[OSM-talk] golf course marking

[David Earl]

On 08/05/2008 12:52, Erik Johansson wrote:
> Try not to fall in the trap of being Commonwealth centric. Tags,
> words, language are only what people think they are, the definition is
> only secondary. You wont start thinking northen cyprus is Turkish just
> because all street names have been such in the last 30 years. Do you
> understand why people (as in I) can misunderstand things?
> 
> 
>> Personally I think the attempts to group tags causes more arguments
>> than it is worth
> 
> It's wonderful when you are mapping, do you have any better idea on
> how to learn while you are tagging?

I appreciate there are language difficulties, and that the tagging 
scheme is not language (or culture) neutral. If it was up to me and we 
weren't starting from where we are now, I think I would make the 
properties numeric and have a level of indirection so that the human 
readable versions can be translated and set according to your language, 
culture and whim. But we are where we are, and it would be a massive 
distraction to change the method now. (We could build translations on 
top of what's there now though).

However, if you think about them like you might a barcode, for example, 
that is just as an identifier which has no particular intrinsic meaning, 
and use the definitions on the Map_features page for the meaning, then 
you should stand a better change of getting it right (OK, I'll sidestep 
the issue of what "right" is in our anarchic world as that's a different 
discussion).

If you want to apply tags, you really, really must read the Map_features 
page: you wouldn't try to do other complicated activities before 
learning how to first. Ignore the tag-name words, just think of them as 
meaningless identifiers until you learn the associations of the 
identifiers with the meaning. If the definition itself isn't clear, then 
we should correct it.

If it bothers you so much that an identifier has an intrinsic meaning 
for you rather than just as a memory jogger, then why not help by 
contributing a method for translation rather than try to change a 
specific identifiers from one language and culturally slanted form to 
another.

David