[Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*

[Martin Koppenhoefer]

2015-03-11 23:15 GMT+01:00 David <dbannon at internode.on.net>:

> I consider the definitions quite reasonable for this tag. Yes,there is a
> degree of subjectiveness there,there has to be given what it is trying to
> do. Honestly, we really need to got over this dread fear of being
> subjective. Not everything can be measured in integer numbers, great when
> it can be but accept it when what is being described is, by its nature,
> difficult.



+1, I believe that the main problem are the value names. If these were
called grade1 to grade8 many more people would likely use these values and
I guess there would be much fewer objections. The property of smoothness is
really quite important to many users of a road, in the more extreme cases
likely important to all.
The thing is, that these verbal descriptions of a smoothness hierarchy are
mostly not easier to apply than any numeric scale. "Excellent", "good" and
"impassable" are exceptions, but you can't tell the dfifference between
"bad", "very_bad", "horrible" and "very_horrible" without looking this up
in the wiki.

I suggest to add another column to the definition which is about objective
figures (without removing the use classes), e.g. the biggest grain size you
can frequently find on the road (i.e. the biggest rocks / pebbles) and or
the size of eventual cracks and holes, the steepness of steps, height of
humps, etc.

cheers,
Martin
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