[OSM-talk] Relation/Routes and Hikes in open Country

[Nick Whitelegg]

>Wow, I'm totally jealous of the landscape.

>However, I don't think marking these as "routes" is appropriate. For
>cycle routes we have the rough description that "Cycle routes are
>named or numbered or otherwise signed routes, which may go along roads
>or dedicated cycle paths. ". I don't see anything objective in some
>guy's opinion of a way to get up and down a hill. If any random
>collection of paths counts as a personal "route" then I would be able
>to create routes all over my neighbourhood along the lines of

><tag k="type" v="route"/>
><tag k="operator" v="Andy Allan"/>
><tag k="route" v="foot"/>
><tag k="name" v="Andy Allan's way to the shops, this time using Main
>Street instead of Oxford Road"/>

>... and the whole idea of routes being objective, signed etc flies out
>the window. For comparison, the foot routes around London that I've
>been rendering are all officially signed. There is a right and a wrong
>since there is evidence on the ground, and there is an "operator"
>since a local authority is responsible for them. So it's not
>subjective in any way.

>If you want to mark them in using relations, please find tags other
>than type=route, route=foot in order to distinguish them from real
>objective routes. And this guy doesn't "operate" them in any sense of
>the word, so I'd ask you to avoid that tag also.

I guess this comes down as to whether things like walking routes should be 
stored in OSM itself or put in a different project. I guess we don't want 
to overload OSM with walking routes; however Freemap does aim to overlay 
walking routes on top of the OSM base map.

Nick