[Tagging] Marking waterway=brook as deprecated and problematic

[Brian M. Sperlongano]

On Wed, Dec 30, 2020 at 11:47 AM Volker Schmidt <voschix at gmail.com> wrote:

> Referring to this half-sentence in the Brook discussion page:
> " This tag breaks with the basic convention of waterway tagging that
> distinction between natural and artificial waterways is a primary
> criterion."
>
 {snip}

> So I have major doubts on this "basic" difference.
> Even the criterion of free-flowing downhill does not help, as all water
> flows downhill, unless pumped uphill, be that a river (very big pumps) or a
> ditch.(small pumps)
>
> Yours truly confused
>

I do not understand this notion that in order to tag water, a mapper must
first determine whether that water is "natural" or "man-made" (whatever
"man-made water" is.  I envision someone with a white coat and some beakers
in a lab creating this franken-water).  It seems to me that it makes much
more sense to be able to say "this is water" and then allow further tagging
to say "a ha!  this is (natural/artificial)" and then add further
clarifying tags.  Otherwise we are essentially saying "do not tag water
unless you can first determine whether it is natural or artificial!

It does not help that the primary water tag is classified under the
"natural" key.  Thus there is a contingent that believes that the water
that has collected in naturally-occuring pond is "natural", while the water
that has collected in a reservoir is somehow "man-made".  Water in a canal
or reservoir is just as natural as a forest in which all of the trees have
been planted by humans.
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