[OSM-talk] Parking symbols: YUCK!

[Gervase Markham]

Andy Robinson (blackadder) wrote:
> 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.

But surely the point is that we don't have to "learn to live" with 
anything less than perfect, because we can just fix it. _That's_ what 
OSM is.

All Lester is asking for is an unambiguous definition of what best 
practice is, so that people can know what to do and renderers know what 
they _have_ to support. He's not suggesting we send the heavies round to 
the house of anyone who doesn't follow it.

> 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.

Why wait so long to define best practice? We're just storing up work for 
ourselves later. When you map an area, it's just as much effort to use 
system A as system B; but if 50% of mappers are using system A and 50% 
are using system B, then you've just created a lot of unnecessary work 
which could have been reduced by better communication.

Gerv