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

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

> > I feel that it is important not to automatically fix tags, as this could
> > result in a custom render suddenly failing.
> 
> Sorry just to clarify, I don't think that it is right for OSM to
> automatically fix tags.

I agree, to a point. I would be very unhappy if out of the voting
mechanism sprang some sort of automatic juggernaut that would simply
throw over everything that five people have decided to be
"deprecated". Changing the whole database must not become a routine
operation to happen after a vote; it should only happen on a
case-by-case basis after careful consideration about the impact, and
only if there's general agreement in the community (a three-against-
two majority does not count as general agreement). Individual
mappers are still the authority, and if we change what they have
mapped against their will, chances are that some of them will just
change it back.

However there are some cases where I think it's perfectly ok to make
automated changes without further ado, and these are the cases where
it is very likely that spelling errors or misunderstandings have
occurred (e.g. changing residental to residential, or changing
religion=protestant to religion=christian,denomination=protestant).

Bye
Frederik

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