[OSM-talk] Tagging hierarchies (was: RFC - lake)

[80n]

On Jan 12, 2008 2:10 PM, Martijn van Oosterhout <kleptog at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Jan 12, 2008 2:13 PM, Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org> wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > > The world has an infinite diversity and we can't go inventing new tag
> > > combinations for all of them. We need to think hierarchically, start
> > > with the real defining characteristics: land/sea/road/rail/etc and use
> > > subtags for the finegrained stuff.
> >
> > While this is true, it would not be necessary to stuff the hierarchy
> > into the tagging scheme.
> >
> > Suppose you say something like this (just an example, not meant as a
> > suggestion for real-world use):
> >
> > 1st level: natural=water
> > 2nd:       water=standing (as opposed to flowing)
> > 3nd:       standing_water=lake (as opposed to puddle, reservoir...)
>
> I'm not sure that's the kind of hierarchy I meant, but I think there
> should be a top-level and stuff under that. A base-type + properties.
> I'm looking at it from the point of view of a tagger. As far as I'm
> concerned the difference between a dam and a reservoir is just a name
> and should be reflected in the name tag.
>
> Let's say I'm looking at a satellite image and I see a body of water.
> Is it a lake/reservoir/dam/blah? I don't know. Yet the proposed scheme
> forces me to choose one with a 2/3 chance of being wrong. Maybe its a
> type that has no translation in English, then I'm really SOL.
>
> I suppose what I'm contesting is the statement that natural=water is
> deprecated. It covers all the impoartant properties needed for 99% of
> users. If somebody cares about details they can add them but I object
> to me being forced to care.
>

I totally agree with this sentiment.

It should be possible to be vague about something when tagging it.  There
are several vague tags that I really like and use frequently (natural=water,
natural=grass being my two favorites) that allow you to describe what you
see without having to worry about whether it's a lake a pond or a reservoir,
or a park a green or a common.  In many cases there's no way of knowing or
finding out, so these vague tags are very useful.




>
> Have a nice day,
> --
> Martijn van Oosterhout <kleptog at gmail.com> http://svana.org/kleptog/
>
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