[talk-au] Gravel roads surface tagging

[stevea]

I don't want to get lost in the weeds of gravel tagging specifics, but I do want to ask about "procedural" aspects of this.

It sounds like surface=gravel might "slowly" be "replaced" by something newer (again, specifics are not germane here). How do we propose this?  How do we discuss this in each wiki:  gravel as "old, being slowly deprecated...here's how" with a link to the newer key / tags / scheme?  Is anybody (like the proposal author) "responsible" for watching, managing, mitigating this old-to-new migration?  When there are millions of tags extant and we say "we're replacing what exists with something better," that sounds great, but in my experience these are fraught with problems, misunderstandings and candidly, mess, contention and the engendering of bad feelings about OSM.  Good "process management" prevents this.

Can we discuss (at a relatively high-level) — or perhaps point me to a wiki or something that is CRYSTAL-clear about how such tag migrations might / would / do happen — the mechanics of such an "establish(ment) of new tags" as we "migrate away" from the old ones?  It seems like both that's a more-and-more frequent occurrence in OSM (and mail lists) and it doesn't feel like we talk about or agree on the proper "how" we do that.  Well, often enough; it feels like time.

Thanks, I hope this doesn't derail the discussion, especially as we keep it high-level or don't re-invent this wheel,
SteveA