[OSM-talk] Units convention (Was: Mapping canals)

[Stephen Gower]

  CHANGE THE SUBJECT LINE, GUYS!

On Thu, Jan 24, 2008 at 04:08:21PM +0100, Michael Collinson wrote:
> 
> maxheight= 3 ft  - original-easy-to enter "folksomomic" key (defaults 
> either to metric or local usage, there are arguments for both)
> 
> maxheight:metric = 0.912  - added either by power users or by post-processing

  "I heartily endorse this event or product."
  
  Seriously, this feels like the OSM way, and therefore is right. 

  1) Existing tags are already "dirty" with respect to units - they
  can, and *do* contain mixed units.
  2) This is analogous to the language keyspace - the unspecified key
  contains the local "what's on the ground" data, but specific
  languages are in the approriate key.
  
  So as Michael says, maxheight could be anything, but
  maxheight:metric would be in metres.
  
  <troll>
  And maxspeed:metric would be in metres per second.
  </troll>
  
  
  s