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

[Peter Dobratz]

On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 10:25 AM, Richard Weait <richard at weait.com> wrote:
> 1) What would you like to see the US local chapter do?

Come up with a consistent way to tag roads for the country.  Somehow
get a consensus from current mappers about how tag
US/state/county/whatever highways.  Update this page

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/United_States_roads_tagging

and then remove "There is conflicting information on this topic at
several places."

Specifically, on the Way:
ref=???
highway=???
name=???

Add Way to Relation
type=route
route=road
name=???
network=???
state_id=???
ref=???
modifier=???
direction=???

For exit Node:
highway=motorway_junction
name=???
ref=???
exit_to=???

Once we know how to map what we have, then we can document in the wiki
specifically how every numbered road should be documented.

> 2) Why should this be done by the local chapter, and not by individual mappers?

Every individual mapper can have their own idea about how these things
should be tagged.  As it is right now, mappers look at the conflicting
information on the wiki and then make an educated decision, only to
have someone come in later and change the tags on the roads, often
leaving the map in an inconsistent state.

I think there may even already be a committee setup to tackle this very issue:
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Foundation/Local_Chapters/United_States/Working_Groups/US_Tagging

> 3) Why should this be done by the local chapter and not by the OSMF?

Though there may be some global consistency with road tagging,
standards need to be established for each country.  Road tagging is
often influenced by US states making designations and signing each
road accordingly.  These signs do not necessarily have an
international equivalent.