[OSM-talk] Should we map things that do not exist?

[Mateusz Konieczny]

May 25, 2020, 17:34 by colin.smale at xs4all.nl:

>
> On 2020-05-25 17:08, Mateusz Konieczny via talk wrote:
>
>
>> May 25, 2020, 16:48 by colin.smale at xs4all.nl:
>>
>>>
>>> On 2020-05-25 16:20, Jack Armstrong wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> Why are railways given a special status?
>>>>
>>> Nobody gives anything a status in OSM. Nothing is "approved" so nothing is "forbidden" either.
>>>
>> It is not really accurate - there is plenty of forbidden things (like running
>> imports without discussion, we have tags that are silently removed by
>> editors like iD and JOSM).
>>
> Doing imports without discussion more about the process, and less about the details of the result. An import can be declared "bad" for many reasons.
>  
> If iD and JOSM remove certain tags when they are encountered, that is different from removing whole objects.
>
OK, though that is much narrower than "Nothing is "approved" so nothing is "forbidden" either."
claim.

>> We have voted on tags that are described as "approved".
>>  
>> Even if ">> Nothing is "approved">> " is true it does not mean that nothing is forbidden.
>>
> Can you name one tag that is "forbidden"? Does that mean a standing instruction to all mappers to remove it whenever it is found, or a license to do a seek-and-destroy across the whole database? Or does "forbidden" not quite mean "may not appear in OSM"? "Frowned upon" possibly.
>
I would say that

"Does that mean a standing instruction to all mappers to remove it whenever it is found,
or a license to do a seek-and-destroy across the whole database?"

applies to several things (listed below).

>> Is there any case of a whole class of objects being removed from OSM on the grounds 
>> that they "do not belong"? Who would burn their fingers on that?
>> Depends on what you mean by "whole class of objects".
>>
> Class, category, whatever... A subset of the objects in the OSM data with common characteristics.
>  
>
>>  
>> If we are looking to set a precedent for that it would probably be wiser to pick on a less controversial and emotive subject.
>>  
>> We have precedent that entire classes and types of things are
>> out of scope.
>>
> Where is that written down? What classes and types of things have been declared out of scope? 
>
For example things that I immediately remember

- fictional objects
- blatantly subjective things like reviews, ratings
- mapping of private objects (location of my bed)
- mapping of moving objects (location of myself or a moving ship or plane)
- completely gone objects (for railways the question is when railway is fully gone)
- personal detail (ties into subjective ones) like "my favorite trees", or "towns I visited"
- objects on Moon/Mars and other locations outside Earth

there is more of that - listed here is what I immediately remembered.

> Any record of a transparent process that led to that?

Not sure if there was any formal process to establish that for
example we are not mapping fictional objects.
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