Data Rescue Pipeline: Preserving deleted OpenStreetMap features in OpenHistoricalMap

General
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Hi OHM community!!

I wanted to share a microgrant proposal I submitted recently: Data Rescue Pipeline – Preserving Deleted OpenStreetMap Features in OpenHistoricalMap.

This initiative has the potential to benefit both the OSM and OHM communities. I previously shared it on Discord, but the forum feels like the right place to have a wider discussion and hear more perspectives.

From my own experience as a OSM mapper, I remember many situations where I had to delete old buildings/roads infrastructure in OSM to keep the map current. While these edits were necessary, they resulted in the loss of details about what once existed—buildings, roads, landmarks—that are now gone and cannot be recovered. I believe this tool can help ensure that such valuable contributions are not lost forever.

The goal of this project is to build a pipeline and dashboard that allows any user (OSM or OHM) to identify features deleted or modified in OSM which may be potential candidates for preservation in OHM. For the evaluation, we can apply filters and scoring criteria to reduce noise and prioritize historically significant edits. This app would help preserve valuable historical content in OHM and strengthen collaboration between the two communities.

Note: The app will not automatically transfer deleted features from OSM to OHM. Any transfer of information would require action by OSM or OHM users. Additionally, The app will strongly encourage the use of start_date and end_date tags to ensure proper temporal representation of features in OHM.

Any feedback to make this idea better would be great!

Thanks,
Rub21

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As a frequent OSM mapper that has deleted many an outdated object, I´ve been sensing the need for such a feature the minute I came across OpenHistoricalMap! It would save a lot of good work from dedicated mappers, as well as preserving the positional and geometric coherence of map objects.

I’m far from knowing how to implement such a pipeline, but a JOSM plugin would be a great start (I’m not sure if that is what you mean by “app”). As it is arguably the preferred editor of experienced mappers, it would make a lot of sense to provide it with such a tool.

Keep up the good work! I’ll be folowing this discussion.

Selva

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I love that you love this proposal! :sunglasses:

One thing that might help @Rub21’s proposal is to go the microgrant github proposal and give it a :+1:t3:.