[OSM-talk] mark a way as secondary

[Joerg Ostertag]

On Saturday 10 June 2006 12:22, James Mastros wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 10, 2006 at 11:47:28AM +0200, Immanuel Scholz wrote:
> > I dislike the wording "highway" as a replacement for "class", since I
> > think something like "highway=footpath" or even "highway=minor" is very
> > confusing. That is the reason I recomment using "class" as key and
> > "highway" as value (as example for german autobahns).
>
> The reason for this comes down to a difference between American English and
> British English, or possibly a difference in styles of government.
>
> To a Brit, a way is a highway if it belongs to the Queen.  This covers
> everything from the M25 to that little alleyway between buildings that you
> use as a shortcut to the Chinese takeaway.  To an American, a way is a
> highway, roughly, if it's big.  The word "highway" is often preceded by the
> level of government it actually belongs to, as in "federal highway", or
> "state highway".
>
> As such, I'd prefer to see "class" rather then "highway" as well, since
> that should cover anybody with programming experince, rather then everybody
> who is British, but that might just be because I'm an American programmer.
> (Living in Britian.)

I completely agree with you. I always had problems with the naming highway=... 
I always would have expected highway=3lanes or something like that.
So i definitely would vote for something like class= of type=

Another wording issue would be abutters=... 
The first thing i thought was: 
   !! WHAT !!! I never heard about this word; but sounds 
               like a nasty word (has butt in it ;-)

For me, a more technical/international English wording would be more 
intuitive. Yes I know neighborhood instead of abutters wouldn't fit as good. 
But more people would understand the meaning of the key right away. And more 
people understanding the tags in the correct way right away leads to easier 
keying the Data.

These are only 2 examples out of the complete naming scheme. So maybe 
someone "none UK-english-centric" could have a look at the keys and make some 
new suggestions for discussion.


-

Joerg