[OSM-talk] Too much detail, or: mapping every single tree

[Martin Koppenhoefer]

Am Do., 29. Apr. 2021 um 09:57 Uhr schrieb Mateusz Konieczny via talk <
talk at openstreetmap.org>:

> Fact that someone mapped something in extreme detail should not mean that
> others
> are obligated to maintain it forever.
>
> Note that blocking deletion of completely outdated data would have two
> main effects
> - larger opposition to micromapping (as it may get stuck forever)
> - more outdated data known to be outdated
>
> Personally, as author of some area:highway areas (and even actual data
> consumer of that,
> though just in few locations for one-off projects): it is fine to delete
> my area:highway once
> it will become completely outdated
>
> And the same applies also for bus lines, turn lane tagging, lane tagging...
>
> It is fine to map bus lines, but it is also fine to delete utterly
> outdated relations.
>


hm, maybe I got your first message wrong. I agree that outdated (completely
outdated, not referring to the current situation) data can be removed, e.g.
a bus line that is not existing any more. If on the other hand, there were
a few modifications to the bus line but it still represents more or less
the current bus route, you would not remove the whole thing because there's
a different route between two of its stops.
As always, it depends.
For most Attributes (tags) you would have to know the correct tag in order
to understand that the old one is not correct any more, e.g. to see that
opening hours are wrong, you would have to know the correct ones. There are
some exceptions, e.g. you can see that a phone number is not valid any more
or a website is not existing any more, and you could remove these tags. Not
sure if it would actually improve the situation though, because a business
whose website is not online any more has probably closed it's doors
completely, and not just the website. When you remove the website tag, it
is harder to detect automatically that there is a potential problem.
Deleting is mostly not the best answer, although there are situations where
it is appropriate. I removed it because I didn't want to deal with so much
detail is typically a weak argumentation, when it is also completely wrong,
things change.
I guess I have been alerted because someone on the German forum wrote this
morning his solution to complex situations is deleting the objects (not
sure how serious this was though).

Cheers,
Martin
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