[OSM-talk] How do we specify relative importance of features across all types of features?

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

Hello all,

I've wondered what the "Feature's popularity" field was for in Google Map
Maker and I think I've found a use case for it. Please check this OSM view
out:
http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=14.14189&lon=121.02199&zoom=17&layers=B000FTF.
It shows Mt. Sungay as a prominent label and this obscures the more
important/popular feature on the mountaintop, the People's Park in the Sky,
which is a well-known tourist spot (you can see the label when you zoom in
to Level 18).

I think there should be a way to specify that showing the label for the park
has a higher priority than the name of the mountain since this is what
people expect (in fact, people going to the park hardly know what the name
of the mountain is). But since there is no such "importance" or "priority"
information in OSM, Mapnik defaults to labeling mountain peaks (since
mountain peaks, in general, really are prominent) and only fitting other
labels when there's space.

There has been some discussion on the mailing list before regarding the
priority labeling of place=* nodes by supplementing it with population info
or some other subjective tag (e.g., a less populous settlement might be more
important than a nearby more populous town). But maybe we can extend it to
encompass all features and not just place=* nodes, just like in my example
comparing a natural=peak node with a leisure=park,tourism=attraction area.

I think the proposed importance=* tag mentioned recently might fit the bill:
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_Features/Importance

Any comments?


Eugene / seav
-- 
http://vaes9.codedgraphic.com
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