<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><br class=""><div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Nov 16, 2019, at 7:50 PM, Andy Townsend <<a href="mailto:ajt1047@gmail.com" class="">ajt1047@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration: none; float: none; display: inline !important;" class=""><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>A complicated scheme dreamt up here isn't going to get taken up by anyone. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div></blockquote><br class=""></div><div>I took these 3 pictures yesterday while out cycling: <a href="https://imgur.com/gallery/Wqc5Ems" class="">https://imgur.com/gallery/Wqc5Ems</a></div><div><br class=""></div><div>The largest of the 8 levees I rode on is 140m wide (edge to edge) where I took these pictures, according to an online imagery measuring tool. they are about 3 stories tall. the north side levee is 100M wide. These are all built on flat open ground, the levees 100% man-made. the river is 600m wide here during a typhoon. </div><div><br class=""></div><div>others were: </div><div><br class=""></div><div>148&60m (both levees total width, near a river junction)</div><div>54&30m (smaller river)</div><div>40&50m (smaller river)</div><div>65&42-70m (they are widening them, a demolished house foundation seen here in maxar imagery <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/746507486" class="">https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/746507486</a>).</div><div><br class=""></div><div>much farther upriver near my town, where the levee on a tributary begins, they are a modest 40 & 30m wide where they sprout out of foothills the river has cut.</div><div><br class=""></div>~~~~~~~<br class=""><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I agree that complicated schemes won’t get used, which is why I want the smallest usable method necessary **for people who want to add more detail in addition to existing schemes** , something that scales similar to how we map businesses (pin, building, landuse) depending on how much detail you wish to add. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">if you don’t feel the need to map an embankment in such detail, don’t. if it is too small, don’t. I don’t want to create a scheme that replaces the current embankment/cutting/ levee, but is on top of current schemes, and allows you to map their extent **if you wish to**.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">When things are huge, you *have to* have the ability to represent *anything* in OSM by border or area. If I was living back in San Diego, the cuttings for the freeway are the only cuttings I can think of worth mapping as an area. here in Japan, embankments / cuttings/ levees are everywhere. One levee bank is wider than most railway corridors - and we have an area for those, despite that the train tracks already being mapped. We understand that the area of the corridor is useful, to represent landuse and as a defacto barrier.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The same is true for large embankments/levees. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">For very large features *of any type* in OSM, they their area needs to be represented *somehow* in OSM. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Javbw </div></body></html>