[OSM-talk] motorvej=motorway=autobahn?

[Thomas Walraet]

pgroad a écrit :
> As a Dane I find it strange to see Denmark mapped using UK (I guess) 
> terms and distinctions. Is it totally without merit to map an area in 
> local terms? If it is, I think it will be difficult to convince 
> non-mapoholics to contribute to the mapping process.

There was a few messages on the talk-fr list about using or not the 
english system.
To sum up :

- Everybody (not quite a lot of people actually...) seems to agree on 
using "Map feature" for the moment, to take benefit of the slippy map 
colouring, osmarender "default" rendering, etc. (Note: it doesn't mean 
we shouldn't think of another system)

- We talk about what "highway" value we should use for what type of 
road. Should it be done accordingly to a French administrative 
classification, or to the road "importance" in term of width or traffic 
capability ?

- Should we define a new tag for the French administrative 
classification ? Some answered that the "ref" tag may be sufficient as 
in France the reference first letter give the road class (A15, N7, D722)


Now, my personal part :

"Map Feature" page actually contains 2 sorts of things :
- The "highway" tag, that is bound to English administrative classification
- The rest of the page, that defined tags based on observable facts. 
(and thus, is naturally not England specific (the fact that English 
words are used is _really_ not a problem in my point of view))

It's a good thing to enter administrative classification in OSM, but we 
should also agree on a way to enter the "ground-based" observable type 
of the road. (let's say in a "foobar" tag for the rest of this post)

If a renderer want to output maps with an unified look for the whole 
world, it could based the graphic rendering on the foobar value. The 
compatibility with highway tag (or other future country-specific system) 
could be kept by assigning a default foobar value to every highway 
values (and override this default value if both tags are present).


I was thinking of this since quite a time... I have a bad habit of 
thinking a lot and never do anything[1], but I will really try to 
provide a wiki page and a working osmarender rules files in a near future.

PS: How to call a classification base on observable facts ? I used 
"ground-based", but I'm not sure it's good in English language for what 
I meant.



[1] It's perfect for self-satisfaction to never make the things you 
think about. You avoid confrontation with all the problems that you 
haven't think about, and so you can persuaded yourself that your ideas 
are really brilliant. And when someone else spent lot of time and effort 
in doing something that looks like what crossed your mind before, you 
can watch the final result and tell that you could have done the same 
thing (Which is wrong, since you never do anything).
http://linuxfr.org/comments/262429.html#262429 ;) (french-speaking old post)