[Tagging] intermittent vs seasonal

[Mateusz Konieczny]

On Fri, 2 Oct 2015 15:14:55 +1000
Warin <61sundowner at gmail.com> wrote:

> At the moment the 'intermittent' wiki says;
> 
> In Description:/Indicates that waterway or water body is intermittent
> (seasonal) /
> 
> In Key:intermittent:/Or that a water body (lake) disappears
> seasonally./
> 
> The use of seasonal here limits it to things that have a yearly cycle.
> 
> 
> I would rather remove the 'seasonal' references .. something like
> 
> In Description:/Indicates that waterway or water body is
> intermittent./  

I agree with remove of "seasonal"

> One could add the word/irregular/  or/random/  in brackets if
> helpfull?

I disagree. Waterway where water is missing with some regularity is
stil intermittent.

> But intermittent does not imply seasonal to me and at least some
> others.

I completely agree. Waterway may be intermittent without making it
seasonal. intermittent=yes do not imply seasonal=yes.

> >> Given the weather does not conform that well to the 'season's ..
> >> I'd be more inclined to leave off the seasonal tag.
> > It depends on location.
> 
> NO. It should depend on the features characteristic. But I think we
> agree here.

My "it depends on location" applied to "given the weather does not
conform that well to the 'season's".

> Prior to April 2014 the wiki for intermittent had no reference to
> 'seasonal' in its description.

And I would not be against removing them. I am only against restricting
intermittent=yes to random lack of water.

Stream that disappears every summer IMHO should be tagged as
[waterway=stream, intermittent=yes, seasonal=yes].

In case that using intermittent for "waterway does not have a permanent
flow/waterbody does not have a permanent presence" is clearly bad we
need tag is needed to cover this information.

> I would say
> 
> "/In case of waterways or lakes becoming dry on specific times of
> year the key" //seasonal
> <http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:seasonal>=*
> <http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Tag:seasonal%3Dyes&action=edit&redlink=1>//.
> should be used alone, not with the
> key:intermittent.////Example:////waterway=stream////name=sample////seasonal=summer//////The
> stream "sample" only flows in the summer season./"

Why? What is reasoning for this?

> Looking at the wider wiki too !
> 
> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:waterway
> 
> suggests replacement of
> 
> waterway=wadi and waterway=drystream
> 
> with
> 
> waterway=river or stream
> 
> and
> 
> intermittent=yes.
> 
> The wiki for
> 
> waterway=wadi  suggests (presently) using intermittent for seasonal!
> 
> waterway=drystream ...errr arr yes.. also suggests using intermittent
> for seasonal.

Seasonal waterways by definition have no permanent flow. Current
practise is to tag such waterway as intermittent=yes. Is there a really
good reason to invent a new tag to convey this information and
deprecate current meaning of intermittent=yes (that is used over 900k
times, with some data consumers already using it)?