[OSM-talk] New API suggestion: Allowing contributors to easily track their OSM-objects over time

[stevea]

One of the best suggestions I and others have made to pangoSE regarding this proposal is a very strong use case or solid, easily-grasped geographically-based examples of a problem (exclusively or largely unsolvable in OSM today, with today's data and tools) that would make for a solvable problem getting solved.  There is a great deal of effort involved from presenting "a solution" to the larger OSM community (first, so we understand it, second so we might reach consensus about it, third so we might implement it with a particular method) when no underlying problem is apparent.  This is what is meant by "a solution in search of a problem."  What is it that pangoSE is so anxious to fix that significant entanglement with a new naming system (linked semantic wrappers) is required?

Perhaps there ARE problems that cannot be solved without such radical changes to our naming machinery.  I'm simply saying I have yet to read / hear one that has been sufficiently articulated for me to consider this proposal further.

If problems are identified and articulated, that's a good and necessary next step.  But then so would be the greater buy-in of a well-presented proposal that engendered sufficient discussion and perhaps eventual wide consensus to proceed with the detailed and accepted proposal.  We are a long, long way from any of this.  Let's start with what might be broken or difficult or impossible to solve with what we have now and go from there.

I'm not saying OSM couldn't benefit by such a scheme (I keep calling it "Web 3.0-flavored" and maybe I'm right, maybe not; pangoSE chiming in about whether his proposal and elements of Web 3.0 overlap or not is very much appreciated).  I am saying, let's have it presented to the community in a way that is usual, potentially successful, "problem first, solution second," bite-sized in a way that makes comprehension widely accessible and solves "something" (rather than as it appears now:  a hive of snarls that looks like deliberate obfuscation by high priests of special knowledge).  Clearly-stated concepts of what this might solve must come first.  Presenting a technical solution without articulated problems it might solve is backwards.

OSM now has an existing "history of object edits."  If you "do it right," it is technically possible to leverage this into what you are proposing ("tracking objects" to "follow" them?) with absolutely no change to OSM's present database model.  Maybe this is a good idea, maybe not.  But pangoSE has not even identified any costs that wold be associated with changing OSM's database model, he simply sent us a link to it (which we can find ourselves, but thanks for the effort).

pangoSE:  please stop ignoring me in these threads.  I'm extending effort to listen, your lack of reply seems disingenuous.

SteveA