[Tagging] trees and waterways

[David Groom]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Nathan Edgars II" <neroute2 at gmail.com>
To: "Tag discussion, strategy and related tools" <tagging at openstreetmap.org>
Sent: Saturday, September 11, 2010 9:38 PM
Subject: [Tagging] trees and waterways


>
> I'm wondering what the difference is between the recent discussions
> about trees and waterways. Here's the way things look to me:
> *The wiki says something should be tagged a certain way: ("lone or
> significant tree" for natural=tree | "direction of the way should be
> downstream" for waterway=river, stream, and maybe other values)
> *People don't always see the definition on the wiki, and thus don't
> tag according to it, instead: (using natural=tree for any tree | not
> determining which way a waterway flows and drawing it in that
> direction)
> *Many features are now mapped differently from how the wiki says
> Yet the result is different: with trees, consensus seems to be to
> change the definition, while with waterways, we seem to be avoiding
> the problem.
>
>

I think the difference can be summed up as:

With the tagging of trees the definition in the wiki was unclear; "lone or 
significant" can mean different things to different people.

With the tagging of waterways the comment that "the way should be drawn in 
the direction of the water flow" is quite clear, specific, and not really 
open to any misinterpretation.

David