[Tagging] What's a power=station?

[Ulf Lamping]

Am 18.01.2010 04:47, schrieb Alan Mintz:
> At 2010-01-17 19:33, Steve Bennett wrote:
>> According to the wiki "map features" table, a "power=station" is "A
>> tag for electricity stations. Wires from power lines come in or go out
>> here."
>>
>> Two questions:
>> 1) Does everyone use it this way? Without having looked at the table,
>> I would have guessed that a "power=station" was a power plant (ie, a
>> coal, or gas or whatever plant that generates power), whereas that
>> appears to be a "power=generator".
>> 2) What is a "power station" exactly? I think I know the type of thing
>> it's referring to (although I have, perhaps mistakenly, called these
>> "sub stations" in the past). What does it do? Does it simply convert
>> high voltage down to lower, consumer-level voltage?
>
> This is another one of those areas where OSM terminology differs from that
> used in the US, or maybe is just plain wrong. The utility companies that
> own the typical ~1 acre step-down/switching complex, fed by "high-voltage"
> lines (>100 kV), do indeed call them sub-stations. I have adhered to the
> wiki, though, in tagging them as power=station.
>
> I use substation for the occasional, smaller, usually single-user complex
> with just a few transformers, fed by lower voltage lines (usually 12-60 kV
> in the US I think).
>
> Unless people have largely ignored the wiki in practice, I'd suggest
> leaving it as is, in lieu of having to globally analyze and fix existing tags.

The wiki has a definition of the tag and a photo of what it's meant.

It's not a good idea to trying to "globally fix" stuff. These tags are 
in wide usage, so "I'll just change the Wiki" means: "I'll change the 
meaning of tags that a lot of others before intended differently". But 
people will continue to use the tag the "old way".

In the end this means you can't distuinguish if the former or latter 
meaning of the tag is used for a specific entry in the database. You'll 
just "burn the tag"!

This is a very bad, bad idea - even if the wording might be slightly wrong.

Remember there are 20000 active mappers out there having a specific idea 
about that tag in their head, there's also software that's using the 
definitions as in the wiki already.

Regards, ULFL