[Tagging] Use of highway=track vs highway=service cemeteries, parks, allotment gardens, golf courses, and recreation areas

[Bert -Araali- Van Opstal]

On 28/02/2021 07:34, stevea wrote:
> On Feb 27, 2021, at 3:15 AM, Bert -Araali- Van Opstal <bert.araali.afritastic at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I understand.
> then stated what he understood to be a "wide interpretation" of "supporting other vehicle transport" (transport modes like motorbike) which "get" more and more promoted and supported by access restrictions.
In this you misunderstood me Steve.  This was from a social point of 
view, not from what I've seen in OSM. I meant across the world we see 
this happening, cities, countries, governments promoting other modes of 
transportation, more environmental friendly modes of transport and 
mostly they are enforced by access restrictions. Not that it is promoted 
(yet) in OSM.
>
> Hi Bert:  See, there are a number of suppositions, assumptions, easy-to-make wide interpretations...we might as well call such things "potential traps to fall into."  Some do fall into them.  One supposition is that "these 'get' more and more promoted..." yet they haven't been (yet).  OSM wants to map what is today, not what might be tomorrow.  (Though, there are smeary cases like "proposed" I won't get into here).  This is why Bert was answered "well, use access=* on these when warranted."  That's correct.  You might also use other tags that characterize or restrict mode-of-transport (hgv, motorbike, emergency_vehicle, tuk-tuk, dismounted-bicyclist-as-pedestrian-walking-her-bike...).  But, these are not "built into" assumptions or interpretations of highway=service.  It's easy to do so.  But, please don't.
What was revealing to me from this Steve, is that access restrictions 
are used not only to tag legally enforced access restrictions, but also 
physical restrictions. I agree, we shouldn't include these wide 
interpretations if they are not applicable or intended to be considered 
in the highway=service on a global scale, but many of use don't have 
this historical background, this global view. It does however illustrate 
how the current classification causes so much confusion, socio-economic, 
physical appearance, function, legally defined access restrictions, and 
it seems they are all mixed. Maybe we should go for a more general 
review, allow and describe the different nature of classifications or at 
least guidance in how they can and are intended to be used.
>
>> It looks weird to me to use a highway=service tag for that purpose, that's why here we look at the highway=service tag as being generally used for roads that have no specific general "public" character, a tag that has service=* values that mostly describe a certain use or purpose, not covered by the other highway=* tags. I know, people already pointed me out that is also not the correct interpretation as it was intended, but maybe that has grown historically a bit out of order due to reluctance to add a new or attribution to the already existing highway tags ?
> Yes, Bert, not only for this/these tags we're talking about (blurs between highway=track and highway=service), but for others as well.  Especially as there have been "old school" (legacy) ways of tagging that have changed over the years as newer tags / newer tagging schemes have evolved.  Look, we still have plenty of Public Transport v1 (PTv1) routes, when PTv2 has been around for many years.  (And thank you to all who improve to PTv2 or even enter directly into PTv2, skipping v1).  There is history / legacy, there are assumptions, interpretations, even persistent misunderstandings.  It can take years to clean up what started as a simple, minor misunderstanding.  This usually starts with the identification of a some confusion between syntax (tagging) and semantics (the meaning of the data in the map).  I'm identifying that there are many of these, they happen often enough that they ought to have their own sub-genre of ontology, we talk about and around them here, but we seldom directly talk about this basic fact going on in OSM.  This thread is a good example of this:  long, multi-headed like a hydra and swarming with many voices and edges of understanding that often threaten to bleed into hostility or "I'm right, you're wrong" kinds of devolution.  Let's not do that.  Let's be OK with people saying, "hm, we disagree, can we see where and maybe how and not necessarily why but rather tease it apart with consensus we've already established and perhaps a bit more?"  That's called forward motion and OSM frequently has it, but it takes dialog and listening and work.
Thank you Steve ! Very much appreciated.  If you allow me, what I can 
add to this is, my experience as a newcomer in this group, is that it's 
a very closed group, and that it gets hostile sometimes because some 
people who for long participate in it, feel like the current tagging and 
mapping behaviours, and wiki is their "work". In some sense it is of 
course, but the result of that work is not reflected in general good 
mapping and tagging behaviours.  So the "work" is not done, and it will 
never be, be more open and less hostile for the new emerging OSM mapping 
communities, views and interpretations, "scope" perceptions, without 
feeling abused or attacked for the hard work you have done so far, or 
what OSM has become. Due to the demographics of these new emerging 
groups, most of them young people, they have the perception that the 
work being done so far is not that great, that they can do better, new 
views are not heard, talk groups considered irrelevant and they rebel by 
doing what they want, because they can, they will if they find they are 
not being heard or respected. It has the potential to make this whole 
group, the whole of the OSM project irrelevant to them and to create 
their own fork, within or outside the OSM community.
>
>> That's why we locally tend to map these as residential roads.
> And identifying the "why" is often quite helpful, especially when we know it!  Knowing why often lets us demystify, unconfuse or simply demolishes misunderstanding.  Sometimes, that's not enough, though, eventually we might reach a harmony where everybody agrees that one method is right everywhere (ideal).  Sometimes, we recognize that "it's done like A here and it's done like B there" (not ideal, but a pragmatic method to cope with millions of us mapping a fair-sized planet — while we wiki-document how).
>
>> Recently, we started to use the narrow=* key together with width=* to provide data for such "alleys",  We also had a group which liked to prefer to use the access keys to tag not only legally enforced access but also physically "enforced" access. Is that practised the same way elsewhere in the world ?
> I dislike sounding like I'm "punting away" here, but "that's going to be a complicated answer to what appears to be a short question."  (There are lots of these in OSM).  I don't want to discourage you asking, that's a good thing to do here and people can often help as you do so.  To really know, digging into OSM's data with query tools like Overpass Turbo can go a long way to provide the data you seek, then you can sift, sort and make sense of "some answers," which is good old-fashioned data analysis, like any enormous database (like OSM) has happen to it (and we're glad it does).  Note I didn't say "the answer" because it's not always clear that there is such a thing as a single correct answer.  The process, the data, the results, what you do with them:  these really can be (on OSM's scale they often are) quite complex.  Many people are involved, many legacies, many local / regional differences, many existing toolchains like tagging-rendering pipelines might be considered.
I understand Steve from your point of view and maybe access to 
resources. For us here that is however not a feasible approach.  If you 
have unrestricted resources and access to the internet and OSM no 
problem, but if you don't and even struggling on a daily basis with 
financial means and availability of IT resources to access a forum or 
group like this, you can understand that using these tools and using the 
historic resources is not feasible and excludes us of from doing so.  In 

