I've recently had two instances of people deleting data that I had entered. Their rationale? You only map what's on the ground. Their authority to do so? Armchair mapping.
This is wrong, and it's got to stop. Nobody should be deleting data that somebody else entered unless they have actually BEEN to the place, failed to see any trace of the mapped entity, and are an expert at identifying the mapped entity. This should be the case no matter the entity: whether fire hydrants, buildings, intersections, park benches, railroads, canals, whatever. This, of course, has to be tempered against the TIGER data, which is flawed. So I think the rule of thumb should be: delete, but if somebody else reverts, then you have no authority to start an edit war unless you've been there and they haven't. Or if you have any doubt, send them a message via OSM: "Can I delete this?" Apparently some people object to seeing things in their editor which they can't see on the aerial photograph. I counsel tolerance, humility, and in the case of JOSM, liberal use of the Filter to hide data that bothers you (I almost always edit with border=administrative hidden. I don't see them on the ground, but I don't suggest that we should delete them). We need to make sure that the Wikipedia deletionism doesn't take hold within OSM. Because, if I have to spend time defending the data I've already entered, that will take away from my effort to enter new data. In case you think I'm blowing smoke out my butt (who the hell blows smoke out their butt??), I've entered about 90% of the lakes in NY that are there, and about 50% of the rivers and streams that I have looked for (so far). I've aligned the TIGER data in about 7 counties. It's a huge amount of work that nobody else is doing, and it would be a shame if I had to stop people from deleting what I've already done. I stand firm against deletionism! -- --my blog is at http://blog.russnelson.com Crynwr supports open source software 521 Pleasant Valley Rd. | +1 315-600-8815 Potsdam, NY 13676-3213 | Sheepdog _______________________________________________ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
