[OSM-talk] [RFC] Deprecating the use of Tag:highway=stop in favour of Key:stop

[John Smith]

--- On Tue, 25/8/09, James Livingston <doctau at mac.com> wrote:

> Sorry, I had a typo in that sentence - it should read "so
> that mappers  
> and software ...". As well as software, it makes it easier
> for mappers  
> who wouldn't have to check arbitrary nodes around a
> junction.

No, the easiest thing for mappers/contributors is a single node near the intersection tagged as highway=stop, going into relations for something as trivial as a stop sign isn't in the interest of mappers/contributors, it's in the interest of those making routing software.

> but what is  
> wrong with the tagging scheme making it easier to process

What is wrong is it makes things more difficult than it needs to be for mappers.

> if the  
> scheme is otherwise just as good? Of course, whether it is
> just as  
> good is pretty much what this argument is about.

I'm yet to be swayed by the fact anything more than a node is needed to indicate a stop sign, the only benefit of which is to routing software, it won't effect how things are rendered, not will it benefit the contributors by making things more difficult.

Have a look at the awful way someone came up with tagging speed cameras, I couldn't figure it out at the time so I ended up tagging speed cameras as a single node with highway=speed_camera. Why would making it harder or less obvious methods in tagging stop signs make people use them?

Chances are they won't so all this talk about relations and splitting ways will be used by a minority, the majority will just keep doing what is easiest, which is a single node with a single tag.