<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 3px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><font face="Arial"><span style="font-style: normal;">Thanks for the detailed history Michael!</span></font></p><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 3px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><font face="Arial"><span style="font-style: normal;"><br></span></font></p><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 3px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><font face="Arial"><span style="font-style: normal;">As you say, most of the ways tagged ‘gravel’ in Australia could probably be re-tagged as ‘fine_gravel’ to more accurately follow the wiki and to accord broadly with common usage of the word gravel. </span></font></p><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 3px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><font face="Arial"><span style="font-style: normal;"><br></span></font></p><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 3px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><font face="Arial"><span style="font-style: normal;">Re compacted vs fine_gravel, personally I can’t tell the difference from the descriptions in the wiki. Both descriptions could be applied to the same stretches of rural road in many parts of Australia. Two problems are: the descriptions require mappers to know what is underneath the top surface layer and to know how the surface was made or applied (e.g. was it ‘rolled’ or not?). These aren’t mutually exclusive I’d have thought. Neither feature is common knowledge presumably, and both might be somewhat irrelevant if the road hasn’t been re-surfaced for a decade or so.</span></font></p><p class="p2" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22.7px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><font face="Arial"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span class="s2"></span><br></span></font></p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s2" style="font-style: normal;"><font face="Arial">In an earlier message you said that you distinguished fine_gravel from compacted surfaces depending on whether the surface was loose (fine_gravel) or firm (compacted) when ridden on a bike. This seems to be a completely different distinction to that described in the wiki. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Wouldn’t this vary seasonally, and across the road surface from the edge to the middle, and over time, depending on how recent the road was maintained? </font></span></p><p class="p2" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22.7px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><font face="Arial"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span class="s2"></span><br></span></font></p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s2" style="font-style: normal;"><font face="Arial">It would be valuable to have a reliable distinction between earth/dirt/ground road surfaces (which may be bulldozed every so often but little more) from ‘improved’ compacted/fine_gravel/gravel surfaces, but distinctions beyond this seem unlikely to eventuate anytime soon. In the meantime, the numbers show that mappers prefer to use ‘gravel’ to indicate ‘improved’ road surfaces (i.e. compacted/fine_gravel etc), even though this usage contradicts the idiosyncratic definition in the wiki. The most obvious downside to this practice is that we don’t have a reliable way to distinguish the small number of road surfaces that are covered with coarse ‘railway ballast’ unfortunately.</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22.7px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><font face="Arial"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span class="s2"></span><br></span></font></p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s2" style="font-style: normal;"><font face="Arial">If you’re interested, the taginfo data on surfaces in Australia is really interesting...</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22.7px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><font face="Arial"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span class="s2"></span><br></span></font></p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s2" style="font-style: normal;"><a href="https://taginfo.geofabrik.de/australia-oceania/australia/keys/surface#values"><font face="Arial">https://taginfo.geofabrik.de/australia-oceania/australia/keys/surface#values</font></a></span></p><p class="p2" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22.7px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><font face="Arial"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span class="s2"></span><br></span></font></p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s2" style="font-style: normal;"><font face="Arial">Thanks again for your insights and for 16 years of great mapping! <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Best wishes Ian</font></span></p><p class="p2" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22.7px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><font face="Arial"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span class="s2"></span><br></span></font></p><p class="p2" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22.7px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s2"></span><br></p></body></html>