[Talk-us] Map Roulette Idea - GNIS "parks"

Tue Oct 6 22:15:09 UTC 2015

Hi Mike,

I’m just going to through my hat in here, nothing concrete, just suggestions. I am sure you probably know this, but maybe others on the list do not – if you’ve seen/heard of the cartoon “South Park” – it’s actually named after one of those geographic features described in that second definition; this one: https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/3387601#map=10/39.1482/-105.8945 – which is my handy work, and no, it’s not ‘complete’ and yes it is a bit hard to define; but ask any local and they’ll know the general area that is ‘South Park’ the ‘flat part’ surrounded by mountains. I’m actually mapping the ‘interior features’ first (such as residential and smaller forested areas) before ‘stretching the park polygon over top.’

I have the relation tagged with name=South Park and natural=grassland because in my opinion that is what is ‘most common’ as far as a ‘defining map feature’ besides the relatively – but definitely not consistent – elevation. However, now I wonder if creating natural=park or a similar tag might be better.

Cheers,

=Russ

From: Mike Thompson [mailto:miketho16 at gmail.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, October 06, 2015 3:25 PM
To: Open Street Map Talk-US
Subject: [Talk-us] Map Roulette Idea - GNIS "parks"

A subset of the the US Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) data was imported into OSM [2]. I have discovered a systematic error in the GNIS. In the US there are at least two different meanings for the word "park" when it comes to things we might map in OSM. The first is a recreational facility (leisure=park), the second is  “a broad, flat, mostly open area in a mountainous region"[1].  In many cases the GNIS classified features with "park" in their name as recreation facilities, when in fact they fit the second definition. For example: https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/356504183.  Examining these features against the USGS topo maps usually makes their true classification obvious. What do you think about a Map Roulette challenge to fix these?

Proposed selection criteria:

* Part of original GNIS import.

* No manual edits 

* Tagged leisure = park

* Name contains "Park"

* Name does not contain "national" "state", "county", "city" or "recreation" (these are likely to really be a recreation facilities).

Map Roulette Instructions to Mappers:

* Examine USGS topo maps for the area where the feature is located.

* Examine Bing and/or other imagery

* If not correct classification isn't clear from above sources, consult city and county websites to see if they have a recreation facility with the given name in the given location.

Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a OSM tag to describe  “a broad, flat, mostly open area in a mountainous region", yet I feel that these names are important pieces of information that should be preserved in OSM.  Does anyone have any suggestions? GNIS classifies these "parks" as "flats", but "flats" were not part of the import [3]

Mike

[1]  <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/park?s=t> http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/park?s=t 

[2] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Import/Catalogue

[3] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/USGS_GNIS#Feature_Class

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