[Tagging] The endless debate about "landcover" as a top-level tag

[Warin]

On 08/06/18 18:43, Lionel Giard wrote:
>
>     Seriously, so much time wasted on discussing landuse=forestry and
>     it has 9[sic!] uses.
>
> I don't see the main argument as good. Any new tag is by definition 
> not used that much ! And most new mappers follow litteraly the rules 
> of "we should use the accepted tags in wiki...".
>
>
> But whatever, as said before, we could take a step by step 
> approach(and test it) :
> - first, add landcover=trees in the renderer (putting it the same as 
> landuse=forest probably), just to make a get a better tagging in area 
> that are not a forest (in other landuse especially).

No. When used for producing timber the trees get harvested - they are 
gone from time to time. So tagging the area as trees is incorrect for 
some of the time.
The landuse=* is about the use of the land .. what it produces for 
humans .. not what is presently there.
Adding landcover=trees to landuse=forest/forestry .. then what? remove 
the landuse=forest/forestry? And thus remove what some have correctly 
tagged?

One solution is not to render landuse=forest/forestry the same as 
landcover=trees/natural=wood ... make it different in a way that people 
will see the difference on the map. Then they will start to 'tag for the 
render' and as th erender now shows that landuse=forest/forestry is 
different, say by adding an axe to the landuse rendering, from 
landcover=trees/natural=wood the mappers will be able to make better 
choices.

> It will gradually help to reduce the quantity of "misuse" of the other 
> tags "natural=wood" and "landuse=forest" ;
> - Then, discuss if we need to add a forestry tag and maybe make a 
> proposal for it. It could probably just be to create a _new _tag, and 
> still use "landuse=forest" when it is _unknown_ (like for highway=road 
> when we don't know the type or usage of a road). This would have the 
> advantage of being backward compatible, just introducing a more 
> precise tags for are with know forestry use for example.

If you can only see trees then tag the trees - 
landcover=trees/natural=wood.
Do not use landuse=* if you don't know what the land is used for ..
it is rather simple if you use the base language.



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