[Tagging] More human readable values for traffic signs

Colin Smale colin.smale at xs4all.nl
Thu Oct 29 21:52:03 UTC 2015


 

I don't have any examples to counter your statement. But I am assuming
you are referring to the use of a spatial database. It is IMHO a high
barrier to entry. Are we to expect users to have that kind of
infrastructure and skills at their disposal? What about mkgmap and the
many other consumers which simply work with a snapshot in PBF or XML and
need to be able to do the right thing with the data with lets say a dual
core and 8GB. I am just trying to stick up for the little guy... 

Mappers should be helped to tag correctly by the editing tools. Any
additional "burden" on the mapper could easily be absorbed by tools such
as JOSM providing context-sensitive dropdowns for example - when adding
a node for a traffic sign it could be aware of what country it is in and
allow the mapper to choose a government-normalised sign from a list,
with a "Custom..." override and the ability to select common options
from a list, again with an override for specials. 99% of the signs could
be handled in a structured way, making it easy for the mapper to do the
right thing and giving a positive boost to data quality/consistency. 

Anyway, as far as I know OSM is the data, not any particular (database)
manifestation of it... 

//colin 

On 2015-10-29 21:56, Richard Fairhurst wrote: 

> On 29/10/2015 20:40, Colin Smale wrote: 
> 
>> How can that spatial lookup be made very cheaply? How long will it take
>> to do a point-in-polygon for every road sign in Europe?
> 
> It's very cheap. I do polyline-in-polygon for every single road and path I render on cycle.travel, because I have different rendering styles for urban and rural areas. The polygons (160,000 in Western Europe) are a significantly more complex dataset than countries would be, yet the query to update the roads is trivial, and plenty fast considering it's every single road.
> 
> Do you have hands-on experience in the subject that counters that?
> 
>> I understand one
>> should not denormalise lightly, but it is sometimes justifiable. We need
>> to keep the data easily consumable as well. Saying that two extra
>> characters in the tagging will present an unreasonable barrier to
>> mappers is stretching a point I think.
> 
> It's very easy for you, as an experienced mapper, to say that. Wikipedia is a salutary lesson in what happens to projects who start to tilt the editing experience principally towards the experienced.
> 
> "Since 2007... well-intentioned newcomers are far less likely to still be editing Wikipedia two months after their first try."
> 
> http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/520446/the-decline-of-wikipedia/
> 
> Richard
> 
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