[OSM-talk] stop deleting abandoned railroads

[Russ Nelson]

Serge Wroclawski writes:
 > On Thu, Aug 13, 2015 at 11:09 PM, Russ Nelson <nelson at crynwr.com> wrote:
 > 
 > > It's really just a small handful of people who think it's okay not
 > > just to delete things, but to counsel other people to delete
 > > things. "I didn't see it, so I deleted it" is a reason for a ban, not
 > > an excuse against being banned.
 > 
 > Russ, I doubt that you mean it this way, but if you set the bar too high,
 > then you're essentially asking people to disprove a negative.

I think you mean "prove a negative". It's easy to disprove a
negative. If somebody wants to delete something that I added because
they don't see it, but instead, they ASK ME "what did you see?" I can
show them what I saw, just as I showed you pictures of what I saw on
one side and the other side of a building, giving me reason and cause
to conclude that there is an abandoned railroad there. That disproves
their claim that nothing was there.

 > We allow original research and expert testimony, but we also don't require
 > it.

Adding things, fine, no expertise required. Deleting things that
somebody else added (because we allow original research and expert
testimony) because we don't require expertise to delete things means
that in fact we don't allow original research and expertise.

Can you see how your sentence doesn't make any sense when it comes to
deletion?

 > We have generally not required specialized knowledge or equipment for
 > observations in the past and I don't think that we should change that going
 > forward.

To add things, no. To destroy things, uh yeah, people should
understand that somebody put something into the map for a good reason
which may have required special knowledge or equipment.

For example, I could go to some place where OSM says there is a
pipeline, look around, not see a pipeline, and say "urp, somebody
screwed up and added a pipeline here! I'll fix it by deleting it!"

Again ... the problem is deleting. The problem is people who say
"Delete things you don't see" and people who believe them.

-- 
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