OpenStreetMap
Today I downloaded and installed JOSM to see what it can do. It was actually really easy - I'm using it on Windows which comes with Java already installed by default. That JOSM is awesome! Really great program, love it. With JOSM it was easy to see all the TIGER errors that need to be fixed just in San Francisco. Can't wait to get started.
So I'll start fixing it up as soon as I figure out what all of the conventions are for streets and other objects. It looks like they all have a direction (even if it's a two-way street), and they have nodes where the interesections are, and divided highways have two streets side-by-side, etc. I know there's a guide on the wiki, I just need to read it more carefully. The other thing I don't understand are the tags - it seems like the TIGER data has so many tags just for each and every street - what tags should I include if I add a new street or path?
But the big question I have about this is: how is OSM backed up? If I spend a lot of time fixing all the San Francisco data, can it accidentally get deleted? If so, can I just download some data (like San Francisco Bay Area only) onto my computer and back it up there? (I mean, in a format that would make it easy to upload to OSM again, if necessary?)
Discussion
Comment from Skywave on 26 March 2008 at 08:04
You can forget about any of the tags that start with tiger:* when you create a new road, they are just for the tiger import. Though it would be useful if you change the tiger:verifier=no when you checked an area. About the OSM backup, you can save your data with JOSM, or just extract an planet dump. But it is actually not necessary, When you delete an way it remains in the database, you just need to restore it, Potlatch the flasheditor can already do this when you press U or H and JOSM will support it when someone finished it
Comment from robx on 26 March 2008 at 08:05
To include a new street or path, it's usually sufficient for a start to set the 'highway' and 'name' tags, 'oneway' if applicable.
If you download an area through JOSM, you can save it as a .osm file which you could use later to restore the data. Also, history for all objects is stored in the database (they're not actually deleted), though there is not yet a good method for mass undeletion.