[OSM-talk] Mapnik rendering of paths + place=locality in general

[Lauri Kytömaa]

>So: Someone thought that dropping the well-established and well-working 
>highway=footway was a good idea. He or she seems to have managed to 
>convince people to actually *change* existing data to fit his new idea, 
>without, obviously, spending a second thinking about the data consumers 
>(i.e. renderers and others).

I was the one who was quite active in the discussion about the proposal, 
but i *really* don't know how the Germans got the impression or decided 
that all or any footways would better be paths, or even any signed 
footways...

If I now look closely at the proposals wording, there's the clause "or 
intended for several uses", on which they might have constructed their 
reasoning. Yet a foot=designated on a cycleway is, IMO, equally sufficient 
to, well, designate it for both uses equally. Then a highway=path is only 
for, as the current wording in Tag:highway=path reads, "Paths for which 
*all and any* of highway=footway, highway=cycleway and highway=bridleway 
would be inappropriate or inadequate, yet usable for travel or 
navigation". This leaves for path any hiking trails and urban unofficial 
and totally unmaintained and unofficial narrow paths, i.e. the minor ones 
that snip a corner of a park or a forest, but also the snowmobile routes 
and others which just aren't footways nor tracks.

-- 
alv