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

[Topographe Fou]

To all,

I agree with most of what is said here except on one point.

On the point that there might be more important stuf to do to have a cleaner database than voting on deprecation but to everyone its own capabilities. To change osm infrastructure it's a big and long term work which implies to be deeply involved (and known) within the project. It also implies trust which can I think only be earned by resolving basic issues with the community before, showing its ability to go throught the maze without becoming crazy. We all know it is also something which fails more than it succeeds because it's a hard thing to achieve without breaking everything and even with support from some gatekeepers (for the good or the bad). So I don't see why one cannot push some basic topics on the table such as deprecating some tags or schemas if he don't feel comfortable to change OSM API.

Personnaly I'm worried about peoples trying to lock the project (while claiming it is an open project) and saying that "you must not do this". I don't think they are doing it with bad intentions, I believe they try to smoother the curve giving more time to strengthen ideas (which is ok), but the consequence is that many think that " we must not do this", end of the discussion for the next 10 years to come. Let's all not be blured and convert a personal opinion to a consensus. I too often see this while reading the list.

I'm all in for a strong osm database (like all of us I guess) and for me this imply the ability to structure the data we have, not only the future data we get. Deprecation if one way of achieving it. A more structured database improves the overall quality and usage of OSM data. Even iD does it by forcing some tag conversions in the backoffice (hidden mechanical edit), and we all know how they stopped giving too much attention to this list and to their gatekeepers (for the good or the bad). And OSMF does not complain that much. 

A second option would be to have a second osm database, oriented to data users, in read only, which would be an automatically cleaned version of the existing one, targetting data users which focus on stable data. This way when two schemas for a same thing exists, scripts can fix this. Also it might help to complete some missing tags (for instance if wikidata tag exists, it creates all wikipedia tags).

So let's stop saying that depreciation is forbidden by whoever law. And stop thinking it's forbidden by community consensus.

LeTopographeFou


	  Message original  	


De: frederik at remote.org
Envoyé: 4 février 2022 2:29 AM
À: tagging at openstreetmap.org
Répondre à: tagging at openstreetmap.org
Objet: Re: [Tagging] Rules (was: Feature proposal - Approved - deprecate embassy=embassy)


Hi,

On 2/3/22 15:15, s8evq wrote:
> You write that only a fraction of the OSM contributors are active on this mailing list. How is that, you think? There's no open atmosphere here.

I don't think that any mailing list could ever handle *more* than a
fraction of OSM contributors. People would join for a day, receive 100
messages, and quit again because they can't handle that much.

And that's not even opening the language can of worms.

Regarding the "open atmosphere", personally, what I always resist is
when people try to reduce openness, for example by trying to dictate to
others which tags are "right" and "wrong".

> These old-timers fail to see that a big group of contributors come to OSM with good intentions, and make it a better project, with better, cleaner data structure. They fail to even consider the thoughts and ideas of this large group.

The problem is that all these people with good intentions can think of
is making OSM more controlled. More rules, stricter enforcement of stuff
so we can all enjoy the better, cleaner data structure. Oh, you only
speak Portuguese or Bangla, sorry, you can'T be part of this big group
of cool people who invent the nice and clean OSM because they're all on
the tagging list debating in English.

> Just consider that a rather large group of contributors thinks a clean data structure is important (more than tag-anything-you-like), and you'll have to do more than just keep repeating "You're wrong".

There are ways to work on cleaning up the OSM data structure but
discussing which tags should be preferred over which other tags ranks
very far down in that list. It would be much more important to work on a
better way of representing area/polygon objects, and probably on better
ways to communicate changes (for example, a way to upload just a single
tag change for an object rather than a full new object, and a way to
record edit operations so a history viewer could tell you "this way has
been split" rather than "ah, this way has been shortened by 6 nodes and
another way has been created that seems to have just these same nodes".
Things like that. But, as Andy said in another post, any non-trivial
change in OSM has (a) a political component - selling your change to
those who have to develop the software to support it - and (b) a
management component - managing the implementation of the change,
communicating, testing, and so on.

It is naive to believe you can have 30 people vote on a change and
whoops, there it is.

Bye
Frederik

--
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"

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