[OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands

[Steve Chilton]

I am glad I mentioned it!
Certainly stirred up some nationalist and sub-nationalist hornets.
Can I suggest a cease-fire on it.
Also suggest a compromise for now.
I propose adding code to style sheet to show admin_level=3 as a less
dominant variant of admin_level=2 to show at same zooms, so that
"countries (=2)" and "sub-countries (=3)" can both show at reasonable
levels.
Activists are then free to bash each other in tag wars (changing tags
between 2 and 3) at will.
Scope for the DB to reflect the nuances (agreed or otherwise!) and the
mapnik layer to show something.

Cheers
STEVE

Steve Chilton, Learning Support Fellow
Learning and Technical Support Unit Manager
School of Health and Social Sciences
Middlesex University
phone/fax: 020 8411 5355
email: steve8 at mdx.ac.uk
http://www.mdx.ac.uk/schools/hssc/staff/profiles/technical/chiltons.asp

Chair of the Society of Cartographers: http://www.soc.org.uk/

SoC conference 2008:
http://www.abdn.ac.uk/cartographers08/

-----Original Message-----
From: talk-bounces at openstreetmap.org
[mailto:talk-bounces at openstreetmap.org] On Behalf Of Sebastian Spaeth
Sent: 30 May 2008 14:17
Cc: talk at openstreetmap.org
Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands

elvin ibbotson wrote:

> As I understand it the numbers are not the problem, it
> arises from people not knowing which is the right number to use (eg.
> England/Scotland border admin_level 2 or 4?). This is why I think
> numbers are useful in the data but users should not have to know what
> numbers to use. Rather they should be presented with choices using
words
> they understand which then put the right numbers in the database.

The problem is not at all about whether you let user choose a number or
from a list of wordings. The issue at hand here is whether Wales country
border is of the same type as Austria's is.

This is what wars are fought over and you cannot solve the issue by
either numbers or by having people select from a list "municipal" or
"country" border.


>> 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.

The issue is not at all whether there's a nice drop down list or not.
People work already using descriptions on the wiki. However what
constitutes a "country border" is open to interpretation, apparently.


spaetz

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