered maps so it makes sense having them in there to me.
To be honest I don't have a particularly strong view about time zones per se, but just expressing caution at getting into a theoretical situation where the database is so cluttered with all manner of stuff that those of us that just want to work with map data have a harder time extracting the data we want.
Nick
-----Colin Smale <colin.smale at xs4all.nl> wrote: -----
To: talk at openstreetmap.org
From: Colin Smale <colin.smale at xs4all.nl>
Date: 21/10/2013 10:25AM
Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] Timezones (was: Deleting data)
Nick, this can be done for admin boundaries as well. Would you advocate removing them from OSM as well? The change to the size of the planet file if timezones are included is absolutely microscopic in the big scheme of things. There are clearly many shades of grey. It's a question of where to draw the line (as it were). Can this be expressed objectively?
It feels rather weird that some people are now advocating keeping certain things out of OSM. The traditional consensus is that anyone can put anything in OSM and that any attempt to limit people's creativity is met with much scepticism. In the continuum between the puritans and the pragmatists there's plenty of room for everyone.
I for one think that data in OSM should be above all usable. Whether to have timezones in OSM is analogous to database normalisation. If taken to extremes, you can win a theoretical point while at the same time causing significant performance problems and extra complexity for the users of the data.
Colin
On 2013-10-21 10:55, Nick Whitelegg wrote:
I'd go the other way and abolish Winter Time. ;-)
No DST = dark summer evenings. Not nice!
Going on topic, not sure if something like time zones belongs in OSM. Would it not be better to use a more specialised web service to look up time zones for a given lat/lon? I'd prefer to minimise overloading OSM with things which are not "on the ground" data. For one thing, it means bigger planet files and more demands on software to extract the data you want.
Nick
-----moltonel 3x Combo <moltonel at gmail.com> wrote: -----
Actually, I always wondered why timezones were kept out of OSM. I know DST complicates tagging (it'll be the first thing I abolish when I become World Dictator), ...
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