Martin Koppenhoefer wrote:
My own interest here is more historic than current and I was looking for the >development of areas relating to my family tree, but there seems to be a >general consensus that once an object ceases to exist it should be deleted >from the database.there is not this general consensus in the community for completely removing former objects (but it might be a majority who doesn't want them, not sure). Have a look at abandoned and disused features, some "historic" features and also objects to be expected in the future ("proposed" and "construction"). Just a few days ago someone proposed on the German ML to agree on a standard way for tagging these by applying the status as a prefix (e.g. disused:amenity=pub). There is some well established objects that work differently though (railway=abandoned, etc.)
I am thinking that a second database 'layer' is the best way of handling some of this. I think that this also marries up with other historic data such as 'imports' which can then be retained in a compatible manor and used to process a new 'import' to provide difference reports at least.
railway=abandoned is something of a grey area. The abandoned line over the road from here is still classified as active, so a bridge had to be built to accommodate electric running. Sounds silly perhaps, but the local steam preservation group have extended the line to Broadway, and have an option to extend to Honeybourne to connect to the 'main line' so had the 'abbandoned line' not been marked ...
But the one thing I lobby for very strongly is that the correct 'start_date' is attached to an object. This is the one aspect of the recent confusion that has probably been overlooked. Having deleted existing buildings, the fact that they already exist has been lost, so there is no way to identify them from new buildings that only appear in the latest import ... With all the historic mapping now available we have the option to add historic dates to objects as well ... without interfering with anybody else?
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