[Tagging] wiki problems (was [Talk-us] destination:street)

Andy Townsend ajt1047 at gmail.com
Sun Jan 22 11:17:25 UTC 2017


There is a fundamental problem with any wiki, and it's not easy to fix.

Each page was obviously last edited by one user and one user only - they 
had the chance to change anything in it.  In some cases there is a 
difference of opinion about how to do something, some editors (Harry 
Wood is an obvious example that springs to mind) do a great job of both 
(a) saying that there isn't consensus and (b) suggesting what new 
mappers ought to do - even if that is to choose between two options.  
Unfortunately some wiki editors don't understand this, think that 
they're right and everyone else is wrong and (in the manner of xkcd's 
"Duty Calls") ensure that the wiki represents their opinion, and not the 
opposing view.

The edit that you're talking about is an example of this:

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Semi-colon_value_separator&type=revision&diff=1131976&oldid=1131680

In this case that wiki contributor was banned from editing the wiki (at 
least), but that's a very drastic solution, and they're not the only 
problem - at any time search through the wiki's "recent changes" for 
talk page edits and you see complaints about this sort of behaviour.


Best Regards,

Andy



On 22/01/17 10:09, yo paseopor wrote:
> It's true, but OSM wiki, the tool people like me who tries to learn 
> how to do something uses says that: 
> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Semi-colon_value_separator#When_NOT_to_use. 
>
> Change the wiki please if it is not.
>
> Wiki explains
>
> "In general*avoid ';' separated values whenever possible*. Don't use 
> them in your mapping, and don't propose them on the wiki if there are 
> better ways of representing things. This is because use of semi-colons 
> as value separators is contrary to the aim of*keeping it simple*both 
> for data/contributors/(mappers) and data/users/. For the sake of new 
> contributors and anyone trying to/use/the data (people building 
> software for rendering, searching, "find my nearest cafe" mobile apps, 
> etc) we should minimise use of values with special characters.
>
> It is particularly important to (wherever reasonably possible) avoid 
> ';' separated values in more important "top-level" tags. That is, tags 
> which define what an element is." Is not Destination value also so 
> important?
>
>
> Also there's some software who...does not support semicolon:
>
>
> "Mapbox Streets 
> <https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Mapbox_Streets&action=edit&redlink=1> replaces 
> |;| with a spaced em dash (| — |) in any name 
> <https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:name>=* or name:* 
> <https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:name>=* tag. For primary keys 
> such as amenity <https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:amenity>=* or 
> shop <https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:shop>=*, it considers 
> only the portion up to the first semicolon and drops the rest."
>
>  I think dropping data is not a good way of working with OSM :(
>
>
> Taginfo says also there's some destination:x in Germany. For example 
> http://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/destination%3A1
>
> http://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/destination%3A2
>
> http://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/destination%3A3
>
> and so on...
>
> Also if you see the list in taginfo about destination values you will 
> see only two in top20 list (well ,one is with comma so also there's 
> some problems of standarization)  from the most tagged values: 
> http://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/destination#values
>
> And if you search top100 list there are only 12 values with semicolon 
> , 2 with comma . All these values together are only 1792 tagged 
> values...from 71665 total values.
>
>
> I think one tag one value it is the best standard for traffic signs 
> also to make it easier for the begginners and newbies.
>
>
> Cheers (Salut i senyals)
>
> yopaseopor
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Tagging mailing list
> Tagging at openstreetmap.org
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/tagging/attachments/20170122/360386e0/attachment.html>


More information about the Tagging mailing list