How do I find and recover a deleted way?

At some point, someone deleted a river from the database. (Possibly even me, accidentally, although I don't think so.) Since it's deleted (as opposed to just edited), I don't know how I can look up its reference number, its changelog, etc (and the History tab is, as usual, not very helpful). Is there any way to look through deleted content with a view to restoring it?

The particular element that's lost is (about half of) the Appomattox River, in central Virginia, USA. In the vicinity of this link it forms the border between two counties (so you can see where the river ought to be by looking at the administrative boundaries). Further west, it diverges and runs through the middle of Appomattox County. I had at one point mapped it out almost to its source, and would prefer not to have to do that all again.

asked 24 Jun '13, 08:48

blahedo
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accept rate: 50%

edited 24 Jun '13, 13:56

aseerel4c26 ♦
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2 Answers:

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To find the relevant edits:
- Use a monitoring tool – e.g. "WhoDidIt" or "tyrasd Latest Changes service" (I do not know if it shows deletions too)
- Or use Potlatch 1 if you have a Flash plugin (see Simon's answer).
Then see: How to undo deletions.

Regarding this specific case (also providing some usage info of the mentioned tool…): Still visible on zoomlevel 12 and smaller. Using the new history tab at the location where it should be reveals that it was touched (listed as "modified" but it was delted - that may be the non-production state simon mentions …) 11 days ago. However, http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/way/191331545 - that it was. OSMHV shows it nicely. To be continued there. (I will try to fix that if you, @blahedo, do not like to do it).

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answered 24 Jun '13, 13:53

aseerel4c26 ♦
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edited 09 Jul '16, 14:33

OWL is far from production at this point in time.

(24 Jun '13, 16:45) SimonPoole ♦

Well, what is not "far from production"? ;-) It works!

(24 Jun '13, 17:08) aseerel4c26 ♦

@SimonPoole: so, please tell me what is wrong with using (to improve OSM) a service which is publicly available and which works? At other places beta testers are wanted here you seem to dislike that?!

(24 Jun '13, 20:32) aseerel4c26 ♦

I ended up using OWL which, despite being "far from production", has exactly what I would want in a History tab (good job!) to find the number, and then JOSM with the Undelete plugin to undelete it (and then Potlatch2 to clean it up because I'm not as familiar with the JOSM controls ;)

Thanks all!

(25 Jun '13, 17:16) blahedo

There are two possible (practical) ways that I can think of to solve your problem:

use Potlatch 1 undelete mode (start P2 and remove the 2 from the URL, press "U" to have deleted objects displayed)
use http://simon04.dev.openstreetmap.org/whodidit/ to find the changeset in question and in it the corresponding deleted objects and their ids. You can then undelete the objects in question with JOSM.

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answered 24 Jun '13, 10:08

SimonPoole ♦
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accept rate: 18%

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question asked: 24 Jun '13, 08:48

question was seen: 8,899 times

last updated: 16 Feb '17, 09:15

How do I find and recover a deleted way?

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