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How to tag an object not existing anymore but still showing the location for historical questioning

1

Hi! At Sommerrodelbahn Grebenzen there exists a former summer_toboggan in the database which was completely removed some years ago. In OSM it is tagged as abandoned=yes. In Opentopomap it is still shown, most likely because of not questioning the abandoned tag.

For me abandoned should be used, when the track would be still out there, but is not used anymore. Similar to a "Lost Place".

Now to the question: What would be the correct tagging of an object to say it does not exist anymore, but the old track is still saved for historical questioning?

Thanks!

asked 08 Aug '22, 09:22

Khananos's gravatar image

Khananos
26113
accept rate: 0%

edited 08 Aug '22, 11:48

SimonPoole's gravatar image

SimonPoole ♦
44.7k13326701


One Answer:

2

abanoned=yes is a so-called "troll tag". Don't use it because it leads to the exact problem that you describe - services ignoring the tag will draw the wrong conclusions. It's like "planned=yes" or "destroyed=yes" - if you're looking for a hospital then it is unlikely a planned or destroyed one will be useful to you.

Instead, use an "abandoned:" prefix for the feature tag, e.g. abandoned:highway=motorway or abaondoned:tourism=attaction.

Note that we do not record historic objects of which all traces have vanished - once the thing has been completely dismantled, you should delete it from the database. The "historical questioning" you are talking about would, in OSM, have to take place using the OSM history data file which contains old versions of things.

answered 08 Aug '22, 09:38

Frederik%20Ramm's gravatar image

Frederik Ramm ♦
82.5k927201273
accept rate: 23%

edited 08 Aug '22, 09:40

I have not tagged it myself with this tag. Just found it and thought that this couldn´t be correct. And was looking for the correct way to fix this in the future.

So i will remove the complete feature from the database to correct this failure. Thanks!

(08 Aug '22, 09:56) Khananos

Source code available on GitHub .