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While editing the map in Potlatch 2, I have come across several nodes with no tags (when viewed in Advanced).
An example of five of these can be found at ~
link: Nan river, Thailand

Are they safe to delete ? And did they ever serve any purpose, as they don't render.

asked 11 Aug '11, 09:14

Russ%20McD's gravatar image

Russ McD
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accept rate: 0%


Nodes with no tags can serve the following purposes:

  • they could form an "ellipsis" (three of them in a row) denoting that a way needs continuation.
  • they could be from an ongoing or botched import, where nodes were imported first and some ways using these nodes will be imported later, or were planned to be imported later.
  • they could be a work-in-progress of someone who - for whatever reason - decided to draw nodes first and tag or use them later.
  • they could be part of a way or a relation; depending on what editor and edit mode you are using, it may not be immediately obvious whether a node is part of a relation.

If the un-tagged nodes are on their own, not part of any way or relation, and older than a few months I'd reckon it is safe to delete them, although out of courtesy to your fellow mappers you could find out who created them and send them a message before you do.

permanent link

answered 11 Aug '11, 09:29

Frederik%20Ramm's gravatar image

Frederik Ramm ♦
82.5k927201273
accept rate: 23%

1

"older than a few months". I think few weeks is enough. You can also find the author of the node creation and check the history of his edits. If it is an import still ongoing, don't touch it. But if it is an import that stopped for whatever reason, you should contact the author or even report to the community (see our mailing lists) because you will have tons of such orphan nodes in this case.

(11 Aug '11, 12:32) Pieren
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question asked: 11 Aug '11, 09:14

question was seen: 5,116 times

last updated: 11 Aug '11, 12:32

NOTICE: help.openstreetmap.org is no longer in use from 1st March 2024. Please use the OpenStreetMap Community Forum