[Tagging] [OSM-talk] Proposed mechanical edit: surface=soil to surface=dirt

[moltonel 3x Combo]

On 02/09/2015, Friedrich Volkmann <bsd at volki.at> wrote:
> On 01.09.2015 10:13, moltonel 3x Combo wrote:
>> But as a user of surface=soil, could you tell me what difference you
>> see between soil and earth (from an osm POV) ? To me, those two are
>> actual osm synonyms, but 'earth' is documented and 55x more popular.
>
> See my other message (Message-ID: <55E55C3E.8010707 at volki.at>). Earth is
> documented, but with a wrong descripion, which is worse than no
> documentation at all. I prefer a tag with an obvious meaning over one which
> is ambiguous, unless there's already lots of applications relying on the
> ambiguous tag.

Well that's the point, it's not obvious at all, otherwise I wouldn't
have asked. Or rather, the obvious (to me) definition of both earth
and soil lead me to believe that they are synonyms for the OSM
usecase.

If the definition is wrong, discuss and correct it. If there's really
a nuance between soil and earth/ground/dirt that make soil usefull as
a distinct value, then document it.