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

[stevea]

On Dec 21, 2020, at 3:16 PM, Kevin Kenny <kevin.b.kenny at gmail.com> wrote:
> That's why I'm presenting specific examples (Arietta Township, Hamilton County, Jamaica Bay, the Red Sea) of, "this is the problem I have, and this is the question about the data that I want to be able to answer."  I don't think we can achieve a useful consensus here until and unless we can first achieve consensus on whether, "In what county is Indian Lake vlllage", or "Is Port Sudan on the shore of the Red Sea?" are questions that are in or out of OSM's purview.

Thank you, Kevin:  you (again) identify excellent next steps we might take.  I don't want to be too loud here, so, those on the list who might venture good answers, here are some distinct questions for us.

> If they're in scope, then I think they could be a useful bellwether for the easier 'indefinite area' problems. ("Alps" is a thornier case, but maybe we could garner some useful insight by addressing the easier cases first.)

"In scope" and "easier" first, please!  Insight is a bonus we can't bank on, though I'm hopeful we'll get at least some.

> I'm pretty certain from the earlier discussions that Mateusz would argue that these questions are out of scope, and that Frederik would also tend toward that position, but perhaps qualify it as "maybe in scope, but technologically infeasible."  Likewise, Paul and I have the view that as long as there's the demand to answer questions such as these, people will try to map these features as areas, and maybe the best we can do is choose the 'least worst' representation, rather than insist that all area features must meet some idealized standard of definiteness. It's indisputable that we've seen these features come up on the map, and we've seen edit wars ignite as a result, with bad behaviour on both sides.

Please, more discussion along these lines!  Sometimes, we reach an impasse (like with two kinds of boundaries on national forests in USA being "eh, that's a tough one, we haven't really settled on what to do here").  That's OK, the discussion should (though might not suffice to) help prevent ignition of edit wars.  Getting to "least worst" IS progress.

> Anders has been a bit confrontational, and a bit too inclined to take personally the fact that we have a difficult modeling problem without even a rough consensus - and by this I mean largely a rough consensus among the developers of editors and renderers, which really guide the mapping choices of the rest of us, for weal or woe. (By now, I've been around long enough to know the limitations, so I've implemented a few of my own JOSM templates and adapted some of my own rendering, all the better to focus on 'what does the data model allow', as opposed to 'in what direction do the editors push me' or 'what does the main rendering display'). 

"Rough" consensus is one of the more-difficult places to find ourselves, you well-describe why.

> Truly, though, I share his frustration. I surely get the impression - mostly from the loudest voices here - that there is a budding consensus that indefinite area features are indeed out of scope, and that a parallel project will be needed to coordinate efforts to develop such a beast and (more difficult) arrange for its hosting. That's a discouraging prospect. I don't know whether I have either the energy or the necessary gift of diplomacy to lead such a project, and I'm surely hoping that I'm wrong about the developer consensus. 

I might voice passion (I hope I'm not too loud) but I'm very much lacking in specific opinion here.  I tend to see how wide the spectrum and disparate the positions are.  We remain in early stages, though I agree it looks like many are far apart.

> For what it's worth, I don't share his view that it's the result of a lack of interest.  Getting the data model 'right' for this sort of feature is something of a daunting problem, particularly since it has to stitch into place along with what we already have.  It's only natural to hope that we can define the problem away. I'm, unfortunately, insufficiently clever to see how to avoid confronting it.

100% agreement:  "this isn't because there is a lack of interest."  There is plenty of interest, yet it's a tough nut to crack.  This isn't the first time OSM bumps up against its own impasse (again) and bobs about, twisting in the wind.  At least saying "otherwise, we're avoiding confronting it" feels like a baby step, and dialog (with no or little net result) remains open (and civil), so, there is that.  More thoughtful voices here on "fuzzy areas," please.  We could use them!