[Tagging] Drain vs. ditch

[EthnicFood IsGreat]

> Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2019 14:22:20 +0100
> From: Hufkratzer <hufkratzer at gmail.com>
> To: "Tag discussion, strategy and related tools"
> 	<tagging at openstreetmap.org>
> Subject: Re: [Tagging] Drain vs ditch
>
>
> If we were discussing a proposal I would agree, but replacing
> waterway=drain by waterway=ditch + usage=drainage or sth. like that is
> not such an easy task.  We already have 800k drains. I assume it
> requires a proposal with volting to deprecate drain, adaption of the
> presets, perhaps a mass edit. Who will do all this? Is the advantage of
> using waterway=ditch + usage=drainage instead of waterway=drain so
> immense that it is worth the effort?
>
> [...]


This goes to the very core of the tagging policy of OSM.  The current 
state of OSM tags is a screwed up mess.  Because we are "prohibited" 
from going back in time and correcting bad tagging decisions that were 
made in the past, we are stuck with trying to shoehorn new tag 
definitions into a chaotic, disorganized system. The way I see it, if we 
were allowed to conduct mass edits to revise poorly-planned tagging 
choices, we would save ourselves a lot of trouble in the long run.  It 
would be painful at first, adjusting to the changes, but I think it 
would be worth it.  Don't we all agree that if we were starting all over 
from scratch, we would give a lot more thought to tagging?

Mark