[OSM-talk] Proposal for 'description' tag

[Mike Collinson]

I've made a proposal 
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Proposed_features/Description 
for a 'description' annotation tag:

- A short human-readable description of the parent 
node/segment/way/area in any language that amplifies the 'name' 
tag.  For example a park: "Includes children's play area and boat-hire".

- Primary purpose - to save surveyed information and observation in a 
directly readable form in a uniform across-the-board tag that can be 
used directly in a secondary map mouse-over pop-up, in a text 
listings and for geo-referenced text search-engines.

'description' is also part of the Dublin Core.

I'd guess the main argument against it is that there is already a 
'note' annotation tag.  For me the two are separate as a 'note' might 
be anything put in by the data gatherer whereas a 'description'  is 
intended to be looked at by directly by an end-user and should be 
succinct and readable.  I'd welcome thoughts.

Mike
Oz