[OSM-talk] RFC - lake

[Robin Paulson]

On 11/01/2008, Michael Collinson <mike at ayeltd.biz> wrote:
> >http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Proposed_features/Lake
> >
> >it seems a logical one to me, we need to differentiate between lakes
> >and rivers, canals, etc.
>
> Yes, probably logical if we started from scratch but today it exactly

totally, i realise the tagging system has evolved very quickly form
nothing, it's bound to change over time as we learn new things. my
tone was probably wrong, that is itself a good reason why the tag was
chosen

> duplicates natural=water which is very, very widely used - 9421 times

no problem, they can all be changed very simply i should think.

> according to the Statistics link
> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Key:natural, though I suspect
> that is out of date.  There is also natural=coastline, so there is
> another logic too.

that is actually pretty logical (for practical reasons) - the
alternative would be one area comprising 99% of the world's oceans.
using a boundary instead, greatly simplifies things, plus the creation
of new oceans/seas is highly unlikely, so once it's done, it's done.
on the other hand, new lakes/reservoirs/etc. are a lot more likely, so
we need a consistent scheme for adding them. i'm sure there are other
good reasons, too