[OSM-talk] Approved: waterway=stream

[Tom Chance]

Ahoy,

On Mon, 11 Jun 2007 09:35:07 +0100, "David Earl" <david at frankieandshadow.com> wrote:

> I think this has missed the boat. waterway=stream is *already* widely
> used, and rendered. Therefore it is defacto a feature whatever the proposers of
> this complicated alternative may like.

That's true, although if an alternative was adopted those existing values could be translated across.


> (I understand that there is a desire for the accurate representation of
> things like river widths, but really making it so detailed is highly
> offputting for putting things like this on the map. I think the same
> applies to requiring area landuse=residential instead of just tagging roads as you
> go).

Actually, the thing I liked about Ben's proposal is that it can be very simple indeed - http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Proposed_features/Stream

I have no interest in accurately representing waterways, but I do want to distinguish between big fat rivers like the Thames, medium sized rivers like those you often get through town centers, and little countryside streams. All I'd need to do is add waterway=river and est_width=x to get the desired result. If you don't care about its width representations, just forget the est_width bit.

For those who do care, you can go into full detail.

Now this is why we need more discussion on the proposals! Perhaps it makes sense to leave waterway=stream as shorthand for est_width=2m or some such value, both for the especially lazy (like me!) and because it's widely used already?

Kind regards,
Tom