[Tagging] Fuzzy areas again: should we have them or not?

[Kevin Kenny]

On Mon, Dec 21, 2020 at 1:56 PM Anders Torger <anders at torger.se> wrote:

> Do you think there is a valid use for fuzzy areas in outdoor/rural areas,
> or would you rather see them not being used there either?
>

I've mentioned before that I, at least, have fuzzy administrative
boundaries to deal with.

https://caltopo.com/map.html#ll=43.9281,-74.49657&z=14&b=t shows an example
of a political boundary where even the USGS topo has the callout,
'INDEFINITE BOUNDARY' - and an error of closure indicated at the north
corner of Arietta township!

(It's not just an error in aligning the map sheets.  Note that the contour
lines and water bodies align perfectly.  The old surveys simply don't line
up. Nobody cares enough to put up the substantial expense that it would
take to resolve the question.)

In the hamlet of Oxbow, the residents do care what township they inhabit
(and pay taxes to), so the town line is surveyed and monumented in the
little strip at https://caltopo.com/map.html#ll=43.43904,-74.48374&z=15&b=t
.  Most of the rest is pretty, uhm, approximate.

Historical fact: Gore Mountain
https://caltopo.com/map.html#ll=43.67821,-74.03996&z=14&b=t was so named
because it fell in the 'gore' created by the fact that the old land grant
lines failed to close, and hence didn't belong to any township.  In that
case, nobody cared for decades, until Barton discovered garnets on its
north slope.  A protracted legal battle ensued over which town had the
right to tax the mines, which was eventually resolved by resurveying the
old lines and creating the new town of Johnsburg in the gap. That's just
how we address these questions here in the US; ignore them until someone's
willing to pay to find out the answer.

The answer to 'what county contains the cluster of houses on Kings Flow (
https://caltopo.com/map.html#ll=43.68781,-74.22956&z=15&b=t)?' is obvious:
Hamilton County.  The answer to "which county contains the summit of
Chimney Mountain?" is "who wants to know?"

Topology matters. You can't answer an 'inside/outside' query without a
closed region. Whatever solution we arrive at, it ought to allow an
implementor to resolve a question like, "in what county is the village of
Indian Lake?" (Hamilton, despite its indefiite boundary!) or  "Is Port
Sudan a port on the Red Sea?" If it cannot represent the fuzzy world to the
point where that sort of question can be answered, it is an incomplete
solution. Nobody familiar with the places would have the slightest trouble
answering those questions.

I'm really reluctant to say that the solution must be to foist the problem
off on an external database.  All geodata are approximate. To say that
anything with imprecision doesn't belong in OSM is to open the door to
endless haggling over how good the survey must be before data meet OSM's
standards. Is that the path we want to take?
-- 
73 de ke9tv/2, Kevin
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