In Germany I found at least one battlefield from the mid of the last century which is tagged as historic=battlefield. Both in English and in German the mid of the last century is included in that what is modern. In Germany the modern period is often considered as a time span from the beginning of the twentieth century either until today or until to a subsequent era, which is called postmodern. The question if the modern age already ended or not is not important. But if we consider the modern age as the century (1900 – 1999) and we would agree not to tag any modern battlefield as historic=battlefield, which other tag should we use for them?

The definition of the historic=battlefield tag raises an interesting question concerning the key discussed in that thread: What means historic in the context of OSM? According to the wiki page the tag is properly for: „The site of a battle or military skirmish in the past. This could be on land or at sea.“ Okay, we could consider battles and skirmishes as ended if there is no soldiers or working military robots anymore. If they ended they are in the past. That is an easy point, I hope. But to be historic means to pertain history as far as I understand it and history is, I would define it, and many other would agree I assume, not simply everything in the past. History is some kind of narration, may created by a community through it tales, may a reconstruction (attempt) of forgone events by historians.

Should we define are limit of what should be tagged as historic? Do we need a barrier (ten years out of use, for example) or is the key properly for everything what is now out of use? If there is an aircraft standing on an airstrip which has been decommissioned yesterday (or thirty minutes ago), is it considered properly to tag them as historic=aircraft?


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