[Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[stevea]

Joel Holdsworth writes:
>...when the whole administrative area is clobbered with green.

What isn't forest shouldn't be tagged landuse=forest, and what is 
should be.  It is not obvious anything administrative (here) is 
"clobbered with green."  It seems semantics are conflated, or I don't 
understand the problem (around here, NW of Karlsruhe), or both.

If some national forests allow no timber harvesting (even hikers not 
being allowed to collect downed wood) then OK, remove the 
landuse=forest tag.  Or, better, draw new polygons where this IS 
allowed and tag THEM landuse=forest.  If a whole USFS (unit, 
polygon...) allows foresting, leave the tag on.  We have the ability 
to tag what we mean, we just don't always have perfect consensus or 
apply the consensus we do have correctly to existing map objects.  I 
think we are getting there, and maybe even are largely there.

We could benefit greatly by a (sooner) consensus on a landcover 
syntax and concomitant rendering that applied it, distinct from the 
Standard layer.  That just makes sense as a potential (improvements 
welcome) path forward.  Technically possible, right?

Land cover is not land use (and vice versa).  Land cover is not 
specified by the landuse=* tag.

SteveA
California