[Talk-us] Elevation in local units

Bryce Nesbitt bryce2 at obviously.com
Wed Mar 25 05:43:41 UTC 2015


   - I feel that osm convention should encourage all mappers to specify
   units (e.g. 22 m).
   - That whitespace should be allowed (e.g. 22m, 22 m, or even 22 meters).
   - And that local units should be encouraged (e.g. 22 feet, or 22' 0").

The wiki templates, if spruced up, could define the rules uniformly for all
keys that take a measurement unit
(e.g. height, width, ele, max_height, etc).
--
Parsers are cheap.  Any parser worth using can convert 22m, 22 m, 22 feet
or a variety of reasonable variants.
Humans are messy.  Forcing them into boxes generally goes badly.

---
Specific to the USA:
If I'm mapping a "6000 foot" sign I sure don't want to enter "1828.8m" or
worse yet "1828.8".

The same goes for anything that takes a unit.  maxspeed=88mph is better
than maxspeed=88.
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