[Tagging] new Key proposal: landcover

[Brad Neuhauser]

On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 1:56 PM, Tobias Knerr <osm at tobias-knerr.de> wrote:

> Brad Neuhauser wrote:
> > I'd forgotten about that--good point.  Although surface as currently
> > used seems to be mainly in the context of roads.
>
> There's nothing to limit it to roads - it "describes the surface of a
> feature". For example, the natural=beach wiki page recommends it for
> beaches, too.
>
> I also don't see why the fact that an area is covered with sand should
> be tagged differently depending on whether that area is used for
> traffic. Therefore, I'd prefer to always use surface=* for this.
>
> There are some landcover types that don't fit into the surface key,
> though - such as trees. So maybe a new key would be useful anyway, but
> just for those things that aren't covered by surface?
>
> Generally, I'd very much appreciate a key that only describes what's
> there, with nothing else (such as what's supposed to be there, or why it
> is there) getting in the way.
>
> Tobias Knerr


Right, using surface=* makes sense to me.  It might need some clarification
on the wiki, though.

For example, on Map Features it says "Apply to all types of highways." [1]
and on key=surface [2] and other related pages, the focus is on highways.
 From taginfo, the highway focus definitely seems to reflect the majority of
usage. [3]  So, my point is just that  this non-highway usage probably needs
some clarification on the wiki.

[1] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Map_Features#Properties
[2] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:surface
[3] http://taginfo.openstreetmap.de/keys/surface
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