[Tagging] trees and waterways

[Pierre-Alain Dorange]

Nathan Edgars II <neroute2 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> > I agree that the waterway flow would be more explicit for newbie, but to
> > know the new tag they should read the wiki and the default rule (drawing
> > direction is flow direction) is allready there.
> > If they do not read the actual wiki, why do they read the new one ?
> 
> This isn't just for newbies. I've been here for almost a year and I
> just found out about this convention a few weeks ago. I'm the kind of
> person that doesn't bother to read the manual unless necessary, and
> the meaning of most tags is clear from their rendering or name. A tag
> like flow=downstream on waterways would have told me that I needed to
> figure out what this tag means.

Yes i understand, but own could you figure "flow=downstream" exist ? 
You must read a "manual" to know that.

I we decide (not both of us, we must be more) to change river flow
convention (from drawing direction to flow tag), we're facing a problem
with river allready drawn correctly (a majority in France where we
conduct a project for that). We have to ask many user to redo their job
be adding a new tag.

On the orher side, a flow tag is explicit (but need to be read in the
manual, noone can invent it) and tell directly what is the flow
direction.

My point of view on the "problem" is that flow is not so important in
OSM. 
For example, I do not know map that render flow actually ; but it could
be in the future.

And also that users, to know that they must add a flow tag to river,
will have to read the wiki. And the actual wiki explain own thing works
for flow (drawing direction). 
In fact i do not believe adding this tag will help. 
In fact, i think it will change nothing. 
If people do not read the wiki they will continue to ignore conventions.

The only positive thing with flow tag would be to solve problem to know
if a river was mapped with its flow or not. But the negative seems to
heavy for me (need to modifying all existing river correctly mapped).

(note that i also do not allways reading f*** manual, but for OSM a use
a lot the wiki, doesnt mean i do not make mistake of course)

-- 
Pierre-Alain Dorange
OSM experiences : <http://www.leretourdelautruche.com/map/>