[Tagging] surface=ground/dirt/earth

Dave Swarthout daveswarthout at gmail.com
Mon Mar 17 11:40:37 UTC 2014


I knew I would be opening Pandora's box when I made those statements. As
for tracks, I should have prefaced my remarks with *In My Opinion* — I am
well aware that it's too late to change the current situation.

I would still argue that smoothness is a valuable parameter. Ignoring speed
limits and such, it determines how fast you can *comfortably* travel on a
particular highway, among other (more subjective) things. And I'm familiar
with the long thread about trafficability, to the extent that I could
follow all the various opinions and problems it exposed. This whole thing
is a tough nut to crack.

Which is one reason I suggested those other terms to describe "stiffness"
which I just can't get my head around. Stiffness just is not right for that
use. I dunno what I would rather do. Maybe as you suggest, it should simply
be removed.

Cheers,

Dave




On Mon, Mar 17, 2014 at 1:59 PM, David Bannon <dbannon at internode.on.net>wrote:

> Good on you Dave, I do like a good rant !
>
> On Mon, 2014-03-17 at 10:47 +0700, Dave Swarthout wrote:
>
>
> > <Begin rant>....IMO tracktype should describe the physical
> > characteristics of a track, not a highway, and it should have nothing
> > to do with "how well maintained" it is.
>
> Great in an ideal world Dave. However, there are many highways in the
> world that are also 'tracks'.
>
> Recognising this, the OSM Lords have given us highway= tags to describe
> the purpose of a road. And tracktype= to describe the condition. Many
> cases, the tracktype= is not needed as its condition matches its
> purpose. But in situations where that is not the case, life threatening
> situations arise when a map user is not appropriately warned.
>
> I agree tracktype may not be ideal but its better that the rest and I
> think its too late to dream up a new one.
>
> > ...... those surfaces have an additional important characteristic
> > called smoothness.
>
> 'smoothness=' is not really appropriate as there are many, many roads
> that have issues beyond smoothness. I have seen tracks that appeared
> beautifully smooth but were beyond my ability !
>
> > How a "highway" ever got a tracktype tag is beyond me and seems a big
> > mistake.
>
> That was part of the original definition of tracktype= when it was
> approved.
>
> > .... As far as smoothness is concerned, many have derided it as being
> > too subjective.
>
> Look, lets be honest, just about anything in this world except the
> integer series has some subjective aspect. Lets get over it !
> >
>
> >  say, "particularly regarding surface stiffness", IMO the word
>
> Yes, Dave, I agree, Fernando's use of the word 'stiffness' is a bit
> dodgy. But thats a 'subjective' opinion.
>
> >  Perhaps soundness, permanence, or better yet, durability.
> No, I really think this is about how usable a road is given a set of
> vehicle and driver experience. We, on the AU mailing list discussed
> words like 'trafficability' and, from memory, some even worse ones !
>
> But I do want a good solution and I'll agree to an OK one if its all I
> can get. I want to badger the renderers to take note of the state of a
> road before someone gets killed using an OSM map. Its only a matter of
> time.
>
> David
>
>
>


-- 
Dave Swarthout
Homer, Alaska
Chiang Mai, Thailand
Travel Blog at http://dswarthout.blogspot.com
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