[OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands

Dave Stubbs osm.list at randomjunk.co.uk
Fri May 30 00:19:43 BST 2008


> This strand of the discussion (below) though echoes the earlier thread I
> kicked off (but gave up pursuing because there seemed to be more prejudice
> than logic in the discussion) about the idea of numerically-based properties
> in the database mapped to human-friendly language in editors and viewers.

OMG is your brain mush? This whole nonsense is over what admin_level
(a numerical tagging scheme) maps to. It's the perfect example of why
numbering the bloomin tags doesn't necessarily actually solve
anything. It's also the perfect example of how a global numbering
system is utterly irrelevant given our ability to invent domain and
ordering specific ones on a whim.


> Most of that discussion was about highways but similar arguments seem to
> apply to boundaries. I think most British mappers would be happier selecting
> from a boundary sub-menu of 'National', 'County', 'District', 'parish', with
> each choice invisibly mapped back to the appropriate numerical boundary type
> than with the clumsy 'boundary=administrative' 'admin_level=4' approach.

Yes, I'm sure they would rather pick from such a menu. Mapping to the
relevant boundary and admin_level tags should be trivial as the wiki
page manages it. I'm sure implementations are welcome.

Dave




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