[Tagging] iD presets - was: emergency=lifeguard

Bryan Housel bhousel at gmail.com
Tue Jun 19 18:28:27 UTC 2018


> On Jun 19, 2018, at 10:59 AM, Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> Perhaps it would make sense to treat the iD editor and the tagging
> presets it uses as two different projects that are conceptually separate
> enough so that the tagging presets as rolled out on osm.org can be
> curated by a group that is separate from the editor writers?

I used to think that splitting off the iD presets into their own project was a good idea, but I’ve changed my mind in the past few years.  I don’t think the OSM community is particularly good at inventing tags, I can’t think of anyone that I would trust to turn the presets over to, and it’s not like we have a lot of people stepping up to lead another OSM software project.  People will surely take exception to this, but that’s the uncomfortable truth as I see it. 

I still think that tagging should ultimately be driven by the community, but that people working with software (editors like iD/JOSM, styles like osm-carto, routers like OSRM, data consumers) should not be afraid to speak up about a problematic tagging scheme before it is too late to change it.


> I don't think designing tags is what the editor writers should do, that
> would clearly be overstepping their mandate.

We probably disagree on what my “mandate” is then.   That’s ok.

My goal is to make it so that anybody can use iD to contribute meaningfully to OSM.  Mostly I want people to enjoy mapping and stay engaged.  I like to say that the point of iD is to “convert people who don’t care about maps into people who do care about maps.”  I don’t care about tags as much as you probably think I do.


Some things that matter to me:

If a mapper wants to add a lifeguard station, there should be one lifeguard preset (and additional fields to supply more details if known).  Not 4 lifeguard presets.

If a mapper splits a way, they should not be silently breaking the `transit:lanes` tags added by other contributors.  If someone is just getting started with their editing, and they split a way, they should not get an angry changeset discussion that they don’t understand.

When a mapper adds a phone booth preset, the tags should already be set up for them according to the best practice on the wiki.  We already have a checkbox field for `covered=yes/no` and some code to render covered ways under other stuff.  `covered=booth` is special (doesn’t work like other uses of `covered`) and I’d like to avoid adding custom code for it if possible.  It’s nice to ask people first before just closing an issue as ‘wontfix’.

When a mapper adds a picnic shelter - do we assume it is a building, or do we ask the user to add a `building=*` tag.  Do we render it like other buildings?   Users should be able to add picnic shelters without reading pages of wiki and tagging list guidance.

I can think of dozens more, but we’ll probably get to those eventually.  Stay subscribed to this list if you want to talk through lots more interesting tagging conundrums. 

Thanks for listening,
Bryan


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