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<p style=" margin-top:12px; margin-bottom:4px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;"><span style=" font-size:small;">Hello all,</span></p>
<p style=" margin-top:12px; margin-bottom:4px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;"><span style=" font-size:small;">I've posted the below message </span><a href="http://forum.openstreetmap.org/viewtopic.php?pid=451593"><span style=" font-size:small; text-decoration: underline; color:#0057ae;">on the forum</span></a><span style=" font-size:small;">, and have been directed from there to this mailing list, thus re-posting it.</span></p>
<p style=" margin-top:12px; margin-bottom:4px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;"><span style=" font-size:small; font-weight:600;">Idea</span></p>
<p style=" margin-top:12px; margin-bottom:12px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">I would like to suggest making the <span style=" font-weight:600;">paved</span> key for highways (and probably other types of elements) official. Taginfo for <span style=" font-weight:600;">paved</span>:<br /><a href="http://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/paved#values"><span style=" text-decoration: underline; color:#0057ae;">http://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/paved#values</span></a></p>
<p style=" margin-top:12px; margin-bottom:12px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">The above shows that the key is already being used, but the Wiki doesn't describe this key, instead redirecting Key:paved to the article about Key:surface.</p>
<p style=" margin-top:12px; margin-bottom:4px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;"><span style=" font-size:small; font-weight:600;">Rationale</span></p>
<p style=" margin-top:12px; margin-bottom:12px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">Currently, the <span style=" font-weight:600;">surface</span> key is being used as a way of saying that a given <span style=" font-weight:600;">highway</span> is paved or unpaved, but often the value for the <span style=" font-weight:600;">surface</span> key is not a generic <span style=" font-style:italic;">paved</span> or <span style=" font-style:italic;">unpaved</span>, but a specific surface type is given.This is of course very useful for describing the particular surface type a given highway has. However, in some cases, a simple information on just whether a highway is paved or not, would be very useful. One such case would be navigation software – if a user chooses to avoid unpaved roads, the software can check the value of the <span style=" font-weight:600;">surface</span> key, but in practice most (all?) of the navigation software only checks for a subset of all the possible values the <span style=" font-weight:600;">surface</span> key can have. This leads to incorrect (in terms of what the user expects) navigation when, for example, the <span style=" font-weight:600;">surface</span> is set to some value that describes an unpaved road, not recognized by the navigation software – if the software assumes that all <span style=" font-weight:600;">highway</span>s are paved, unless explicitly stated otherwise (by recognized values of known keys), then, in consequence, it assumes that the road in question is paved.</p>
<p style=" margin-top:12px; margin-bottom:12px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">If the <span style=" font-weight:600;">paved</span> key was widely used, then the navigation software would have a simple and clear way of checking whether a given road is paved or not. The default value of the <span style=" font-weight:600;">paved</span> key for <span style=" font-weight:600;">highway</span>s could be <span style=" font-style:italic;">yes</span>, so that it would be consistent with the assumption that <span style=" font-weight:600;">highway</span>s in general are paved.</p>
<p style=" margin-top:12px; margin-bottom:12px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">I don't mean that we should stop using the <span style=" font-style:italic;">paved</span> and <span style=" font-style:italic;">unpaved</span> values for the <span style=" font-weight:600;">surface</span> key – I'm sure those generic values are useful in some cases. However, using the <span style=" font-weight:600;">paved</span> key would be also very useful. Also, the <span style=" font-weight:600;">surface</span>=<span style=" font-style:italic;">paved</span> could also implicate <span style=" font-weight:600;">paved</span>=<span style=" font-style:italic;">yes</span> and similarly <span style=" font-weight:600;">surface</span>=<span style=" font-style:italic;">unpaved</span> could implicate <span style=" font-weight:600;">paved</span>=<span style=" font-style:italic;">no</span>, so that duplication of the information could be avoided when the generic <span style=" font-style:italic;">paved</span> and <span style=" font-style:italic;">unpaved</span> values are set for the <span style=" font-weight:600;">surface</span> key.</p>
<p style=" margin-top:12px; margin-bottom:12px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">I believe that adding an article for the <span style=" font-weight:600;">paved</span> key to the Wiki would encourage people to use this tag, and navigation software makers to implement support for it in their applications.</p>
<p style=" margin-top:12px; margin-bottom:12px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">What do you think about that? </p>
<p style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; "> </p>
<p style=" margin-top:12px; margin-bottom:12px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">Regards,</p>
<p style=" margin-top:12px; margin-bottom:12px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;">Tomek</p></body></html>