[OSM-dev] Machine-readable list of map features?

[Roland Olbricht]

> > The first version could be auto generated, but the next step would imho
> > be to maintain it as a separated file (or db).
> >
> > We could dream of conversion to mapnik style files,
> > josm/osm2go/potlatch/... online presets, error checkers, tagwatch tool,
> > ...
>
> I've started such a tool in my summer break but decided against it. The
> problem with such a separated database is that someone has to maintain it.
> This might end with a few peoples try to decide what tags should be used
> and what not. This is far away from what "many of us" stand for.

Why not wikify that database?

The rough idea is the following: there is not "the" list of definite 
map-features, but we have a single server with user-accounts where every 
application developer could leave his own map feature list (or reuse another 
list). Then the server's job is just to match each feature list against the 
osm database and report the incoherencies to both the mapper and the 
application developer.

From the application developer's point of view, it's no additional work 
because you have to define anyway which tags you want to use.

From the mappers point of view, you can get on a single web page a complete 
feedback about how your tags would impact on all the applications, instead of 
tediously gathering the information from several sources.

And there is still you central instance needed (beside a database server with 
a not-so-complicated software).

Cheers,

Roland