[Tagging] Proposed rewrite Of highway=track wiki page

[Mateusz Konieczny]

Mar 9, 2021, 03:23 by bert.araali.afritastic at gmail.com:

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> On 09/03/2021 03:43, Kevin Kenny wrote:
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>> On Mon, Mar 8, 2021 at 6:10            PM Bert -Araali- Van Opstal <>> bert.araali.afritastic at gmail.com>> >            wrote:
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>>> Why do we need                  unclassified ? Look at it from the point of view from                  an ant, walking on the tree.  The ant only knows that                  it walks on a road, it can't see that far to see if                  that road is a minor branch or a major branch, or even                  a shallow trunk.  It does however know that it is                  something that belongs to one of these, because sap                  runs through it.  It's like a mapper in the field                  without a satellite imagery. The ant can only find out                  what the road exactly is, by walking all the way from                  one end to the other, or by asking other ants who                  already acquired that knowledge.  In case they are not                  there, it should call it unclassified, to indicate it                  needs more information to assign a final judgement.
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>> That's not how it's used in OSM.  What you described is            tagged in OSM as `highway=road`.  `highway=unclassified`,            misleadingly, is a formal read classification in the UK -            the road is classified as an 'unclassified road'.  What            'unclassified' means is that the road has a lower importance            than 'tertiary', but is not 'residential', either because it            is more important than the residential roads or because it            serves another purpose such as accessing an industrial            district. (If we were to start from a non-UK-centric            perspective, we'd have probably chosen a tag like            'quaternary' to describe this in a more neutral fashion.) 
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> Maybe that's the most common way how it is interpreted in the West,    having it's roots in the UK.  In Africa, it's not. We generally have    very few or no highway=road. It also isn't considered a valid    classification in Highway Tag Africa guidelines. 
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Which ones?
Looking at https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Highway_Tag_Africa
it describes highway=unclassified as
"Minor collector roads that allow travel and commerce from paths and residential
roads to and between settlements. While generally not residential, there can be houses along the road."
what matches https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:highway%3Dunclassified

It also has "if you're in doubt of what tag to use, use highway=road"

"In case they are not there, it should call it unclassified" is mismatching general guidelines,
general usage and Highway Tag Africa guidelines.

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