[Tagging] Tagging natural or historic regions

[Dave Swarthout]

This sort of object is common in Thailand. We have many gated communities
here whose boundaries are not exactly known although they are sometimes
fairly obvious in aerial imagery because of being surrounded by a wall or
fence of some sort. I create a polygon using Bing imagery, tag it as
place=neighbourhood, name=* and add a fixme or note tag indicating that the
boundary is inexact. Later, if a mapper has better data available they can
update that boundary.

Most polygons in OSM are simply not precise enough to define the property
boundaries or even the object's position exactly. Such measurements are,
practically speaking, beyond the capability of our instruments, and we must
accept that in our tagging philosophy. Obviously, forests and woods,
wetlands, and the scrub bordering them are not clearly defined. Yet we
usually tag them as areas rather than nodes so they will show up in a more
useful manner on a map.

I see no problem with this whatsoever.

Cheers,
Dave

On Mon, Mar 28, 2016 at 3:40 AM, Clifford Snow <clifford at snowandsnow.us>
wrote:

> Fuzzy boundaries do have their place. Currently we use sharp boundaries
> for landuse, but often the boundary is really fuzzy. A wooded area would be
> a good example of a where a fuzzy boundary might be employed. But the
> fuzziness of a wooded area may only be a few meters. The fuzziness
> of "Shakespeare Country" is completely different.
>
> I agree that there are advantages to including fuzzy boundaries, but we
> should first document how to tag these features.
>
> On Sun, Mar 27, 2016 at 12:59 PM, Colin Smale <colin.smale at xs4all.nl>
> wrote:
>
>> If we can't mark polygons as fuzzy, then we can only allow 'accurate'
>> polygons. Then we are back to square one, with no way of accommodating
>> these regions except for a simple node.
>>
>> I think the problem is clear (how do we represent regions whose
>> boundaries are not precisely defined). Time to talk about solutions.
>>
>> The status quo is without any guidelines, possibly leading to random
>> creativity according to the whim of the mapper concerned.
>>
>> Another option is to not do it, to say such things have no place in OSM,
>> and actively reject any attempt to do so (i.e. if anyone dares to put "Pays
>> de Bray" or "Shakespeare Country" into OSM, the objects will be deleted and
>> the mapper admonished).
>>
>>
>> Or we go for the single-node approach, and lose out on any clues about
>> the extent of the area concerned.
>>
>> Or we accept "best-guess" polygons with "incremental refinement."
>>
>> Any offers?
>>
>> //colin
>>
>> On 2016-03-27 21:36, Martin Koppenhoefer wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> sent from a phone
>>
>> Am 27.03.2016 um 21:16 schrieb Anders Fougner <anders.fougner at gmail.com>:
>>
>> Did you already consider a fuzzy tag (such as fuzzy=yes or
>> boundary_fuzzy=yes)?
>>
>>
>>
>> that's a makeshift which isn't quite elegant and still has similar
>> problems (things that seem to be in might be out and vice versa).
>>
>>
>> cheers,
>> Martin
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>
>
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> OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch
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-- 
Dave Swarthout
Homer, Alaska
Chiang Mai, Thailand
Travel Blog at http://dswarthout.blogspot.com
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