[OSM-talk] Parking symbols: YUCK!

[Andy Robinson (blackadder)]

Lester Caine wrote:
>Sent: 26 February 2008 9:10 AM
>To: OSM Talk
>Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] Parking symbols: YUCK!
>
>Andy Robinson (blackadder) wrote:
>>> While the access=public applies to car parks - this would be preserved
>by
>>> the
>>> general rule of copying the node tags to the area.
>>> ANY POI that is changed from node to area will potentially have the same
>>> problem, and we should be fixing the general rule not starting to build
>>> another set of pages for voting on every POI node/area conflict debate?
>>
>> Both nodes and areas carrying the same data in OSM are perfectly valid
>just
>> as a unified approach is perfectly valid if the object is drawn as an
>area.
>> The point is that anything in OSM is allowable and there will be no rule
>> enforcement so spending hours debating possible rule ideas is all a waste
>of
>> effort.
>
>And a simple definition of good practice will remove the need for any
>discussion when we start getting similar conflicts with church icons, or
>any
>other POI.
>
>> Now that doesn't mean to say we shouldn't put ideas up on good practice,
>> that's perfectly valid. But don't expect everyone to adhere to it.
>
>And good practice is not to create duplicate references to a single POI. It
>may be appropriate to have SEVERAL POI's that are linked to the one
>physical
>location, and currently there is no agreement on how that should be
>handled,
>but there should be some agreement on how we handle the case where
>duplicates
>exist?
>
>> What we do know is that the renderers will get smatter with time and the
>> dataset will become richer. Whether we like it or not, many objects may
>have
>> a degree of duplication whatever guidance is given.
>
>Accidental duplication perhaps  - and that can be corrected just as *IS*
>necessary currently if a node and area give conflicting information. But
>the
>main problem seems to be the insistence that we have to look at area
>information to resolve these conflicts, and always 'render' something and
>fix
>the overlaps. The DATA is becoming richer and it does not take much in the
>way
>of good practice ( Recommendations - Rules ) to ensure that ALL uses of
>that
>data can be managed without having to resort to additional bodges to
>untangle
>unnecessary conflicts?
>Or perhaps we just have to live with some duplicate results in a search
>telling us different things about the same place?
>
That's the point I'm trying to make really. We need to learn to live with
all the potential duplication and less than perfect tag data simply because
that's what OSM is. Anything otherwise just places restrictions on
contributors and potentially turns people away from contributing data. When
the world is effectively complete we may be turning our discussions more to
making the data set conform somewhat better because that will help users of
the data. But we have a very long way to go before we reach that point.

Cheers

Andy