[Tagging] Deprecation - waterway=riverbank vs water=river

[manday at openmail.cc]

The redefinition of "deprecation" in the proposal is rather confusing,  
but I don't think it matters, nor has it been the premise of this  
thread. Whether it has been (properly) "deprecated" and there is a  
transition period or whether it has been "added", the current  
situation is such that with ~150k vs ~250k occurrences of the  
respective tags, an improvement is desireable.

I would like to point out that no argument other than the ~100k  
difference for removing `water=river` in favor of `riverbank` has been  
presented. Therefore, the question is simply whether a deprecation of  
`riverbank` should or should not be implemented (JOSM patch, bulk  
edit, and Wiki update):

Tomas and I had an informative off-list discussion, where he  
manifested the example of a problem which I had asked for. I think  
could be exemplary concerning the question, whether it's time to  
(properly) deprecate `riverbank`.

Tomas explained that in their Lithuanian OSM community, `riverbank` is  
the established tag in their tools and all of Lithuanian mapping,  
`water=river` is not considered, nor has it been mapped.

 From the practical implications of "implementing the deprecation", I  
look at the three bullets:

  - JOSM Patch:
    No adverse effect

  - Bulk edit:
    The Lithuanian tools as data consumers will have problems  
processing the new tag.
    They already have this problem every time someone unfamiliar with  
their limitations
    comes and (rightfully) edits a Lithuanian river to be  
`water=river`. I therefore
    think the tools can be required to be updated, as far as data  
consumtion is concerned.
    The Lithuanian tools as data creators should be edited, as they  
would otherwise
    create deprecated tags.

  - Wiki edit:
    No adverse effect

Given that example, I think there are remain two central questions:

  - How common is the Lithuanian-like situation a relevant setting (from Tomas
    description, the Lithuanian tools are used by enough to be  
relevant, i.m.o., but he
    may elaborate on that)?

  - Is the associated effort (making adjustments in code) worth the benefit
    (simplifications for data consumers who had to consider both  
variants as equivalent
    to date, less confusing wiki, ...)


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