Produce a warning when connecting boundaries with real elements

[AntMadeira]

Description

Hi there.

I know this issue was brought up in some places (like in #7619) but not as a request like this, I think.

I loose a lot of time disconnecting boundaries from real elements, like tracks, paths, roads, buildings, rivers, etc.
Since iD doesn't hide the boundary layer by default (which I think ought to be standard), it should at least give a warning when connecting or overlapping boundaries with other elements. Hopefully, this will help new mappers or even experienced ones not to do this inadvertently or because they just don't know this is a problem.
For example, in Portugal, boundaries are imported from official sources. If they keep being "stuck" to other real world elements, the data is being wrongly changed.

Regards.

Screenshots

No response

[1ec5]

Boundaries are filtered out by default (which prevents moving nodes attached to them). I wonder if maybe a more effective place to warn about connections would be when enabling boundaries.

[AntMadeira]

Boundaries are filtered out by default (which prevents moving nodes attached to them).

What do you mean by this?
If you you're saying that boundaries layer is hidden by default, this is not true. See #8454.

[matheusgomesms]

On RapiD the boundaries layer are always disabled by default, but not on iD (at least on my experience).

[AntMadeira]

Is there anyone who can tackle this huge problem with iD?
In the last days, a new user created new tracks, connecting them to admin boundaries.
Please, at least, hide the boundary layer by default. That would reduce immensely the number of this kind of errors, but the ideal would be to combine that with a warning whenever a boundary is connected to other elements.

[1ec5]

Boundaries are already hidden by default in general:

iD/dist/index.html

Line 49 in c8a3cf1

// disable boundaries (unless we have an explicit disable_features list)

If you’re seeing the Boundaries layer enabled, it may be because you previously turned it on and iD remembered that choice across sessions, or because you used a URL to iD that specified a custom layer list. Or as in #8454 (comment), maybe this particular user had just finished the walkthrough and there’s a bug with how it transitions back to live editing.

[AntMadeira]

As I did a few months ago, I've just cleared my cookies, my cache and my credentials and created a new account at openstreetmap.org
The boundary layer still appears activated and I didn't go through the tutorial.

I also doubt the new user knew how to activate the boundary layer, if it was deactivated, because all he drew was some trails in the woods.
So there must be a problem and the layer is showing as default, although the devs may think it isn't.

[1ec5]

Thank you for going through the steps to verify that the layer is still being activated despite the code I pointed to. We have #8454 still open to track this issue.

[AntMadeira]

I just want to give a friendly bump here, since editions from new users on the admin boundaries continue...

[1ec5]

openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website#4514 would mitigate the issue of hapless new users editing boundaries by accident. Users would not see the boundary layer by default and won’t accidentally connect anything to a boundary.

However, in some cases, the user may end up needing to edit an existing feature that’s already connected to a boundary. iD will prevent them from moving or deleting the feature unless they manually enable the boundary layer, in order to have full context about what they’re doing. To the extent that the feature was legitimately connected to a boundary in the first place, moving or deleting is less likely to be appropriate, but they can continue to make routine tagging changes.

[AntMadeira]

Thank you, @1ec5.
I second what you wrote here.