[Tagging] Feature Proposal - RFC - key:spacing=*

[osm.tagging at thorsten.engler.id.au]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Christoph Hormann <osm at imagico.de>
> Sent: Sunday, 6 May 2018 03:37
> To: Tag discussion, strategy and related tools
> <tagging at openstreetmap.org>
> Subject: Re: [Tagging] Feature Proposal - RFC - key:spacing=*
> 
> If i try to ignore the rendering related aspects of your proposal it
> boils down to being deliberately non-exact.  Why would a mapper want
> to do that?  If i want to map a tree row in a quick and dirty way i
> draw a way and tag it natural=tree_row.  If i want to map it in more
> detail i map and tag the individual trees.  I don't see tagging
> spacing=* as an intermediate solution here.

I very much see this as a valid intermediate solution. Getting an estimate of the average spacing between trees along a tree row takes seconds. 

Exactly locating and mapping every single tree along a long tree row can take hours. And in the majority of cases, you are probably not going to be much more exact than a tree_row with spacing would have been, given the usual size of trees and the precision you can get from GPS or not ultra-high resolution imagery.

Which means that people would probably mostly draw a line, with the estimated number of nodes that there are trees, use the "distribute equally" function and tag them all as natural=tree. 

Congratulation, you've now used many nodes, and pretend an exactness of the data that doesn't exist, for zero additional benefit over a two node tree_row way with spacing.