[OSM-talk] Country-specific defaults/values (was: Re: Proliferation of path vs. footway)

[Tobias Knerr]

David Earl wrote:
> My feeling is that what we are missing is largely country-specific 
> defaults. Or rather we have failed to recognise this in the 
> documentation, but it is what pretty much everyone is doing in practice 
> already, and that's got a lot going for it.

If "cycleway" does mean something different in Germany than it means in
UK, why do we try to use the same tag/value in the first place? Why
don't we use, e.g., "Radweg" for Germany? (Or differentiate with
prefixes or something like that where different nations use the same
language?)

I feel it would be much easier to document a tag if it had only one
meaning. (It would also make the discussions /prceding/ the
documentation easier...)

Also, using country-specific values would avoid the requirement to map
everything onto that "footway/cycleway/bridleway" scheme. It's entirely
possible that there are countries whose categories don't fit in there.

It wouldn't be harder to evaluate for applications (such as routers).
Country-specific defaults require machine-readable information that maps
(value + boundary) -> access rights. Country-specific values require
value -> access rights. So, in fact, it might even be a bit easier for
applications because it doesn't require "were am I" checks. Of course,
it becomes harder to create "one size fits all" renderings, which
probably is a major reason why we internationally use the same tags.

So I'm actually not sure whether country-specific defaults are the ideal
solution. Country-specific values /might/ be the better choice.

Tobias Knerr