I reverted this and few others where I think you certainly shouldn't have touched the ways to begin with (not all touching Finland though since I don't have time to go through enough object given my limited time). But the other suggestion about adding note=*, I didn't do since I think that is entirely useless and removing was:*=* like you suggest is plain wrong because it would make our local, more correctly timed housekeeping radar to perform worse due to noise and free-format in note=* value space, although obviously it would certainly hide them under you non-local housekeeping radar too.

Unfortunately I expect this "fixing" to reoccur again and again after some time by somebody else unless the taginfo process gets more clear guidelines according the mechanical edit policy (it's using massively computer search to locate objects in question and thus IMHO it falls under mechanical edits policy).

I mean "OSM should definately not require that" (guessing obscure future events). :-)

Good to know about "old_*" but did you know that I find them useful even after a highway is gone completely as somebody might make an emergency call and use the old name (the only thing he/she might know as no longer local but only visiting) as the location indicator. How can one decide that's no longer a indicator for something if somebody is still using it even if the original feature is long gone already (this applies to names only, not a general "keep all history" argument here!). The official maps at least in Finland (perhaps in other countries too) seem to _immediately_ forget this kind of info and I find OSM would have lot to offer in this kind of knowledge if we don't drop old namings without extremely good justification!

I thought we're only mapping what's on the ground, not "why" it's on the ground. Or "why" it isn't! How can I even know that? Perhaps some decision in some city council or whatever to remove it, who knows... Why'd you even want to know that? Hopefully not because your housekeeping task depends on that information? I said I'm guessing what will happen in the future, not that I know. I didn't even do that guess about the construction site thing until now when I looked into your changeset where you removed it because it was enough for me to note that it's no longer on the ground (for whatever reason). I think such housekeeping approach that depends on a local mapper guessing future using local knowledge is broken to begin with (OSM should definately require that!).

Or the "when" question, how do I know? I only noticed it around the time when I changed that to was:* (or remembered to put that observation to OSM, might not be so easy to remember once one surveys a rather long route nearly every weekday and relies mostly on memory alone to carry such details about removals). So it was removed at earliest when I changed but requiring "when" is again requiring me to input non-ground information.

But that information was there, even you acknowledge above that you understood what was:* meant! If something is "was", obviously a sane mapper shouldn't remap that or do you disagree with that interpretation? ;-) So I don't understand why you think additional note=* would have been needed, it seems stubborn attitude at best if you say one is *required* add note=* even though was:*= would clearly be enough and even more precise what is/was going on there (e.g., easier non-Finns as it's easy to understand without much language skills)!!!

And besides, additional note is also here: osm.org/changeset/22421235 but that's no longer accessable from JOSM because you removed the way now (try with ctrl-h, do you see it or not?). The changeset comment is in Finnish but I'll translate that you: "camoflaged to look like normal ground already" (along these lines, no exact translation I know for the particular Finnish word hacky "terrainified already" would be the closest perhaps).

I want to stress again (to soften the tone here) that I find housekeeping in general good and support what you're doing with the namespace in general. It's just that was:* and perhaps old_* is sort of exception which you should be extremely careful with :-).

I've removed plenty of was:*=* ways once they are not needed anymore or do more harm than good for mappers so please don't try to argue that I'd be using them for history preserving! :-)

Does ctrl-h access removed ways like the 183967962? AFAIK it doesn't and there isn't such service at all in OSM ecosystem which would allow easy access to historical objects (not to speak of that appearing visually in the editor)!

Notes are much less obviously that was:*=*, IMHO, as serves as a dedicated note about this particular case where something was removed from ground (it's easy to find later and therefore easier to remove too when not needed anymore! You seemed to have proved even that easy to find point by finding them yourself using some automation! :-)).

But I can certainly compromise with you and try to leave only was:highway=* instead of the 3-8 tags but I think such cleanup would still be applied incorrectly to them (as there was "only six" like you said).

Now this edit in particular highlights why you definately shouldn't be doing this at all!

As these ways or at least on of them is likely to reappear once the construction site is gone and obviously you didn't know because you're not a local mapper! But I also understand that nobody put his/hers educated guesses about post-construction site status into note or FIXME, so I understand that you might even try to put the blame on locals not helping your housekeeping :-(.

To me, on the otherhand, it's indication that you shouldn't be doing what you did at all with was:*=* as your edit is clearly harmful here!

Adding some free format note=* (which you have kept) instead of very simple and obvious was:* seems very useless, IHMO.

I just checked Bing imagery. The old route is still very much visible there so I think that a correspoding way with was:* should definately appear in OSM DB too other than in history only! How do you think that somebody looking there would know it's gone now? Finding such changes concerning that little spot from history is way too tedious process with the current tools, so mappers definately wouldn't spend their time on that unfortunately.

And, I'm not against the cleaning itself, it's certainly useful!

I just find removing at least was:* very careless practice.

Yes, I sort of knew that for cleanup but I was just entirely surprised by the effect,
that is, ways which I definately find still useful (even for couple of
years) were removed because of such "housekeeping task".

I don't understand what you mean, your claim contradicts what you did. You
removed this way:

osm.org/way/183967962/history

How does it now prevent remapping it?

This is not for history maps or for such. You misunderstood the concept
completely if you think we're leaving them for such use.

Once all the history information is trivially accessable in the
all the major editors, then maybe it helps to prevent remapiing but even
then it's a big maybe that remapping would be prevented as it would be
very likely that no visual clue is available without accessing the history
information first using that history interface no matter how trivial it
would be.

Are you serious about the bloat thing? Bloat because of keeping demolished/removed features
with was:* prefix is so negligible that it's hardly worth to even mention.
Besides, was:* is clearly distinct from normal namespace, so you pollution
argument doesn't make much sense to me either!

What old_* was included, I'm yet to find them but I'm certainly
interested in seeing if old_name=* in particular was affected?

In addition, it is unfortunate that such "housekeeping" tasks seem to be
higher prioritized here that ease of mappers tracking changes in a easy
to access manner (history only objects definately aren't easy for an
ordinary mapper to look into).

To reiterate my point:
You removed a recently removed ways completely so that they don't
appear anymore in the editor. I've had a case where people have redrawn a
parking area from old imagery (it's very hard/time-consuming to prove/find
these incorrect redrawings and therefore any measure to avoid). I'd want
to avoid that. Also, I've benefitted many times from was: prefixed details
others have left around (mainly with traffic_signs that were recently
removed, if there wouldn't have been was: I might have added stale data back from old videos as processing them takes more time than I have for inputting all of them!).

Why did you remove was: prefixed ways? Are you a local mapper or how did you consult Finnish community about this kind of edits in Finland? Is this some form of mechanical edit? Where's the description for this mechanical like edit?

And yes, we know that they don't exists anymore but we don't want some non-local to remove them prematurely to avoid somebody using obsolete imagery or local knowledge to redraw them.

T pois siis oikeasti eikä S. Sen siitä saa kun multitaskaa.

Taisit unohtaa old_name:n ja :fi/:sv variaatiot, sekä subway_entrance tms. nodejen nimet.