[OSM-talk] A process for rethinking map features

[Gervase Markham]

On 10/08/09 15:49, Tom Chance wrote:
> - Tags are proposed on the wiki, no change to current practice
> - If the proposal throws into question existing, accepted tags, defer the
> proposal to small working groups
> - These working groups study the wider questions and formulate a complete
> proposal for new tags, deprecation, etc.
> - At SOTM present and discuss their proposals and vote

-1 to "at SOTM", but +1 to the rest. I think it's entirely reasonable 
for e.g. community members who use and have experience of canals to form 
a "canal working group" to decide how best to tag them on an ongoing 
basis. And hopefully, if they are established and respected community 
members, they will make sure they get input from people in the relevant 
areas of the world where such tags would be used (in the canal example, 
UK canals and European ones are different in a few important ways). This 
will lead to a better result than the random proposal of new 
canal-related tags whenever someone happens to need one, without some 
consideration of how it might or might not fit in with existing practice.

There is nothing at all wrong with giving established, experienced and 
knowledgeable community members a bigger voice than someone who just 
joined the project yesterday. Every community has that, either de facto 
or de jure.

Gerv