[Tagging] Synonym handling

[Paweł Paprota]

Hi all,

This is a "manual" response (i.e. no references header) since I have
just subscribed to the list.

> Rather than long discussions about renaming or merging tags (e.g.
> drinkable, potable), perhaps we should accept that there will be
> things for which more than one tag name is in use, and decide on a
> format and a URL at which a synonym table can be stored, for renderers
> and other tools to use?
> 
> Perhaps we should use something "cleverer" such as JSON, but I'll
> start with a very simple suggestion: a text file in which each line
> represents a meaning, and the (space-delimited) words on the line are
> the synonymous tags.  Or perhaps we could comma-delimit them, making
> it a CSV file, but I think we don't allow spaces in tags so that makes
> them naturally a delimiter.

Stuff like this could easily be handled in a more centralized system for
tag metadata, see:

http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/dev/2012-July/025284.html

And direct link to this great presentation:

http://www.frankieandshadow.com/sotm10/tagcentral.pdf

Paweł