[OSM-talk] Tag proposal/approval system is too heavyweight

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

> Having an approved set of tags means that there is ideally 1, but
> certainly a small number of ways of tagging common features, rather  
> than
> 15 or 50.

Even without a mechanism of "approval" people will eventually settle  
down on a small number of ways of tagging common features. Not having  
an approval system does not mean people stop talking.

To give an example, I was recently looking for a tag for "vineyard".  
Browsed the wiki and found a longish discussion about the advantages  
of "landuse=farm,produce=grapes" over "landuse=vineyard" or vice  
versa. Settled for "landuse=vineyard" and even updated Osmarender to  
render it properly. The feature is still not "approved" but I think  
it is very unlikely that anyone will use something else than one of  
the two ways mentioned.

So as long as there's at least some discussion that can be found  
(either in the Wiki or on the lists), things will go nicely even  
without formal proposals and approval. A plain simple "hey folks, how  
do you tag <x>" plus the 10 mails that follow is enough. Either all  
10 use the same anyway (or 9 of 10 do), then the issue is clear, or  
if every single one of the 10 uses something else, but an approval/ 
voting process wouldn't lead far then.

+1 to replacing approval/voting by a good automated mechanism of  
showing what's there. Agreed, the structuring needs to be solved but  
this could be done by editing in the Wiki as a completely separate  
process that does not aim to influence what tags are used, just  
documents it.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"