[Tagging] area=yes on polygones (was Block names)

[Anthony]

On Fri, Apr 27, 2012 at 4:12 AM, Pieren <pieren3 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 27, 2012 at 2:53 AM, Tobias Knerr <osm at tobias-knerr.de> wrote:
>
>> If a feature can be either a closed way or an area, the default
>> interpretation should always be the closed way. Otherwise, you'd have to
>> know arbitrary defaults for each type of object.
>
> You have to know anyway if your feature can be either a closed way or
> an area and therefore need some special handling in your apps. The
> question is then more to consider certain features as "area" or
> "closed way" by default. On this point, I'm always standing on the
> contributors side and wont ask them to add an unnecessary tag for
> 99.99% of the cases.

I don't mind asking them to (hence I don't mind the wiki saying that
they *should* do so).  But I do mind if people take the fact that the
wiki asks them to as an excuse not to add area=no in the other 0.01%
of cases.

Or, in RFC-speak.  I would be fine with "Users SHOULD add area=yes
when mapping a railway platform as an area.  Users MUST add area=no
when mapping a railway platform with a closed way which does not
represent an area."  I'd prefer "Users MAY add area=yes when mapping a
railway platform as an area.  Users MUST add area=no when mapping a
railway platform with a closed way which does not represent an area."
though.

If the (nonexistent) specs say that area=no is the default for
railway=platform closed ways, the (nonexistent) specs are broken.