[OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Tom Chance]

On Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:00:06 +0200, Martin Simon wrote:
>> You've just explained that there are two different ways of tagging the
>> same thing, and suggested that both are equally valid. That's pointless
and
>> confusing.
> 
> What would you like to do? Force Mappers to use path? Automated
> mass-retagging of existing footways/cycleways/bridleways?
> Or just keep the "old" system because  "there must not be another way
> to do it, even if its more flexible"?

It's important for OpenStreetMap to have some coherence.

It's quite important that you and I both agree that "chair" refers to a
piece of furniture on which we sit. Imagine if you used the word "chair" to
refer to a small furry pet that meows and likes fish! We can't have a
situation where - as others have pointed out - we have people using a
particular tag in many different ways.

It also helps if we stick to one way of describing any particular thing.
It's lovely that in England we have "cow shed" and "byre" and many other
phrases for the same object. But when you're writing a stylesheet for
Mapnik, or trying to download an extract, or writing a routing algorithm,
your task is made ten times more difficult if you have to keep adding lots
of alternative ways of describing the same thing.

We don't need to force anybody to do anything, but here are some basic ways
in we can encourage a more coherent approach: 

- discussions at SOTM or regional meetings
- a well managed wiki (hah!)
- stylesheets for Mapnik and Tiles at Home (both a bit out of hand, as Andy
Allan says)
- presets in Potlatch and JOSM
- error checking tools
- even bots that try to correct very minor errors like s/cahtolic/catholic/

I would support removing highway=path from Potlatch and JOSM and the Mapnik
stylesheet until a wiki page is drawn up which unambiguously describes how
it should be used. If it duplicates or replaces existing tags, that should
be properly resolved.


>> Which do we go for? We can't have this stupid, unclear fudge.
> 
> We can. We had this multiple times before. Think of address tagging
> before the Karlsruhe Workshop breaktrough 

There's a big difference, Simon. Nobody had yet accepted any addressing
schema, none of the community mechanisms I listed above properly supported
any one approach, until the breakthrough. Now that approach is gradually
being properly supported. It's a case of the anarchic approach working
quite well, partly by luck.

In this case, you have a tag which duplicates and possibly replaces
existing tags; which nobody can agree on the definition for; and which is
interpreted by different tools in different ways. That's a big step
backwards.

Cheers,
Tom