[OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Roy Wallace]

On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 12:06 AM, Nop<ekkehart at gmx.de> wrote:
> - Can we agree on a common interpretation of what foot/cycleway are
> supposed to mean?

I highly doubt it, because highway=footway and highway=cycleway are
quite vague, and infer different things to different people. And while
a clear definition on the wiki is all that would theoretically be
required to make them work, it seems this won't be easy to agree on.

I therefore prefer deprecation of these tags in favour of highway=path
with tags to *explicitly* state what the situation is for that
particular way - "tag as simply as possible, but no simpler".

> - Do we want a general meaning for every country, delegating local
> specifics to other tags, or a local meaning dependent on a countries
> specific conditions?

If you *explicitly* state the situation on the ground, worldwide
consensus is possible.

> - Do we tag generic trails as highway=path or does this tag have a more
> complex meaning?

I don't think there is any such thing as a "generic trail". I think
highway=path should simply imply that the way is a physical route used
for travel but not suitable for cars. Additional tags seem to be
necessary to describe details, if available.

> - how can we get a coherent tagging model for OSM?

I think some more guidelines as to "what makes a good tag/tagging
scheme" could be helpful to guide us. There seems to be no shortage of
ideas but rather the problem is when we try to judge one idea against
another. I'm constantly referring to "verifiability", but I'm sure
there are other important criteria.

I'm also looking forward to Google Wave as a means of collaboration.
The current approach of wiki and email lists clearly isn't optimal for
nutting out these issues.