To branch out a little bit — sorry to hijack the thread Steve — it would be nice to do a nationwide transit mapathon around transit. We used to run nationwide coordinated mapathons and I miss them. I think they are fun to connect communities. Who’s in and who wants to help coordinate?
Martijn > On Sep 18, 2018, at 11:23 AM, OSM Volunteer stevea > <[email protected]> wrote: > > Yes, I've been beating the drums rather loudly about USA Rail recently, yet > there is so much that OSM can (and should, imo) do about this. OSM's actual > rail data (imported from TIGER a decade ago) do slowly improve, and for that > I am grateful, even as a lot of the work is both mine and many others. > > However, our wiki regarding rail is, um, "messy" for reasons that are largely > historical. In short, there is a distinct trend towards "statewide" rail > pages that rather comprehensively describe both freight/industrial rail (in > terms of major Class I and smaller railroads), then as things cleave from > freight to passenger, link to our Amtrak page (which remains quite > respectable) where applicable, AND describe the rapidly growing passenger > rail networks/systems in cities large, medium and small in the USA. > (Suburban/commuter trains, light rail systems, trams, monorails around > airports, tourism/heritage/historic/museum rail, etc.) > > Unfortunately, there are also many rail wiki (most written by the > banned-from-OSM-years-ago infamous NE2) which, while seemingly > well-intentioned, are mere "dead end" histories of defunct rail from a > century ago, rather than the becoming-more-vibrant-daily rail network that I > (and others) want to see both properly mapped in OSM and documented in our > wiki in a sane, comprehensive way. > > For example, (precede all of these with https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/) > here are some of these "defunct" pages I'd like to see "re-purposed" and > eventually go away: > > Southern_Pacific_Transportation_Company > Missouri_Pacific_Railroad > Atchison,_Topeka_and_Santa_Fe_Railway > Southern_Railway_(U.S.) > Illinois_Central_Railroad_(pre-1972) > > and I'm sure that isn't a complete list. These railroads haven't existed for > decades and while I have great respect for how disused and abandoned > railroads both are and should be "in" OSM (and "properly" documented in our > wiki), this really isn't "today's" way to do it. There are "cross-links" > with Wikipedia which likely make sense here, I'd like to focus OSM's wikis on > useful structure/organization of an entire states rail networks and providing > links to the actual underlying relation data that make our data so useful. > Wikipedia isn't going to do that, but it can (and should) capture > centuries-old history where we shouldn't. > > Of course, there are wiki pages about USA Rail which must remain, including > the worldwide https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_Metro_systems > which has a USA section that is "fair to good" and more than one absolutely > charming wiki like > https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Walt_Disney_World_Monorail_System which I > find delightful and shouldn't change a byte (unless they need updates). > > In short, I'm asking this talk-us list if "rail wiki cleanup in the USA" is > on the right track (so, chime in with your consensus additions, please). Is > the "trend" towards statewide rail wikis correct? (It seems so to me). Can > the NE2-authored "old stuff" (many of these wiki haven't been touched in 7+ > years) be repurposed and then deleted? > > Please contact me on-list or off if you want to see rail data and rail wiki > continue to improve in OSM and we can talk about how — there is a great deal > to do! > > SteveA > California > _______________________________________________ > Talk-us mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us _______________________________________________ Talk-us mailing list [email protected] https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
