[Talk-us] Washington, DC parks - boundary=national_park or not?

[stevea]

Our wiki[1] on the topic of such public lands is a "hybrid style" in that it is partially prescriptive in how it suggests such tagging is done, especially at a federal level (National Public Lands section).  These suggestions, or "tagging seeds," often ARE (as Minh mentioned) boundary=protected_area taggings, rather than boundary=national_park (unless they are de jure "national parks").  However, there are dozens of flavors of national public lands which use many key-value pairs (tags) besides boundary=protected_area, such as leisure=nature_reserve, historic=battlefield, tourism=attraction and more.

And, while "suggestions" is the word used here, this wiki DOES profess to be authoritative as the single wiki which should guide tagging, even as OSM has other wikis[2] which also suggest tagging, though this latter wiki has (since September, 2020) been undergoing a transition to the former wiki with regard to ceding its tagging suggestion authoritativeness.  The latter wiki is to "provide guidance on contributing and tagging OSM data within US National Park footprints in such a manner that provides a consistent methodology for capturing, mapping and rendering data and maps using OSM" via its subordinate, linked wikis (Roads, Trails, Buildings, Boundaries, Natural Features...).  This/these latter wikis haven't been substantially edited in over five years, though they do contain valuable suggestions on tagging standards to remain consistent within NPS tagging.  The transition to them being fully superseded by our Public Lands wiki is a slow-going and yet-to-be-completed undertaking, as really, only one wiki should be authoritative regarding tagging suggestions, otherwise we do or will have wiki contradictions.  Please assume for the time being that Public Lands is authoritative, with NPS Tagging offering supplemental suggestions for harmony between the parks and their facilities / amenities — following that has emerged as current consensus.

About our Public Lands wiki, I say "hybrid style" and "partially" because this wiki is explicitly prescriptive at the federal level (including for true National Parks).  This is because OSM knows that in the US, many scattered tagging styles exist across the 50 states, and there is a strong desire (and indeed movement towards) consistent tagging on parks at all jurisdictional levels.  Quite unusually, and explicit in the wiki, our Public Lands wiki states that while the detailed suggestions for Federal / National public lands are PREscriptive (you SHOULD tag like this), the state-level wikis (in a growing table of states) are DEscriptive:  these are how we DO tag specific public lands — the tagging actually IN USE in a given state (including on "parks" as is meant in US English, not OSM's definition of leisure=park as a usually urban, manicured landscape).  This important (but relatively slow-going) work at the state-level is intended to be a longer-term methodology to IMPROVE public lands tagging at the state level, as it documents existing tagging, indicating inconsistencies or gaps in how any given state's public lands are currently tagged (or not tagged).

For the specific case of Washington, DC "parks," which do have some exceptional jurisdictional difficulties — even ambiguities in the minds of many — we should be able to reach consensus on exactly how the federal government jurisdictionally delineates these, which should authoritatively guide OSM's proper tagging.  As such consensus emerges, our wiki[1] should capture and document these suggested taggings so that they may be properly applied.  Indeed, it may be best to follow that wiki's process by including the District of Columbia as a "state" in the State Table (acknowledging DC isn't a state).  This process being followed really is a specific case (specific to DC) of capturing how we now DO tag public lands in that jurisdiction, while highlighting inconsistencies about how we SHOULD tag them.  (This is the intended purpose of this wiki section).  In the meantime, that wiki's Talk page can facilitate discussion, understandings and harmony leading to this consensus.

Finally, it may be worthwhile to possibly cross-post or move this thread / these topics to the talk-us-nps[3] mailing list.  However, while it is more specific and targeted list towards NPS, this is a lower-traffic list; talk-us-nps hasn't seen a post since February 2021.  I, and I believe the community, very much welcome continuing discussion on these topics, especially how to best harmonize the two wikis (and sub-wikis) mentioned here.  This transition seems to have stalled and OSM (-US) will benefit greatly by fully eliminating the (slight) ambiguity in authoritativeness between these wiki.

SteveA

[1] https://wiki.osm.org/wiki/United_States/Public_lands
[2] https://wiki.osm.org/wiki/US_National_Park_Service_Tagging
[3] https://lists.osm.org/pipermail/talk-us-nps/