[Tagging] The showstoppers for mapping Scandinavian nature.

stevea steveaOSM at softworkers.com
Mon Dec 28 04:53:47 UTC 2020


On Dec 27, 2020, at 6:01 PM, Andrew Harvey <andrew.harvey4 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't see the issue with just mapping these areas as polygons, we have the 3,500km long Great Dividing Range mapped as fuzzy=50000 https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/211234843. Like anything in OSM, it starts with a rough outline and over time can be better mapped in more detail. Would be silly to try and expect this to be mapped as a point and not a polygon.

Andrew, while I appreciate that this seems like a slam-dunk easy answer to a non-specific question (Anders did start out with some wetlands which were confusing, I agreed), I click on "fuzzy" as a tag and find nothing.  While I appreciate that a tag of fuzzy=50000 "feels like to me" a method to say "rough in a significantly large way" I don't know if that its value is one of size, precision or what, as "fuzzy" has no wiki or otherwise docs for me to see what is meant (I want to say "exactly," but especially in this case — fuzzy! — that seems difficult).

I get it that this is something like the fifth largest mountain range on Earth and that its shape and edges aren't precise nor widely agreed to.  And that sets off my OSM spidey-sense that something isn't verifiable and we're back to that.  So, these remain open questions, especially as "fuzzy" isn't (well) documented (at all?  as a tag, I mean).

Something doesn't add up:  naming natural things is a task in exactly defining the amorphous.  How DO we solve that?

SteveA


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