[OSM-talk] Left and Right - a proposal

[Ben Laenen]

On Sunday 31 August 2008, Frederik Ramm wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Ben Laenen wrote:
> > This could be very annoying if you're making a way for an area and
> > at the end suddenly remembers that you should have done it
> > clockwise and not anticlockwise.
>
> Direction is irrelevant for areas. (Coastline currently being an
> exception.)

Then that's also one of those things that change without it being 
mentioned somewhere. 
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Tag:natural=water still says:

"Direction 
This is important for rendering. The direction of the way should be 
chosen such that land is on the left side and water on the right side 
of the way (when viewing in the direction of the way arrows). If you 
regard this as tracing around a lake, then the way(s) should be running 
clockwise. It's easy enough to reverse the direction of a way in 
Potlatch, JOSM, and all good editors."

I have no idea whether it matters or not for renderers, since I always 
tag with the feature on the right (i.e. clockwise).

Ben