[Talk-us] What does the community want from a US local chapter?

Anthony osm at inbox.org
Sat Oct 1 14:02:28 BST 2011


On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 3:07 PM, Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On 09/30/2011 08:36 PM, Mike N wrote:
>>>
>>> Really? Are there people who say "I'd rather not map because there is no
>>> consensus on the roads tagging"? Are those people the 20,000 missing
>>> mappers in the US?
>>
>> It is more like "I don't see anyone using the map except for Skobbler,
>> so why should I invest my time?" And what are the obstacles to usage?
>> inconsistent tagging.
>
> Yes,but are the only meaningful uses of the map really those that depend on
> cross-state consistent road tagging? I find that hard to believe.
>
> And even if it were so - it may be that Greece and Norway are different
> countries, and they certainly have different authorities responsible for
> road naming and design, but you can simply grab your car and go from Greece
> to Norway without even having to show an ID to anybody - and yet nobody in
> Greece has claimed that inconsistent road tagging within Europe was an
> obstacle to usage.

If every state in the US had its own consistent tagging scheme, that
might be a valid analogy.  However, that's not the case.

There's no reason that a US chapter can't working on a tagging scheme
which has nuances specific to each of the states.  In fact, I would
think that a consistent US-wide tagging scheme necessarily *would*
have differences between states.  I assume by "consistent" we mean
"compatible", not "identical".

On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 1:28 PM, Peter Dobratz <peter at dobratz.us> wrote:
> Yes, OSMF US shouldn't mandate a certain tagging scheme, but they
> could certainly help to facilitate a consensus among the community.

No one can mandate a certain tagging scheme.  However, OSMF US (or any
other group of editors) *could* come up with a well thought out,
consistent tagging scheme, implement stylesheets and/or scripts to
make that tagging scheme work in Mapnik, and then map it in a few
wide-ranging example areas.

I guess you could call that "facilitating a consensus".  But it's not
what came to mind when I first heard that phrase.

The tagging scheme in the US is inconsistent.  Patches welcome.



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