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<p>On 2020-08-07 09:27, Christoph Hormann wrote:</p>
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<blockquote type="cite" style="padding: 0 0.4em; border-left: #1010ff 2px solid; margin: 0"><br /> I concur with a lot of your observations and like you i had essentially <br /> given up on the idea of the coastline representing meaningful <br /> information in the long term. But considering this is a very sad <br /> conclusion which essentially means OpenStreetMap failing in its primary <br /> goal in the single most fundamental mapping task of the planet, namely <br /> the distinction between ocean and land, i am trying my best here to <br /> work towards a consensus - no matter how slim the chances are from my <br /> perspective.<br /><br /></blockquote>
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<div class="pre" style="margin: 0; padding: 0; font-family: monospace">The word "ocean" is already subjective... We need fundamentally to distinguish between land, foreshore and water. These are objective there should be not much argument, except for maybe which low/high water line to use (mean springs or whatever). What the various areas are CALLED is the subject here, and clearly one man's coastline is another man's riverbank. But the fundamental pair of lines, creating the three zones (land, foreshore and water) are required in any case.</div>
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<div class="pre" style="margin: 0; padding: 0; font-family: monospace">By including a definition in OSM of the transition from river to estuary, or from estuary to sea, we are actually "tagging for the renderer" because we are removing the choice from the data consumer and forcing a particular paradigm on the (OSM)-world. We have proven time and time again that it is impossible to synthesise a compromise that suits everyone - it just ends up suiting no-one.</div>
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