[Talk-us] proposed first principles for United States road tagging

[Emilie Laffray]

On 7 March 2010 10:46, Paul Johnson <baloo at ursamundi.org> wrote:

>
>
> Perhaps we should be working more towards worldwide consistency.  I
> don't know about you, but I don't expect the same map to work
> differently in the UK than it does in Canada, or in Canada
> differently from the US.  So why should the same map work
> differently in Oregon than it does New York or Washington?
>
>
I don't know but when I read a map from a different country, I read it with
the new context in mind. Maps are highly contextual piece of works. I have
lived in France, US, UK, and Curacao, and I can assure that if you expect to
give you the same information you are mistaken. Roads that can be considered
primary in Curacao will definitely not looked like the one you would see in
France, etc...
Everything has to be taken with a pinch of salt. I don't believe in absolute
systems, but in relative systems.
Consistency is a good thing but you have to look on what aspect they need to
be consistent. If you are talking about physical consistency then I suspect
we don't have enough tags, a primary road in Africa will be quite different
than a primary road in Western countries, etc.....
I partly agree with you but we have to be careful with consistency,
especially considering absolute criterias. For example, Google is rendering
their maps in the same way around the world even if the roads can be very
dissimilar.

Emilie Laffray
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