[OSM-talk] Map Features tagging question

[Andy Robinson]

No, you are absolutely right, nearly everyone wishes to see a level of
consistency. The trouble is not everyone wants to use the OSM data for the
same thing so what appears to be good tagging for one use does not
necessarily produce good results for something else. Map Features was put
together to provide at least something simple to work against for those of
us who needed to get on with annotating the data and starting to render maps
and for that on the whole we have found it adequate. That does not mean to
say that it couldn't be improved or that an alternative basis might be
better. However in the future it's a relatively simple process to add new
tagging keys and values corresponding to a new scheme based upon the tags
that are already there. Existing tags should never be deleted if possible in
case they are being used by someone.

To date nobody has attempted to do anything on tagging for OSM as far
reaching as "Map Features" in terms of the elements covered, therefore its
really the only way to work for producing rendered maps unless you work up
an alternative of your own. Before I drafted up Map Features most were using
a class=primary type annotation for highways, but that's about as far as it
went so there had been no real in-depth thought as to what other tags were
needed (with the exception I think that Nick Whitelegg had been tagging his
countryside mapping successfully in a specific way based in part on the
"class" approach).

Hope that helps understand the evolution and perhaps inspires some to
publish their own tagging use on the wiki so that the best of everything can
be considered.

Andy Robinson
Andy_J_Robinson at blueyonder.co.uk 

>-----Original Message-----
>From: talk-bounces at openstreetmap.org [mailto:talk-
>bounces at openstreetmap.org] On Behalf Of Emil
>Sent: 19 July 2006 23:03
>To: talk at openstreetmap.org
>Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] Map Features tagging question
>
>Hi Andy, thanks for the josm advice, I didn't know that!
>
>But surely it's desirable that people tag things in a consistent
>manner - isn't at least one aim to produce rendered maps? Am I being
>politically naive?
>
>Emil
>
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