[Tagging] A first step towards bringing the wiki and tool support closer together
Jonathan Bennett
openstreetmap at jonno.cix.co.uk
Wed Dec 9 20:42:08 GMT 2009
Erik Johansson wrote:
> Yes but people say "don't tag for the renderer" which a horrible meme,
> I say "always tag for the renderer". If there is not visual
> feedbackyou are doing it wrong (except in keepright).
Only using a tag because it appears in a renderer style sheet (or
conversely not using one just because it doesn't) is a pretty good
definition of "tagging for the renderer". Now, if that tag isn't an
accurate description of the feature you're mapping, then you're doing it
wrong, even if it does produce an effect on the map.
Note that not all tags *have* a visual representation, so relying on
having visual feedback to know whether you've done something right can
be misleading. Equally, not all applications of OSM data involve
rendering a map (geocoding, routing) so choosing a tag purely based on
its visual effect can result in errors in those applications.
By all means check the rendered map after you've done some mapping to
see if you've made a mistake somewhere, but please, please don't change
the tag you use for a feature purely to make it render in a particular
way (or at all) on a particular renderer. If the renderer doesn't
support your tag, help the person running that renderer to add support
for it.
Jonathan
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