On 20/09/2018 16:37, Dan S wrote:
Op do 20 sep. 2018 om 16:31 schreef Mark Goodge <m...@good-stuff.co.uk>:
However, historic administrative boundaries, by definition, are not
current. They're not an edge case. They are completely outside the
realms of what is current.
Your "by definition" seems to be about "historical", not "historic" (a
distinction which already came up somewhere else in this thread).
Historical things are in the past; historic things were important in
the past, and might or might not still exist. I'm sure that seems
pedantic and I'm sorry, but it seems almost to be the crux of the
matter.
Administrative boundaries cease to be current when they are changed or
deleted by whichever organisation has the authority to change them.
The debate around the historic counties is not about whether or not
their boundaries are still current. They are not. That is indisputable.
The debate is about whether they are still *important*, to the extent
that justifies mapping them in OSM even though they have no current
legal or administrative significance.
Now, I do agree that the mid Victorian county boundaries (which are the
ones generally accepted as the boundaries of the historic counties,
although there are other definitions) are important for a number of
things. They matter for a lot of historical research, particularly
genealogy and architecture. So having them readily available in data,
and viewable on a map, is valuable.
However, that function is precisely what OHM is designed for. It isn't
what OSM is designed for. So the historic county boundaries more
correctly belong in OHM rather than OSM.
In fact, putting them in OSM isn't just damaging to OSM, it's damaging
to OHM. At the moment, OHM is a bit sparse, there are some well-mapped
areas but there are some pretty big blank areas. What it really needs is
a group of enthusiastic contributors, who are knowledgeable about
history and want to see it mapped. Putting the historic counties into
OHM would be a huge boost for it, it would make OHM much more useful for
genealogists, fans of listed buildings, ancient monuments, old railways,
etc. And there are plenty of those. That in turn would drive more users
of OHM, and more contributors, thus helping to make it even more useful.
Mark
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