[Tagging] Rules (was: Feature proposal - Approved - deprecate embassy=embassy)

[stevea]

On Feb 3, 2022, at 5:09 AM, Andy Townsend <ajt1047 at gmail.com> wrote:
> , and that appears to be mistagged.

Here is where ego and harmony blur (I don't mean to seem I'm singling you out, Andy, we all do this).  Each of us would like to believe, in some cases can and do, believe her or his opinion about something is correct.  It is human nature, we all do it.  We strive to stand as tall as we can to achieve consensus.  Difficult, yet do-able.

I will not stand idly by and watch a sort of Tower of Babel happen to OSM and harm it like this.  "How we tag" is vital.  There is how we have tagged, how we do tag and how we will tag.  This is one of the most important trajectories of how this project matures than anything I can think of.

Some proposals, and these are vetted in various methods and forms (we could classify and "ontologize" those) are simply "whack," or silly or over-engineered or incomprehensible or simply do not measure up.  That is going to happen, that is human nature, that is the sawdust on the floor as we sand and shape.  Actually, I somewhat relish watching this process, it is fascinating and remarkable.  There are and will be special interests, there are and will be hijackers.

There are and will be eraser crumbs as we rub out our boo-boos, or better said, they are not boo-boos, they are more like shedding skin as we grow older and better.  There is wheat, there is chaff, every harvest there are both.

I ask each of us to manage as best we can the precious resource OSM has to "grow well."  This means understanding, in an adult, realistic way, that "we emerge."  Tagging in OSM is sometimes "it's done like this a bit more here" (and there).  "Managed" globally, like everything can always be watched?  Ladies and gentlemen, this project is organic.  It will have mushrooms and what some call weeds and others call noxious plants.  Let's get busy managing that growing this project requires that we not only understand that, but live it.  Harvesting well requires we sow good seeds and till the land with generations of future ahead of us.  We cannot fail to innovate, we cannot endlessly stifle.  Besides, mushrooms play a vital role, and some are delicious.

Welcome to adulthood, OSM.  Let's act like adults.  This project has a history (meritocracy has a serious track, it "isn't terrible") and if we're smart, a future.

OSM has use cases, downstream users, renderers, routers, statistics of "reality" of how tags "emerge and evolve" and so on.  It wasn't invented in a day.  I've been working on proposals for years with several people on many fronts (to address some of the issues Frederik just noted) and this project simply does not move that fast (my fellow co-authors do look at essentially global changes).  Consensus takes time.  There really is a paradigm to fit into, yet "any tag you like" exists as a pillar.  OSM is not brittle, OSM is vital.

We can do this:  pay attention.  The good stuff emerges, like nature.  So let's keep an eye on it for our future.  (This means keep an eye on noxious weeds, too).  OSM is a complex of moving parts and it does grow.

I feel both a bit odd and honored at mentioning what feels like this checkpoint in OSM.  Shake hands, everybody (figuratively; pandemic, you know).