[Tagging] Feature Proposal - RFC - electricity=*

Fri Nov 6 00:03:22 UTC 2020

Joseph Eisenberg:
>  > Re: "Perhaps it would also be possible to then tag electricity:grid=yes and 
> electricity=no in the case of grid connected houses experiencing a long-term power 
> outage during a natural disaster?"
> 
> Generally OpenStreetMap data is not updated frequently enough by mappers and database 
> users for us to map temporary states (e.g. anything which lasts less than 6 months). 
> Many database users will download a data extract for offline use and only update this 
> every 3 months or so - see Maps.me for example, and perhaps facebook's  use of 
> OpenStreetMap data.

I agree.
But there are some interesting cases around that 6 month range.

For example we now have access:covid19

Another example is road work on motorways. That can easily take 6 month to a year. 
First they do one side and have both directions share the lanes of what was earlier 
one direction. Then they do the other side.

Sometimes mappers change the speed limit to e.g. 60 km/h, but usually when the work 
is finally done, it takes a long time for someone to put it back at 130.

It would be useful to be able to tag a temporary speed limit with an estimated expiry 
date. And maybe an estimated start date for offline maps.

And we could do the same for natural disasters.

> And most objects in OpenStreetMap are currently only checked and updated once every 
> few years.
> 
> Perhaps someday the community of mappers will be vibrant enough that we could imagine 
> updating tags every month or every week, but at this point such a situation is very 
> far away. So for now we should encourage mappers to focus on permanent or 
> semi-permanent characteristics which are unlikely to change in the next few months.
> 
> -- Joseph Eisenberg
> 
> On Thu, Nov 5, 2020 at 6:36 AM Lukas Richert <lrichert at posteo.de 
> <mailto:lrichert at posteo.de>> wrote:
> 
>     I have now switched over the tagging and examples to the namespace based tagging
>     of grid and generator. Overall, this makes it easier and clearer to tag backup
>     generators and grid-connected houses with solar panels etc IMO. Perhaps it would
>     also be possible to then tag electricity:grid=yes and electricity=no in the case
>     of grid connected houses experiencing a long-term power outage during a natural
>     disaster?
> 
>     https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/electricity
>     <https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/electricity>
> 
>     Regards, Lukas
> 
>     On 03/11/2020 22:07, Lukas Richert wrote:
>>
>>     I also think the *electricity:grid=yes/no/backup* and
>>     *electricity:generator=yes/no/backup* tags are clearer and would allow for
>>     off-grid buildings to be tagged more distinctly.
>>
>>     The electricity tag isn't used a lot yet. I have no experience with automated
>>     or semi-automated edits, but perhaps changing electricity=none and
>>     electricity=grid to electricity:grid=yes would be relatively straightforward?
>>     (This is unfortunately the problem with people adding major
>>     undiscussed/proposed tags to the main wiki. Especially power_supply is
>>     frustrating. )
>>
>>     What do others think about the tag options
>>
>>         electricity:grid=yes/no/backup
>>         electricity:generator=yes/no/backup
>>         electricity=yes
>>         electricity=no
>>
>>     [electricity=yes would be used when grid or generator is unknown] instead of
>>
>>         electricity=grid
>>         electricity=generator
>>         electricity=yes
>>         electricity=no
>>
>>     Cheers Lukas
>>
>>
>>     On 03/11/2020 21:20, Andrew Harvey wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>     On Wed, 4 Nov 2020 at 00:13, Lukas Richert <lrichert at posteo.de
>>>     <mailto:lrichert at posteo.de>> wrote:
>>>
>>>         Hi,
>>>
>>>         While the original proposal did specify that generators are usually
>>>         diesel, broadening the definition would only lead to a loss of detail, but
>>>         the tagging would still be correct. I'm hesitant to use *offgrid* as a
>>>         building that has, for example, a grid connection with solar panels on the
>>>         roof would then be tagged as *electricity=grid;offgrid* instead of
>>>         *electricity=grid;generator*. The former is illogical.
>>>
>>>         However, I don't have any experience in developing countries: is it easier
>>>         to verify if something is off-grid compared to if it is connected to a
>>>         generator? And, would it be necessary to differentiate between local grids
>>>         (i.e. 2-3 generators, no substations, transfromers, etc.) and national
>>>         grids? Perhaps then a network tag would be useful, i.e. network=national,
>>>         local, regional similar to the way cycle networks are mapped?
>>>
>>>         A further suggestion was to change the tagging
>>>         to***electricity:grid=yes/no/backup* and/or
>>>         *electricity:generator=yes/no/backup*. This might be less ambiguous for
>>>         tagging amenities or buildings that get electricity from both sources and
>>>         would then be more consistent with tagging such as
>>>         *electricity:generator:origin=diesel* when, e.g. a building has a backup
>>>         diesel generator but is connected to the grid. Unfortunately, it would
>>>         then not be consistent with the use by the Healthsites Mapping Project,
>>>         although this already has the inconsistent *electricity=none* tag which
>>>         should probably be changed directly to *electricity=no.*
>>>
>>>     Here is the link to that suggestion I made
>>>     https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Proposed_features/electricity#multiple_values
>>>     <https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Proposed_features/electricity#multiple_values> and
>>>     https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Proposed_features/electricity#origin_of_different_sources
>>>     <https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Proposed_features/electricity#origin_of_different_sources>
>>>
>>>     The whole point of the proposal process is to identify these potential issues,
>>>     resolve them, and get community agreement. If the goal is just to implement
>>>     someone else's standard then we can't use the wisdom of the community here to
>>>     improve the tag, therefore I'm not too fussed about making this match what
>>>     another project is using, instead we should aim to have the best tags and
>>>     documentation as the outcome of this proposal process. Then if that's
>>>     different, other projects closely tied to OSM can migrate to the OSM community
>>>     accepted schema.
>>>
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>>
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-- 
Niels Elgaard Larsen