[Tagging] Mapping large areas (was natural=????)

[Pieren]

On Thu, Sep 12, 2013 at 6:10 AM, Bryce Nesbitt <bryce2 at obviously.com> wrote:

> Is there an equivalent body of thought into how to apply defaults to huge
> geographic areas?


Two things here.
There is already a proposal to put defaults on multipolygons:
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Relations/Proposed/Defaults
which can be used to define measurement units within admin boundaries
(like mph in US).

But for deserts or mountains, it's different. The limits are fuzzy and
size is always hugh (if not, we fall back on the current solutions).
Maybe one solution is to create a new osm element, like
"big_fuzzy_area", with new restrictions like a required minimal size
(e.g. 100km2) and a minimal distance between "fuzzy_nodes" (e.g. 1km).
These elements would be retrieved only by specific API requests and
would not serve usual contributions/editors. It would be reserved for
hugh areas like deserts, sees, oceans, mountain ranges, valleys, etc

my 2 cents,
Pieren