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

[Martin Koppenhoefer]

Am So., 14. Feb. 2021 um 21:42 Uhr schrieb Bert -Araali- Van Opstal <
bert.araali.afritastic at gmail.com>:

> Is this a role or a guideline then, not clear to me, how do we call it?
>
> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/One_feature,_one_OSM_element
>



I don't recall if this was discussed, but the requirement to have only one
"main" tag was introduced just "recently" (less than 2 years ago) to this
page:
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=One_feature%2C_one_OSM_element&type=revision&diff=1873923&oldid=1873154

The rule is "one feature should be represented only by one element in OSM",
and one element means a way, a node or a relation. This rule still leaves a
lot of room for interpretation, for example you could still have the area
of a city mapped as place=city on a polygon and at the same time have a
node with place=city for the same city, if you argue that this means the
centre of a city. It all depends on what we agree that the tags represent,
and what we consider a "feature".

Having only one main tag on an object would be a different rule, and I find
it somehow misleading to "hide" this under the headline "one feature one
element".

Clearly the one tag-rule is not currently followed, you can find millions
of objects tagged as building=* plus something like amenity=* or shop=*,
office=* etc. or barrier=* together with tags for an area, like landuse,
amenity etc.
If you look at the combinations of man_made=* there are also 1,67%
combinations with highway (what's that?). 0,89% with natural, 0,85% with
amenity, 0,77% with historic, 0,55% with barrier, 0,52% with power, etc.
https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/man_made#combinations To be fair,
the paragraph says "ideally", so it is not a strict rule, more a suggestion.

You could also say: "phone=*" means a telephone connection, and then this
tag, normally a property, becomes a "feature". Or addr:housenumber could be
seen as a property, or as a feature, depending on your interpretation and
on the context (other tags).

Cheers,
Martin
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