[Tagging] Let's get (quite) rid of units and their multiples in OSM values

Fri Jul 27 19:09:49 UTC 2018

> Regulatory things like maxspeed=* should have the unit in the tag, and
>they should be in the same units that the signs are in. A sign reading
>'Speed limit 25 mph' means 25 mph, and entering 40.2336 km/h loses the
>information that the regulatory signs are in US customary units.

I agree with and use this method when I tag U.S. highways. Many people,
including myself, wish the U.S. wasn't still tied to the ridiculous and
anachronistic Avoirdupois system of weights and measures but in America, a
25 mph speed limit is what we see posted and what Americans see on their
speedometers.

On Fri, Jul 27, 2018 at 9:49 AM Kevin Kenny <kevin.b.kenny+osm at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I'm all for SI units for things like voltages and elevations. I'm
> perfectly fine with tagging the elevation of Slide Mountain as 1274
> metres and letting a US data consumer convert that to 4180 feet.
>
> Regulatory things like maxspeed=* should have the unit in the tag, and
> they should be in the same units that the signs are in. A sign reading
> 'Speed limit 25 mph' means 25 mph, and entering 40.2336 km/h loses the
> information that the regulatory signs are in US customary units.
>
> Data consumers have to deal with that stuff now - and it's not that
> difficult,. I've done software that consumes OSM data, and unit
> conversion was a much lesser headache than a lot of other tagging
> issues.
> On Fri, Jul 27, 2018 at 1:31 PM marc marc <marc_marc_irc at hotmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > Le 27. 07. 18 à 18:51, Richard Welty a écrit :
> > > but practically it's probably not a good idea in mapping, where i think
> > > we should be using local units in an unambiguous manner.
> >
> > nothing prevent a editor nor a site to show "volt" next to the textbox
> > for voltage value nor to show "km/h or mph" next to the textbox for
> > maxspeed depending of the location.
> > it only needed to have something to tell data user if a tag have only
> > one unit or if the unit varies according to location (in this case, we
> > need again a schema to store default value (in this case unit) somewhere
> > with a link with osm location).
> >
> > Le 27. 07. 18 à 18:52, Philip Barnes a écrit :
> >  > On 27/07/2018 16:20, marc marc wrote:
> >  >> I agree maybe with the exeption of case like maxspeed
> >  > And maxheight and maxwidth.
> >
> > I agree that it'll be easy to not include those tag, at least to start.
> > it's why voltage is a very good usecase to start with it :)
> >
> > >
> > > On 7/27/18 11:20 AM, marc marc wrote:
> > >> I agree maybe with the exeption of case like maxspeed
> > >>
> > >> François voltage is a good usecase to open an issue to the whised app.
> > >>
> > >> Le 27. 07. 18 à 14:19, Andrew Hain a écrit :
> > >>> My own preference is to have no (zero) units in the database,
> decimals
> > >>> where wanted (maxwidth=2.2) and unit management support in editors.
> > >>>
> > >>> --
> > >>> Andrew
> > >>>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > >>> *From:* Warin <61sundowner at gmail.com>
> > >>> *Sent:* 27 July 2018 12:27:04
> > >>> *To:* tagging at openstreetmap.org
> > >>> *Subject:* Re: [Tagging] Let's get (quite) rid of units and their
> > >>> multiples in OSM values
> > >>> On 27/07/18 21:11, Martin Koppenhoefer wrote:
> > >>>> sent from a phone
> > >>>>
> > >>>>> On 26. Jul 2018, at 21:26, François Lacombe <
> fl.infosreseaux at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> I don't want to break things but only improve them, all the best
> > >>>> one issue with using only one unit for a tag is that they can’t
> always be transformed without rounding. E.g. maxspeed=55mph cannot be
> converted to kph without losing information
> > >>>>
> > >>>> Also, shorter notations are better readable, hence reduce the
> likeliness of errors not noted.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> On the other hand, I agree in the example of voltage it would make
> it easier for queries to use the same unit. (you still can make queries,
> but they are more complicated if you have to take units into account)
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>> Unfortunately not everyone uses the same units... heights are in
> meters,
> > >>> feet .. depending on where you come from or what activity you follow.
> > >>>
> > >>> Voltages are in volts so the same units... but multiplies are common
> for
> > >>> high voltages .. no one uses 33000 volts .. they all use 33 kv.
> > >>> If you stipulate that all voltages have to be in kv then 115 v
> becomes
> > >>> 0.115 kv, 240 v becomes 0.24 kv and 415 v becomes 0.415 kv ..
> > >>> that is not how people talk about these things.
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>
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-- 
Dave Swarthout
Homer, Alaska
Chiang Mai, Thailand
Travel Blog at http://dswarthout.blogspot.com
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