I noticed that this track is not visible on the ground (it’s a ploughed piece of agricultural land) and wanted to deleted it. However, it’s part of the Via Appia historic route, possibly one of the most famous Roman roads. What should be done in this case?
Change the highway=track into something that’s not a highway but can still be part of a historic route relation
Remove the way from the route relation and then delete it (thereby creating a gap in the route relation)
Remove all ways that no longer have the appearance of the Roman road from the route relation and keeping only the ones that are part of the original Roman road (or look like it) that still exist on the ground.
Delete the whole historic route relation, because historic routes have no place on OSM (move it to OHM if not already there)
The simplest option would be to assign a lifecircle prefix to the paths that are no longer visible. This way, the relation would not have to be touched.
Someone has taken the trouble to record it here. Although it is not the perfect place for it, in many cases it does not matter.
I’m not familiar with the local situation, i was just walking by on holiday (hiking the Via Peuceta). I did not see any signs that there ever was a track there, and nothing is visible on any aerial images, so I would have no doubt deleting it if it wasn’t part of a route relation.
I sent a message to @ualios who added the track 4 years ago with changeset description “Itinerario Appia Antica”
Hi, to trace the entire route from Rome to Brindisi, in some part disappeared and not well known, as for track referred, I followed the itinerary traveled by journalist and writer Paolo Rumiz https://www.parcoarcheologicoappiaantica.it/il-parco/storia/protagonisti/paolo-rumiz/
If there’s no sign on the ground, a good solution could be adding the tag abandoned=highway, or something like that. So no track to render and not gap in relation.
I think following the rule that we map what is visible on the ground we should map those parts of the way which are still existing in case of a historic route and forget about those which are no longer existing and therefor no longer verifyable. Mapping parts of such a route based on a description given by some other person does not fulfil the requirements of verifyability imo.
If all those parts of the route which are still existing nowadays are mapped and put together in a relation this relation will still give a good idea about the ancient route and can be verified by other mappers any time.
There are some never ending discussions about the same issue in regard of razed historic railway lines in the german forum and recently one about the romanian limes with exactly the same question: does it make sense to draw a line across farmland, forest and waterbodies to indicate the assumed way of the ancient limes when no visible traces are left on the ground? Or would it be better to map the visible remains (including information boards and the like) and put them together in a relation which will still give an idea about the course of this historic object.
My vote is to map what is existing not what we believe has been existing years or decades ago.
The parts that are still used today or visible today can be mapped like they are. For the parts where nothing exists, I guess the best fit for that would be www.openhistoricalmap.org.
I guess the problem lies in the bad documentation of route=historic The English wiki page is tagged as a recent translation from the German one that isn’t very clear either.
For now I will remove the track from the relation and then delete it. When I have time, I might start a new thread on improvement of those wiki pages (if someone else hasn’t done that yet).
I don’t think it’s good practice to map something historic based on the itinerary of one journalist/writer. I understand that the route of the Via Appia in Puglia is not clear at all, see the Wikipedia article. If there are no visible remains and the location is uncertain, it shouldn’t be mapped.