our cultures, we ask the elders to get historical context, and they are 
very willing to help us.  The answers might not be simple, might be long 
and might be not always all revealing, but the elders at least provide 
them. Here, you get hostile answers by just go there and there, use tool 
A, B, C and D to find out, don't ask us because we are tired of 
providing the same context and answers over and over again. We can't, 
and that is why we ask, and that is if you want to be an open community, 
at least try to answer these kind of questions. I don't want to be 
referred to yet another help channel, another tool, spend days and days 
to research OSM's history, because I can't. Not from just an economical 
perspective but many of us also from an educational and cultural 
background are unable to do this.
>
>> It would make it easier also for routing software in my opinion, especially for motorists and cyclists, they should look at the physical highway keys. Anyway, my perception is that we don't tag for a specific data use or rendering.
> Yes, here is a core assumption of this whole discussion, really:  "physical highway keys" (are "a thing," are "these things...").  It appears Bert contradicts himself here.  ("No harm" meant, mate, but as to "no foul," well, I can't say that).  Maybe "slight foul" (yellow card?!) stating that your "perception is that we don't tag for a specific data use or rendering" while earlier (right up in this message) stating that "we look at the highway=service tag as being generally used for roads that have no specific general 'public' character, a tag that has service=* values that mostly describe a certain use or purpose, not covered by the other highway=* tags."  Yes, that IS "not the correct interpretation as it was intended."  So, "yellow card."  (I like your posts here a lot, Bert, please don't think I'm slapping you when I'm simply offering you an opportunity to see and perhaps unravel where logic might short-circuit — it happens).  So, yes, use the eraser on that assumption and blow away the crumbs, that's why there are erasers on pencils.  You do get it mostly correct when you say "grown historically out of order" (maybe due to, maybe not) because of "changes over time" to "reluctance to add a new or attribution to the already existing highway tags."  It is precisely those "changes over time" processes that millions of us do in hundreds or even thousands of different ways sometimes that gives rise to these issues.  It's pretty complicated, because so are people's understandings AND minor misunderstandings often because of assumptions and interpretations.  See?  Now we go from square one to square two:  identifying that there IS a problem, and maybe even why.  What to do about it are squares two, three and beyond.
Appreciated Steve, and surely not offended. This whole confusion in our 
minds is encouraged by the fact that we use the "Highway Africa Tagging 
Guidelines", which are used not only in Africa but most of the 
(non)western world, with a great thank you to HOTOSM that created these. 
Neither of them is perfect, neither of them covers the global situation.
But at least, especially in this context, the global applicable 
guidelines should either more clearly indicate that different 
classifications exist, not be used as general guidelines or misused to 
impose local variants, look at them as "square" contradictions to the 
global perception, because that is how they were incubated from a 
western culture. I would never comment on a local variant, but here we 
are talking about changes being made to a global guideline, where my use 
and perception is should be as much applicable from "Highway Tagging 
Africa" as it is for the western variants.  And yes they are square, as 
is our access to resources and tools, the divide between north and south 
in internet access, but OSM, and we, this forum,  wants to be a global 
community yes ? At this time it is not, and the divide is growing, in 
every way.
>
> You then asked specific questions about alleys I don't answer here and now.  That's because this is long and deep enough.
>
> Sometimes, strategy involves looking at a bigger picture (occasionally in painstaking, pedantic, patient ways).
>
> SteveA
>
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