[OSM-talk] Edit war on the wiki "map features"

[Ralf Zimmermann]

First of all - I think those edit wars are silly. Please think before you get 
involved in these things. Put your energy into some useful stuff instead of just 
fighting an opinion you might not understand right now.


> Who knows what you can or can't inline skate on?

Inline-Skaters do!


> Who knows what makes
> a sports car a sports car? What's the difference between a trekking
> bike and a city bike? What's the worst terrain a tractor can handle?
> I've never even seen a rickshaw and how many people have ridden in a
> wheelchair?

This is a good point. When inventing a new tag, people should be very specific 
about objective information, not about subjective possibilities.
Instead of tagging "usable_for_trucks=no" do something like "max_height=2.5 
meters" and "max_weight=10 tons". This way it is more useful. Just imagine a 
routing application where you can enter the height and weight of your truck and 
you get a route that you can drive with YOUR truck.


> It's impossible for me to use the tag because it requires quite
> intricate knowledge of several different forms of transport of which I
> have no experience.

Some people have this kind of special knowledge and I encourage those to add 
special tags to the features they map. If I do not see the benefit of those tags 
today - who am I to say they are bad or useless? My view is limited!

For those people that don't know these peculiar details - don't use the tags! 
But don't fight them. (That includes me for a lot of tags - I just ignore a lot 
of tags because I never took the time to read what they are used for)
For example, if there are people that map ways in my area riding on horse backs. 
They use different tags than I do. Are those tags bad then? Don't think so.

OSM is so wonderful because of the diversity of its contributors. They do the 
mapping while jogging, bicycling, riding a horse, riding a motorcycle, driving a 
car, pushing a baby carriage. And they all have a different view on how OSM will 
benefit them. And guess what? - They are using different tags.


> Is trying to get specialised tags through a majority vote ever going
> to work? Would it not have been better just to come up with a tag,
> document it on the wiki and start using it?

This is how a lot of people do it, without talking about it (much). This 
approach is one of the beauties of OSM - I think.
Invent a new tag, use it widely and show how much sense it makes. This will 
convince people much more easily than writing a wiki page with lots of "one 
could", "one would" and "one should" phrases.


The one good reason to write a proposed feature page in the wiki (in my eyes) is 
if you have an idea but you are not sure on how to actually tag that best or how 
to avoid redundancies with other tags. Then you can use the wiki page to outline 
your idea and also collect some comments from others.


RalfZ
Munich,Germany