[OSM-dev] The wiki defines the database (was: relations)

[Richard Fairhurst]

Andy Allan wrote:

> I've been hit by it a few times, and one specific case that annoys me
> greatly. I invented a tag by using it (OMG!!), and then even rendering
> it. Other people started using it. Then the wiki-types made up their
> own alternative tag without making any reference to the existing ones
> that were in the db and being rendered. So I realised it was about
> time to document the already-in-use, already-rendered tag, which
> triggered a virulent campaign by the wiki-types to repeatedly delete
> the information that I had put up, ignore the evidence from the
> database, claim voting was the be-all and end-all, and label tags that
> are (still) in use and (still) rendered as "deprecated".

If I read it rightly, too, Andy's usage for a foot-and-bike crossing was

   crossing=toucan

which is what they're called in the UK (because "two can" cross) -  
concise and certainly no more idiomatic than "trunk", say.

Whereas the Official Wiki Way Of Doing Things is, apparently,

   highway=traffic_signals
   crossing=traffic_signals
   bicycle=yes
   segregated=no
   crossing_ref=toucan

Five tags. Utterly insane. The only way for human beings to make sense  
of that is for the editors to offer shortcuts, and do I see the voting  
guys even submitting one teeny patch to the simple, public-svn text  
file  
(http://trac.openstreetmap.org/browser/sites/rails_port/config/potlatch/presets.txt) that would do this in Potlatch? Er,  
no.

cheers
Richard