[OSM-talk] Suggestion: fallback tag

Dave F. davefox at madasafish.com
Thu Dec 17 16:59:05 GMT 2009


Steve Bennett wrote:
> IMVHO, that approach is harmful in general (have you *seen* how many 
> different tags are out there?), and ironic in this instance.
Yes, & unless I'm missing something your proposal just adds the long list.
>
> >If it's use *now *is a park, tag it as a park.
> >When & if (and that's a *big *if when talking about civil engineering 
> projects) it changes use re-tag it then & not before.
>
> Did everyone misunderstand my example this way? The thing is a 
> reserve, not a park. It has grass, but no amenities. It only exists to 
> protect the land for future development. People tag them as parks 
> because that's the closest tag...but it's not ideal. My "tagging for 
> the future" remark had nothing to do with future development, only 
> future support of a "reserve" tag.

Very unclear in your OP. Anyway...

Tag for how you see it is now.
If it's not a park, change it!
If it doesn't render, put a request in.

Your claimed solution:
landuse=reserve
fallback:leisure=park

still won't render & still needs to be requested & it adds an extra tag.
Like I said, I think you're chasing your tail.


> >Also, I think this should be on the Tagging forum.
>
> Yeah, maybe. I thought it was slightly out of scope for that.
>
> >In the end, OSM is a database, and how you are rendering a map is 
> something accessory, as "everyone" can set up the rendering the way 
> they want. It is the greatest strength of OSM that you can choose what 
> kind of rendering you can do. I think the map should deemphasized at 
> some point from the main site as more and more people want custom 
> rendering.
>
> I guess I will have to investigate this further, but that's really not 
> at all how I see OSM, and not how I think the public perceives it. The 
> diehards on this list may all have their own renderers set up at home, 
> but that's rare. For most people, the mapnik view *is* OSM, and 
> switching it off would be dumping OSM's biggest selling point. The 
> world has very much moved to a cloud model, whereas what you're 
> proposing (download the data, render it using an offline client) is 
> exactly the opposite of that. I just don't see that approach gaining 
> traction any more. If anything, I would have thought you'd put more 
> effort into custom rendering on the server, like cloudmade does.
>
> Of course, I could be completely wrong. That would at least explain 
> why I find the response of "make your own stylesheet" so jarring to my 
> original problem statement.
>
> >Yes, they are. If the render of your choice doesn't render a 
> key/tag,fix it yourself so that it does.
>
> Hmm, and I put so much effort into explaining the difference between a 
> one-off solution and a scalable solution. I thought I'd get more than 
> "yes it is".

You suggestion is as much a "one-off" solution. It's not a one fix, 
fixes all, because you'll have another tag in a different situation & it 
won't render either, so you'll have to put in a request for it. And so 
on & so forth...

What is your understanding of a 'scalable' solution?

> >*You *asked for opinions!?! - "What do people think?"
> >Replies are in the negative because they think your idea is poor for the
> >reasons stated. It's as simple as that.
>
> Constructive critism is great, and there were some good points raised. 
> But by and large the response was not constructive.
But only from your point of view.
>
> Steve
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