[OSM-talk] Proposed new status for tags in the wiki: "import" for undiscussed tags that were only used by an import

Harald Schwarz harald.malte.schwarz at gmx.de
Wed Mar 18 00:37:08 UTC 2020


Dear Joseph, dear readers of this list,

as you mention the street lamps of Düsseldorf here and thinking that they were an import to the OSM-database,
I can tell you that this was not the case.

Many of he streets of Düsseldorf, city of about 600_000 inhabitants, capital of Northrhine-Westfalia, Germany are lit by gaslight.
About 15_000 gas lamps spent their glooming light every night. Each of this lamps has found it's way into the OSM database
and even the status of streets lit by gaslight can be found in OSM.

But this was not done by an import. It was a process, lasting many years, walking all the streets, stopping at every 
single gas lamp, taking photos and gps coordinates, later manualy storing the data to osm.
The peak in the graph, that you think indicates an import, is the result of switching fom the addr:*-style to the object:*-style.

Infos about the Düsseldorf Gaslight you can find in the OSM-Wiki under: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/D%C3%BCsseldorf/Projekte/Gaslaternen
You can watch the talk I gave at FOSSGIS 2019, Dresden : https://media.ccc.de/v/fossgis2019-556-erfassung-der-dsseldorfer-gasbeleuchtung .

Mapping the gas lamps with OSM helped a lot to reach the status of national techical heritage. 
For this purpose maps and lists of all gas lamps in a suburb, in a street were created. 
This would not have been possible without the object:street tag.

The object:* tag is not only useful for street lamps but can be used for memorials, urban artwork, technical infrastructure and many other things.
Take a close look and see that other mappers started to use this tag for their own needs.

With friendly greetings
   Harald Schwarz
   black_bike

> Gesendet: Mittwoch, 18. März 2020 um 00:17 Uhr
> Von: "Joseph Eisenberg" <joseph.eisenberg at gmail.com>
> An: talk at openstreetmap.org
> Betreff: Re: [OSM-talk] Proposed new status for tags in the wiki: "import" for undiscussed tags that were only used by an import
....
> 
> Besides the tags mentioned above, I was thinking about tags like
> "object:postcode=" and "object:housenumber" - this tag is only used in
> Germany on "highway=street_lamp" features which appear to have been
> imported mostly in 2015: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:object
> and see taghistory:
> https://taghistory.raifer.tech/#***/object:postcode/ and
> 
> So, though the usage numbers are moderately high, it is helpful to
> know that these tags are not really being used, except in that
> particular context. Apparently it makes sense in the context of the
> addressing system there, at least according to the mappers who
> imported the objects.
....
> 
> -- Joseph Eisenberg
> 




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