[OSM-talk] Relations not always brilliant

[Steve Hill]

On Tue, 8 Apr 2008, Andrew McCarthy wrote:

> (2) A relation for that road's notional "route", that contains the
> relation above *plus* the (usually obvious) connecting bits that give
> you a single, long distance route from A to B.

Which bits you use to connect the disjointed sections are a rather 
arbitrary decision - should OSM be making such decisions?  I mean, there 
is no officially documented "this is how you get between these sections" 
route so we would be making a route up arbitrarilly.

Sure, for some stuff it might be obvious, but for a lot of stuff it 
isn't.  Take the A31, for example - it joins the M3 near Winchester but 
then reappears on the westerly end of the M27.  You might say that the M3 
and M27 is "obviously" the missing link and add that to the A31 relation, 
but that would be completely unsuitable for cyclists.  This really isn't 
the job for submitters, this is the job for a route planner program - 
submitters are supposed to be recording data, not making relatively 
arbitrary decisions about which routes people should take.

  - Steve
    xmpp:steve at nexusuk.org   sip:steve at nexusuk.org   http://www.nexusuk.org/

      Servatis a periculum, servatis a maleficum - Whisper, Evanescence