[Tagging] RENDER

Peter Wendorff wendorff at uni-paderborn.de
Wed Aug 27 17:09:38 UTC 2014


Am 27.08.2014 um 17:49 schrieb André Pirard:

> All the replies in this thread showed absolutely no desire to join the
> fight and make suggestions, just to disparage the idea.
I don't agree here.
But the way you proposed for this fight is not a solution.
It may be if what you call (and many see as) "the default osm map",
namely the mapnik, now osm-carto stylesheet, would use the render-tag,
but only partly.

Let's imagine "the map" would support RENDER.

variant 1) people stop using wrong tag to "tag for the renderer", and
instead use RENDER=* to get the image they want. This only works partly,
as the selection in cases of restricted place on the map cannot be solved.
As a result there may be now semantic tagging for new stuff as it's more
easy to use RENDER everywhere to get what I want than to propose and
discuss new tags.

variant 2) people use RENDER, but as render is not sufficient to support
garmin maps, osmand, nominatim and others, keep tagging for the renderer
to get their features used there as well

variant 3) nobody uses RENDER, then it's useless of course

variant 4) the best case would be that people use RENDER only on objects
where there is no "right" tagging (yet). In this case it slows down tag
inventions and clutters the map view by many inconsistent rendering
rules, as you add a feature X somewhere in the world and let it be
rendered in red, I add a feature X somewhere else and want it to be
rendered blue, and some other mapper doesn't care about rendering and
adds a feature X without RENDER-tag. Render would even reduce the
motivation to invent and "standardize" new tags, as it's not necessary
any more to get something new on the map.

To summarize: Why do you think RENDER would have any benefit?
I mentioned the drawbacks of it:
- less motivation to get consensus on new tags
- very limited motivation not to tag (wrong) for the renderer any more
- inconsistent map views as a result of inconsistent RENDER-tags for the
same object types

I like the idea to tackle the tagging-for-the-renderer, but all
arguments FOR the RENDER-tag I read yet (if I didn't miss any) are IMHO
countered by the explanations and assumptions above, feel free to
correct me if I'm wrong and add real benefits of RENDER.

regards
Peter



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