[OSM-talk] stop deleting abandoned railroads

[Russ Nelson]

Warin writes:
 > On 15/08/2015 3:46 PM, Russ Nelson wrote:
 > > Railway=dismantled. Doesn't get rendered except where it should be,

 >   do you still want railway=disused to remain?

Are we even talking about the same thing? Let's assume that you made a
s mple t po.

Don't those last two words look a little weird with missing bits?
Shouldn't those letters be there? Shouldn't the dismantled bits of a
railroad be in OSM as dismantled bits?

Lookit, I'm also a fan of unfinished
railroads. http://russnelson.com/unfinished-railroads.html You don't
see me insisting that the unbuilt sections of these railroads get
mapped, do you? No, because they never existed, and you can't see any
evidence that they did. With a built, operated railroad, you *can* see
evidence that they did, even if it's only because you can look left
and see evidence of the railroad, and you can look right and see
evidence of the railroad. Should they NOT be mapped through the
farmer's field where they have been plowed into dismantlement?

Now, I'm sure somebody will, at some point say, "Russell, just go off
to OpenHistoricalMap and put your data there." That's fine, except for
those pesky implementation details where THEY ARE IN TWO DISPARATE
DATABASES, UNCONNECTED. How, exactly, do you make a relation that
shows the entire route of a railroad when half of it is off in a
different corner?

I don't understand why we're having this argument. We map tons of
things that you can't see. Why not map as dismantled railroads that
have been dismantled? Why not make an exception to the "Delete it if
you don't see it" guideline?

It's only a small handful of people who are deleting and counseling
deletion of dismantled railways. They are pushing a rigid,
mechanistic, inconsistent view of what to map. If we can simply tell
them "dismantled railways are cool, we love them, deal with it" then
we'll be done here.

I WILL BE HAPPY AND GO AWAY WITH AN EXCEPTION. Don't you want me to be
happy? Don't you want me to go away?

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