[Tagging] "new" highway tag for small and informal footpaths; trail

[sylvain letuffe]

M∡rtin Koppenhoefer wrote:
> 
> 
> Apollinaris Schoell wrote:
>> 
>> please no new highway, path/footway is already a very controversial tag.
>> 
> (...)
> I don't say stuff can't be expressed currently, but it would
> make the life of mappers, renderers, routers much easier if there was
> a way to put out the difference.
> 

I do think there is an "in between".

Take for instance :
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/via_ferrata

Some people advocate this should be a tagged as
highway=path+via_ferrata_scale=something, I don't. 

Doing so will effectively makes it necessary for any data consumers out
there to support that new via_ferrata_scale tag, because, unless doing so,
drawing or using both equivalently will produce really far from reality and
dangerous result.

That's, I think, the limit of "highway=path to rule them all" as you
mentionned later with the motorway example that we don't want to tag as path
with tons of additionnal tags for ease of mapping reasons, and because data
consumers (renderer, route planner) would have to constantly update there
applications to support the new and duplicate way to use motorways

But the informal path this thread is about, unless I haven't been able to
understand what it really is, could be safely and usability considered a
"degraded path", still a path in it's main function (travelling by foot) but
with particularities that wouldn't reasonably change it's usage in consumer
applications unless some special usage case need, which could then read the
additionnal tags



M∡rtin Koppenhoefer wrote:
> 
> 
> Apollinaris Schoell wrote:
>> 
>> why not add additional tags to path. path is very generic and we have a
>> documented visibility tag
>> 
> 
> because it is not working now: we are trying this for years and there
> is no renderer or other data consumer (AFAIK) that makes a difference.
> 
> 
Again, unless I have missunderstood informals ways you are talking about, I
think we are talking about :
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:trail_visibility
here ?

Beside the fact it indicates "This is part of a classification scheme for
hiking trails." (which could be extended to "any trails or path") ( or we
could use a more generic path_visilibilty or a basic informal=yes in
addition if that's really incompatible)
and then your informal ways could use value intermediate or bad.

The fact that it is not supported by "common" renderers is not that
problematic because it will still appears and be used as a path which is not
that wrong. 
And special renderers which need it could still display it as they feel like
it.
(Just like my own renderer :
http://www.refuges.info/nav.php?lat=45.425&lon=5.93&zoom=16&choix_layer=OSM
red is good visibility of the trail
pink is bad visibility of the trail
)

-- 
View this message in context: http://gis.638310.n2.nabble.com/new-highway-tag-for-small-and-informal-footpaths-trail-tp5663108p5675792.html
Sent from the Tagging mailing list archive at Nabble.com.