[OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

Morten Kjeldgaard mok at bioxray.au.dk
Tue Aug 11 12:41:56 BST 2009


Hi,

It seems to me that tags have proliferated because as time has gone  
by, people have invented more-and-more uses for OSM -- and that is good!

However, it is a problem because mappers are trying to accomplish very  
different things from the same set of tags. Here is a set of distinct  
problems I can think of off the top of my head:

  * Classical map features. Cities, roads, forests, ferrylines. Where  
does a road/path lead? How do I get from A to B? Bridges, railway  
crossings, etc.
  * Legal rights. Is this road accessible to the public? Am I allowed  
to drive a car here? Bicycle? Horse?
  * Administrative: Who owns this road/area and who takes care of it?
  * Terrain. Is this road suited for bike-racing? Mountain bikes?  
4WDs? Is it steep? How steep?
  * Surface: paved, gravel, grass sand?
  * Environmental: Chemical/Radioactive pollution?
  * Security: where is there a phone, hospital, mountain shelter? Wild  
animals?

So it appears there is also an evolutiont in tags to encompass more  
and more of these distinct (and useful!) pieces of information, but  
unfortunately tags are being added in a ad-hoc manner to solve  
particular problems without concerns of maintaining a reasonable  
namespace. The addr: namespace is a good example of how a set of  
complicated tags can be grouped so they don't interfere with other  
requirements.

As time goes by, who knows what OSM will be used for? Perhaps the  
public works of some city decides to put their water and electricity  
lines on the map? Perhaps some agricultural agency wants to use OSM  
for soil characteristics?

The highway=footway is IMHO an alias for the more complex highway=path  
foot=yes surface=paved etc. construction. I think aliases are  
perfectly legitimate constructs when dealing with very common  
situations, and furthermore, much easier for newbies to remember and  
deal with.

Perhaps it would be constructive to discuss the tagging structure  
considering the various purposes tags have, and in line with the good  
example set by the addr: namespace. For example, national OSM teams  
might have access to their own name spaces, for example fr: (France)  
de: (Germany) etc.; this would eliminate discussions of the differing  
interpretations of certain tags that now occupy a lot of the bandwith  
of this ML.


Cheers,
Morten





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