[Tagging] Feature Proposal - Rejected - shrubbery V2

Wed Aug 18 05:53:39 UTC 2021

As someone who fruitlessly searched for a documented solution other than
natural=scrub for these types of features when I started mapping them some
years ago, I applaud you moving forward with this.

At the same time, my personal motivation and payoff for mapping is to see
the result of it on a map (which for me generally means the default render
on https://www.openstreetmap.org/ ), so it is with some dismay that I see
the chosen solution being in the natural=* key, not because I fundamentally
disagree with that, but because it will prevent me from simply double
tagging these features until such time as the renderer accepts the new
tagging.

This leaves me with the situation that I'll probably end up continuing to
map such features as natural=scrub, in a blatant case of "mapping for the
renderer", as the alternative is that I'll not find the motivation to map
them at all.

Nonetheless, I'm grateful for tackling this issue and all the effort you've
put into your 2 proposals.

From: Vincent van Duijnhoven <vvanduijnhoven at outlook.com> 
Sent: Wednesday, 18 August 2021 04:03
To: tag <tagging at openstreetmap.org>
Subject: [Tagging] Feature Proposal - Rejected - shrubbery V2

Hello everybody,

The second iteration of the shrubbery proposal was rejected (25 approved, 18
opposed), falling well short of the 75% mark (58%). 

Because it is now rejected a second time and there is no consensus about a
solution, we decided to start documenting an using natural=shrubbery. Please
let us explain this decision below.  

The biggest point of contention was that natural=scrub should be used
exclusively for natural, wild scrubland, and that any attempt to introduce
tags that have any bearing upon the tag's 'naturalness' (I.e., to which
degree they are managed/maintained/cultivated by man) is unacceptable. Of
the mappers who raised this point, a large group strongly preferred the
natural=shrubbery tag proposed (and rejected) in the first iteration. 

Conversely, the first iteration was rejected by many of the voters for
attempting to introduce a division within natural=scrub between man-managed
shrubs and wild natural scrubland. The opinion held there was that this was
all natural=scrub, and that adding a new tag was unwanted. 

The majority of voters in both voting rounds seem to agree that the status
quo is unsatisfactory. The status quo being that man-managed shrubs (whether
we call them shrubberies, shrubs, bushes, and regardless of whether we
include hedges) are in fact mapped, every day, by mappers who feel that
these improve various properties of the map, and that they use natural=scrub
for this purpose - without any additional tags that would allow filtering
out such 'unnatural natural features'. 

In our opinion, this results of this second voting round again show that
many mappers support mapping of man-managed scrubs, and wish for some
tagging solution better than the status quo. (We also readily acknowledge
that a minority of voters wish that no such mapping of man-managed shrubs
would occur at all, but find this standpoint untenable given the actual
mapping practices adopted by many mappers.) 

So here we come to the dilemma of this issue. 

The current proposal voting system seems insufficient to resolve this issue.
For a change with as large an impact as this a more conclusive voting result
would be preferable to proceed, but, unlike a proposal for a new tag for
some novel feature, this issue has two major standpoints and two extra
positions, namely: 

*	It's really all some form of natural=scrub, introduce sub-tags for
that 
*	The tag natural=scrub is exclusively for wild scrubland, make up a
new tag 
*	Mapping man-managed shrubs is completely undesirable 
*	Just use natural=scrub, no sub-tags (status quo) 

Bear in mind that this last position is rarely explicitly stated, but is, de
facto, the current way of doing things. 

We briefly considered if some form or ranked voting between these four
positions might be fruitful, but we feel judging from the wording of some of
the responses on the voting pages that such an approach will not be well
received and may not be worth the effort. 

Because we want to work towards an eventual solution rather than except the
status quo of 'just map it all with natural=scrub', we as proposal authors
decided to start documenting and using natural=shrubbery under the 'any tags
you like'-principle. The tag has already been used over 1300 times and the
first proposal showed a good amount of support for natural=shrubbery. 

During this second round too, several voters (for and against) explicitly
preferred natural=shrubbery. We have also taken all the feedback provided
into account while writing the documentation for natural=shrubbery,
hopefully fixing some of the more glaring omissions of the first draft. The
documentation, when finished, will be found here: 

 <https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:natural=shrubbery>
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:natural=shrubbery 

Our goal is to give mappers who support this solution a way to grow
grassroots support for tagging man-managed shrubs by having a documented
tagging scheme to use. 

We realize that this initiative too will be rejected by some, but we kindly
ask mappers to consider that with an issue as complex and polarized as this
it will be impossible to place everyone (not in the least because some
suggestions are diametrically opposed to others). 

We hope that despite any initial misgivings mappers may have had regarding
natural=shrubbery you will be willing to consider using it and working
towards broader support. 

Thank you all for voting and providing feedback. 

Kind regards, 

Vincent and Jeroen 

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