[OSM-talk] stop deleting abandoned railroads

[Lester Caine]

On 14/08/15 14:16, Ian Sergeant wrote:
> Wow.  Every time I edit, I'm splitting ways to add relations, speed
> limit changes, lane counts, etc. If the original way happens to still
> existing when I've finished it's more good luck than good management. 
> And it's just as likely to be the stub of the via way in a no U-turn as
> it is the freeway it once was.

This is in essence the whole problem ...
In the past it HAS been a practice to wipe something and replace it with
a new version. Certainly imports tend to be easier when processed that
way, but it looses the very history that in the future will be prime
information. If a railway viaduct has become a foot path, one can see
that from the history of changes. The problem is that large elements of
that history may well be deleted simply to create a combination of new
objects describing the new view of the structure. The underlying change
control should be able to keep track of those changes and provide a
complete history back in time even if some of that is created
incorrectly. In my book, OHM is simply looking 5, 10 or more years back
into that history, and as we go forward that record remains.

As I have said before 'Delete' is something that should never happen on
what has at some time been correct information. 'Archive' is the correct
term and making that data available as required ... Delete is only
appropriate when the material is proven invalid.

-- 
Lester Caine - G8HFL
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