[OSM-talk] Abandoned Rails

Jason Remillard remillard.jason at gmail.com
Fri Aug 21 23:57:37 UTC 2015


Hi

> I'd therefor like to propose that abandoned railways be treated like
> borders.  Even if you can't see it along a given stretch there are people
> who can and they have put a huge amount of effort into that work.  Lets
> respect that and strengthen the community rather than deleting it and doing
> the opposite.

I 100% agree. The amount of data required to map abandoned railroads
is tiny. An occasional way through a new development is not going to
hurt anybody or impair normal mapping activity.

Apparently, the people that like to map railroads think OSM is the
best place to do this. We are not in any position to be chasing them
off. OSM has a long, long way to go still. Above all else, it needs to
more active mappers if we are serious about being the best map for the
entire world. Also, It seems likely they are also mapping non
controversial things like roads while working on the railroads.

Dave F, OSM is doing just fine. It is full of contradictions,
redundancies, disagreements, and broken rules (see the tagging list).
It is not some kind of business database that requires normalization,
strict schema definitions, and vigilant protection. It can't have any
once sentence rules defining its boundaries. It is a great big blank
sheet of paper, relax and let the railroad people draw on it a bit.
Nobody is going to get hurt.

Jason



More information about the talk mailing list