[OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects

[Tomas Straupis]

Hello

  I think we should settle the question of how "ground truth" or
"verifiability" applies to NON-PHYSICAL objects (it is clear with
physical objects). Because currently I see at least two opinions:

  1. Non-physical objects are mapped by observing/verifying their
REFLECTION in physical world.

  2. Non-physical objects are mapped by observing/verifying them
DIRECTLY where they originate and live - in non-physical world -
~documents.

  It is very demotivating to hear the argument that "opinion X is your
personal opinion, but (my) opinion Y is how OpenStreetMap works"
without any evidence. Especially by people with not too much actual
mapping/usage experience (say < 100000 objects done, no
application/map created etc.). And without thinking about the impact
of it.

  Opinion 1 would mean that we should remove all(most?) non-physical
objects: country, state, county, city, suburb, national/regional park
boundaries (and a lot more) as most of that is unobservable on the
ground and sometimes reflection of small part of them on the ground is
misleading/outdated.

  Opinion 2 would mean that objects are mapped according to
originating documents. De facto situation is that almost all
non-physical objects are currently mapped according to documents.

  Which opinion is chosen has a huge impact on both participation and
usage of OpenStreetMap. Decision would be able to remove this burden
from OSMF which by definition should not be deciding on such matters.

P.S. Wiki while not being authoritative talks about PHYSICAL objects.
P.P.S. Let's skip non-physical attributes for the beginning.

-- 
Tomas