[Tagging] Basic philosophy of OSM tagging

[Kotya Karapetyan]

Now that the water_tap proposal discussion is over, I'd like to join
this important discussion.

My opinion: Since OSM is a *map*, we should *map* things. That means,
we should tag what actually exists on the planet, not what is implied.
Sometimes things are tagged in real life. For example, motorways are
marked with special traffic signs, therefore we can tag a road as
motorway. In other cases, we should use common sense to call the
things by their names. I am usually asking myself: How would I explain
to a tourist how to find his way? I will use something like "Pass by
..." or "You will see ...". This "..." is then the name (hence tag) to
be used.

A good example of the contrary is amenity=drinking_water. Though the
original intention is clear, I believe the solution is suboptimal: a
tourist wouldn't know what to search for (since it is not drinking
water but rather its source that is actually visible in a given
place). A mapper may also have hard times identifying whether a
specific water source provides potable water or not.

So, my answer would be we should map what the things *appear to be*.
Taking the example of Japanese roads, I would also add "with
reasonably common knowledge". It does leave some space for
uncertainty, but this uncertainty is also present in real life, so it
can appear in OSM as well.


Warin's question also identifies a problem I'd like to discuss. There
seem to be no "formal" agreements on how to create OSM. Things are
documented in the wiki, which is subject to uncontrolled changes and
no review and which is not always read by the mappers. Data is then
used by software development companies in the way they find
reasonable, without any foundation for consistency. It may be cultural
but I am looking for some sort of more robust, maybe even enforced,
agreements. They may be subject to changes, but their mere existence
would help. What do you think?


Cheers,
Kotya




On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 1:28 AM, Warin <61sundowner at gmail.com> wrote:
> This comes from the tap discussion but has implications elsewhere.
>
> What is the basic philosophy of OSM tagging at the top level?
>
> Are 'we' tagging for
>
> What things are? eg highways
>
> OR
>
> What things are used for? eg amenity
>
> ----------------------------
> Explanation? By example;
>
> Highways are used for transport so would be better tagged as
> transport=motorway, sub tags for vehicles etc.
>
> OR
>
> amenity=drinking_water would be better tagged as water=blubber
>
> --------------------------
> Is there an FAQ on this? Or has this never been documented/though of?
> Have fun with this  :)
>
>
>
>
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