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

[Martin Machyna]

This is a textbook tagging for renderer. There is no reason why the 
whole OSM is supposed adapt to the needs of some Lithuanian tool when we 
don't do it in other cases. There was 10 years time to update the tools 
if it hasn't been done then that seems to me like a stale project.

There are clearly gains by reducing the duplication to water=river, but 
I don't see any advantage to keep both other than someone's personal 
convenience.


On 11.2.21 8:23 , manday at openmail.cc wrote:
> 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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