[Tagging] Feature Proposal - RFC - landuse bush

[Bert -Araali- Van Opstal]

>/https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/landuse=bush />//>/Definition: An area of bushes on cultivated land and in the built
environment, often used for decorative purposes or to fill space and
where barrier=hedge does not apply. />//

//My first remark concerns the 'landuse' title of this thread: in the
thread you refer to the key value 'bush', the provided link however
redirects to your proposal with the key value 'shrub'. So kindly express
what the intentions are: 'bush' or 'shrub'.//

//Secondly I oppose to use the term bush. It has a broad and different
meaning in Africa and Australia: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush
and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_bush. On top the definition is
completely contradicting with the proposals intention: on wikipedia and
commonly used by a large part of the world, 'the bush' is
////"synonymous with /backwoods
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/backwoods>/ or /hinterland
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinterland>/, referring to a natural
undeveloped area", where you propose to use it specifically for
"///cultivated land and in the built environment".  I fear this is going
to lead to a lot of confusion and misuse of the tag. Many people will
start tagging natural features with landuse=bush instead of the already
commonly used landuse=scrub and landuse=heath./

/I agree largely with the comments from /Kovposch
<https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Kovposch> on the proposals
discussion page
(https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Proposed_features/landuse%3Dshrubs). 
Since they are not repeated in this talk forum allow me to summarize and
further support his solution:

1 use of natural instead of landuse: .natural
<https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:natural>=* has no implications
over whether something is maintained/made by humans, it (roughly) means
that it is plant life or a natural evolved feature. If you look at it's
wiki page it even states "including ones that have been modified or
created by humans.". Unfortunately, there is already opposition against
the use of natural=scrub for this purpose since on the wiki page it says
'Uncultivated land covered with shrubs, bushes or stunted trees'. Now
this is the only case where the wiki explicitly states the land needs to
be 'uncultivated'.  To my opinion an unfortunate mistake. The natural
tag defines the type of the natural feature, not it's use, management or
maintenance. So I propose to remove the 'uncultivated' requirement from
the wiki description of scrub.

2 Next it would be absolutely clear and appropriate to use natural=scrub
on cultivated and maintained land, as by the way is already largely done
on many micro-mapped areas. You can further define or detail by adding
the key managed=* (https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:managed).
Although it is not widely used it is an approved key. The values can be
extended with more 'non-western' values commonly used like 'slashing',
'burning'.
This would allow to keep the already 'scrub' areas, many micro-mapped on
cultivated or maintained land like parks, golf courses, nature reserves
etc and I believe there is no need for a new or adopted rendering. In
many areas it is even hard to determine, either from imagery or in the
field, if and how the scrub is maintained. Like in Africa bushes are
mostly burned, even in the villages, and in between the burnings they
look quite unmaintained and natural wild. Also there is a tendency in
some European countries to leave hedges and bushes grow in an almost
wild or natural state to support in the creation of habitats for local
fauna.  All of that can be covered by more and detailed values for the
'managed' key.

I am sure your intentions are good, especially as we move to more
detailed and micro-mapping on OSM.  I want to express however concerns
about the state of our wiki.  For most cases, even 'special' ones, a
simple and clear solution can be found in the existing tagging schemes.
Instead of trying to introduce more keys or values and tagging proposals
it would help to improve the wiki, add more examples and links between
keys, to clarify and offer possibilities for these 'specials' supported
with pictures etc... We should strive to keep tagging as simple as
possible and improve our documentation so we keep OSM accessible to all
kinds of users.

I will add my comments also to the discussion page.

Kind regards,

Bert Araali
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