[Tagging] The showstoppers for mapping Scandinavian nature.

[stevea]

On Dec 28, 2020, at 5:21 PM, Andrew Harvey <andrew.harvey4 at gmail.com> wrote:
> A fuzzy or tolerance tag does exactly that, it says the actual extent falls somewhere within the tolerance but we can't say exactly where.
> 
> Everything has a tolerance in OSM, nothing can be measured precisely, even the location of a man_made=survey_point has some error in it. Just because we can't map it exactly, doesn't mean we should not try to map it at all.

I understand the concept of "fuzzy," despite the unknown unit on "50000" (as there were no docs / wiki, so thank you for the clarification that means "within 50 km" — which is pretty darn fuzzy:  Earth fits several towns or villages in 50 km).  I've never seen the "fuzzy" tag used in my almost 12 years of OSM, until this thread.

I agree that precision is never exact or perfect, but intends to describe "only within specified tolerances."  And OSM doesn't specify anywhere (to the best of my ability to discern) that if there is NO fuzzy tag, that "well, within 3 or 4 centimeters is OK" (as even that is fuzzy:  is it 3?  4?)  I've mapped bus_stop posts or drinking fountains or other very small items in OSM that maybe ARE up to 50 cm or so "off," thinking that "that's the best I can do, those using the map can find this within 10 (20, 30, 50...) cm."

I agree we should map even if we cannot map its position precisely, exactly.  We should strive for our BEST accuracy in any given context, I think that's an important thing to add as I say that (and some might think "goes without saying," but I'm being careful to say it).

So at least this much "doesn't add up:"  if there IS fuzzy (the tag), its value is expressed in meters (though this remains undocumented), if there isn't fuzzy (the tag), well, its precision is, um, "fuzzy" (unspecified).

What remains unanswered:  "how DO we solve that?"  I don't expect snap-my-fingers-right-now answers, as I realize that many contributions over a time span, resulting in a process, which can lead to consensus...is how this sort of thing evolves.  And we're in what feels like early times about this.  Can I get a "hm, this isn't exactly easy" at the very least?!  Thanks for good dialog.  As someone quite familiar with the metric system, but stuck in the inertia of a large culture that isn't, I'll say "we are inching closer" to "better" about this.

SteveA