[OSM-talk] [Re: Prolification of the amenity tag]

[Mike Collinson]

Just got in from a week-long drive where I've collected a lot of "amenities".

I understand the philosophical angle of limiting an (Open) street map 
to, well, just streets, but not from a practical collection 
perspective.  A database is a database and a rendered map a rendered 
map.  OSM is currently a central database with several mapping 
rendering initiatives.  Unless there is a physical problem due to 
space or processing cycles, or ambiguity is introduced, it seems to 
me that the natural approach is to keep the database collecting as 
much relevant information as possible (where relevancy may be in the 
eyes of the beholder) and let the choice be made at the display level 
... or by search tools as they become available as they surely will.

If I'm faced with having to enter information in two different 
places, well, I'll just dump the amenities.  I'd be much happier if 
pruning or splitting the project where made at a later date *if* 
experience dictates.

Mike
Oz


At 12:54 AM 30/11/2006, bvh wrote:
>Accidently sent to person instead of list
>
>On Wed, Nov 29, 2006 at 01:11:09PM +0100, Joerg Ostertag (OSM 
>Munich/Germany) wrote:
> > I convinced that things like a clinic, a hotel, a gas station, a 
> supermarket
> > are more than valuable, even necessary on a map. For one point I 
> need them to
> > find these thing for another they help me to navigate by matching 
> them with
> > the map.
>
>1. you can not find them with openstreetmap.org in any practical way
>2. they are very usefull to have them on a map yes, but openstreetmap.org
>database is not the only possible source of data
>
>My whole point : all this information is very valuable, so valuable
>in fact that hiding it in a impossible-to-search database like
>openstreetmap is a total waste of effort.
>
>There. I can't put it any shorter than that.
>
> > But the problem would be; every external programmer (like me being the
> > GpsDrive maintainer) has to start over again to collect the 
> different sources
> > together to get all valuable data. This is work which will then 
> be done over
> > and over again. Which definitely is a big waste of effort in the current
> > state.
>
>And now you have to do the same work in massaging the planet.osm
>database. In fact if every source would just publish an rss feed
>with geocodes, the work of all those external programmers disappears,
>the user just subscribes to the channels she wants.
>
> > If for some reasons you want to create a map without any of this 
> information
> > it is very simple to deactivate all the rendering rules you don't want to
> > show up. But it is way more difficult to collect all this Information from
> > other sources and then start creating rendering rules for all these tags.
>
>This is totally NOT about how a map gets displayed. I hope that much
>is clear after my countless emails on the subject?
>
>cu bart
>
>----- End forwarded message -----
>
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