[Talk-us-massachusetts] intro and intent

[Brian M. Sperlongano]

On Tue, Jul 12, 2022 at 7:40 PM <hobbit at techno-fandom.org> wrote:

> I agree that the protected boundaries *within* the larger sea of green
> makes
> perfect sense.  Tell me, if you know -- is this the model also behind RI,
> good chunks of NJ, that big sort-of-circular area in southeastern NH, a big
> patch around State College PA, and even out near Amherst MA?


Yes


> But in areas where the rest of the woodland hasn't been mapped and isn't
> likely
>
to be for some time yet, what's the *harm* in highlighting our known
> woodlands
> by their boundaries?  To make them easier to find if nothing else?
>

Because that would be inputting wrong data.  Despite the name, we aren't
building maps, we're building a geodatabase of facts that data consumers of
all kinds can make use of.  Some of those data consumers are maps, and some
of them are other interesting data usages.  That's the reason why
mis-tagging for a specific data consumer is a problem.

Boundary = this is the boundary of an area
Land cover = there are trees here (or whatever land cover might be there)

These are separate pieces of information that shouldn't be combined.  Let's
say you have a small hiking area with a pond in it.  You tag the boundary
natural=wood (or landuse=forest) and trace out the pond on top of it.
Well, now the database says that there is a pond, and trees at the same
spot.  Now, if a map renderer happens to draw the pond on top of the woods,
you wouldn't notice a problem.  However, some other data consumer
interpreting that information on its face would be retrieving incorrect
information.

Just draw the woods where there are woods, and the boundary where there is
a boundary, and I promise everything will sort out.

And it looks like I'm still confused by "Mapnik" vs. "Carto".  Still
> reading...


Mapnik and carto are two technologies used in the "Standard Tile Layer",
the project of which is called "openstreetmap-carto".
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