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

[Colin Smale]

On 2020-05-25 18:52, Mateusz Konieczny wrote:

> 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 

Objects with these characteristics cannot be (easily) identified in the
data - they would need a human to judge on a case-by-case basis (except
for the extra-terrestrial things, but you might have trouble defining
their location in terms of WGS84 lat/lon anyway...) 

Subjective data is by definition not independently verifiable, so that
can go. Ratings are sometimes awarded by a recognised body (rather than
by customers), and those ratings would IMHO qualify as independently
verifiable.
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