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

[Christoph Hormann]

On Friday 13 September 2013, Bryce Nesbitt wrote:
>
> If everyone locally calls it a desert... then what?  Print out pages
> from wikipedia and start arguing :-)?

This is exactly what i was talking about earlier: Just because there are 
areas which undisputedly qualify as deserts does not mean this is a 
useful tag for OSM.  The key here is verifiability and natural=desert 
is a picure book case of a non-verifiable tag.  Setting an arbitrary 
criterion for average annual precipitation would not really change that 
and would also not be a qualified criterion for what is usually seen as 
desert since aridity depends as much on evaporation as it does on 
precipitation.

Greetings,

-- 
Christoph Hormann
http://www.imagico.de/