[OSM-talk] [Talk-GB] "Unsurfaced road" and "Byway"?

[Andy Allan]

On Dec 16, 2007 4:37 PM, Mike Collinson <mike at ayeltd.biz> wrote:

>  > Are you going to re-tag every way in the database that uses this?.
>  Nope, everyone is free to use whatever tag they want.  Same goes for
> rendering.  If its useful locally in the UK  that is fine, but it should not
> suddenly appear on the Map Features page, certainly not without
> discussion/voting.  If it was used during early mapping, a "depreciated"
> note would an alternative.

(cross-posted to talk)

I must have missed the point where the discussion / voting system
became the *only* way for a tag to appear on the Map Features page. I
think widespread use, flawed or not, historical or not, voted on or
not, is also sufficient.

In fact, if I were to make any comment on the voting system, I would
say that nothing should be proposed for voting *until* there is a
sufficient use of the tag. I see a awful lot of tags being proposed
through someone trying to scratch an itch - which is why you're
allowed to use whatever tag you feel like, without having to get
things voted on Map Features first. And in another thread there was
someone having problems with the length of Map Features page on the
wiki - an indication, perhaps, that including so many sparsely used
tags (whilst ignoring those in common use because of "procedural
irregularities") is making the signal to noise ratio on that page
worse and worse.

So having nothing other than a cursory flick through my mailing list
archives for some approved tags and comparing them with tags that I
know haven't gone through the voting process:

shop = outdoor ('approved') - 10
crossing = toucan (not approved) - 49
railway = subway_entrance ('approved') - 224
shop = doityourself ('approved') - 22
ncn_milepost = * (not approved) - 113
amenity = car sharing (approved) - 23
rcn = * or rcn_ref = * or route = rcn (none approved) - 2109

and, of course, the original discussion was about:

highway = unsurfaced (not approved) - 1938

And more importantly, I know that every one of the not-approved tags
is not only in use in the database, but even being rendered too (no
prizes for guessing where!)

So lets all be a little less bureaucratic when trying to exclude
things from "Map Features", or alternatively return the page to its
original use (a useful guide to what tags we use) and take the
bureaucracy elsewhere.

Cheers,
Andy