[Tagging] Reviving the path discussion - the increasing importance of trails in OSM

[Andrew Harvey]

On Tue, 26 May 2020 at 19:35, Volker Schmidt <voschix at gmail.com> wrote:

> We have now been reviving the path discussion in 73 messages, and counting
> ...
> I still feel we are not understanding each other (or is it only me who is
> lost?)
>
To me a highway=path is a concept that is well defined in the wiki, and the
> various types can be described with existing tags.
> A hiking route (sometimes called a hiking trail) is a concept that is
> clearly defined in the wiki.
>

>From what I can tell, the ask is a tag for a specific type of way which the
person needs experience or preparedness before undertaking. But I'm lost
and still not completely understanding what exactly this new tag would
cover exactly and what it wouldn't.

A hiking route relation can go over a mixture of way types including
highway=track, whereas this is about the way itself.

Both are very widely, and successfully used.
> Dictionaries do not agree on whether a path is a type of trail or a trail
> is type of path or whether they are synonyms. And I think this is at the
> base of the discussion.
> I would like to remind us that the British-English language words that we
> use in OSM tags are code words to make life easier, the meaning of the code
> words is defined by the mapping practice and that mapping practice is
> documented in the wiki. The common language meaning of these code words is
> in principle independent of the OSM meaning of the codes, and in that sense
> irrelevant.
>

Exactly the name of any tag in OSM is completely irrelevant, it's as you
say how it's used and documented which matters. The iD editor chooses to
localise and abstract away the actual tag name to what it's known as
locally. The tag value is only meaningful for OSM insiders.
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