I’m looking for guidance on the correct way to model a public artwork in OpenStreetMap.
A few months ago, while learning OSM editing, I mapped a bus shelter artwork in a way that now appears to associate the artwork with an entire street segment rather than with the bus shelter itself. At the time, I did not fully understand that the preferred approach would be to map the bus shelter as its own feature and then associate the artwork with that location. I have since learned more about OSM editing and am trying to correct my earlier work without losing useful history or creating additional problems.
The original artwork object is here:
This artwork is a vinyl bus shelter wrap titled Summertime by Emily Clanton, installed through Public Art Chattanooga’s Art in Neighborhoods program.
I subsequently created/updated this artwork node at the installation location:
However, the node still appears to have a relationship to Dixon Street, and I’m not sure whether the old way should be converted, removed, detached from the roadway, or handled some other way.
One complicating factor is that the bus shelter itself does not appear to have been mapped as a separate feature. My suspicion is that, while trying to represent the installation several months ago, I attached artwork information to existing roadway geometry rather than creating a dedicated bus shelter feature first.
What would be the preferred OSM approach for:
Representing a bus shelter artwork installation at this location?
Mapping the bus shelter itself if it does not currently exist in OSM?
Retiring or correcting the older artwork way?
Preserving useful history and attribution while removing the implication that the artwork occupies the entire street segment?
Thank you for any guidance. I’m still learning OSM editing and would appreciate advice on the most appropriate cleanup method.
Welcome to the OpenStreetMap community; we are glad to have you start contributing.
I would like to clarify that my opinion below is not definitive, but rather my own perspective based on my understanding of various OSM consensuses and practices.
First, let me share my opinion based on the understanding that the “artwork” you are referring to is indeed “this”.
As far as I understand, although this artwork is located at a bus shelter, it actually has no correlation with “transportation features”. Therefore, I believe it should be drawn separately from the bus stop or the bus shelter.
By way of comparison, if it were functioning as a part of the bus stop facilities related to “transportation features”—such as light fixtures or benches—it would be correct to include and mark it within the “bus stop” feature. In this case, however, it merely utilizes the same structure and is unrelated to “transportation features”. (In the case of ‘bus shelter’, please refer to the “Key:shelter” entry.)
Thus, my thought is that regardless of the presence of a bus shelter, it would be better to map it as an “artwork” feature and add its specific location.
Furthermore, since it obviously does not span across the entire street but exists only at the bus stops, I believe each one should be mapped individually at its respective bus stop location.
I had a quick look. And it looks to me that you initially copied Dixon Street and changed the tagging to the way: Summertime. Then later you added a node: Sumertime connected to Dixon Street and the Summertime way.
So now there are two objects Summertime. One of them has to go.
What I would do:
Make sure the node Summertime has all the required/correct tagging
Delete the way Summertime
Disconnect the node Summertime from the way Dixon Street
Reposition node Summertime to the correct position.
Remove redundant, untagged, nodes from Dixon Street (If there are any)
Edit: Had a second look and it looks like you did not changed to copy of Dixon Street but the original.
So to keep the oldest history the copy should be deleted and the original restored to Dixon Street. But that leaves a lot of “garbage” history (the change to Summertime and the change back to Dixon Street). Not sure what is the best option.
With “garbage” history, I meant the removal and restore of the highway-related tags and the adding and removal of the artwork-related tags. But you are right it is real history; it only looks a bit messy. That’s why garbage is in quotation marks
And restoring the original way would keep the oldest creation date of the way.
But as I said before, I am not sure what is the best option: restoring the original and deleting the copy or deleting the original and changing the copy into the road.
On second thought, changing the copy would also have a lot of add on/take off history and looses the earliest date. So maybe keeping the original and loosing the copy is the best way to go.
Either way the artwork node should be disconnected from the way and put into the correct location.
