[OSM-talk] Lake Cowichan Now loaded (more of sample 092c area)

[Lester Caine]

andrzej zaborowski wrote:
> If you had read the message to which you were responding though you
> would notice I'm not suggesting the canvec tag be removed, from which
> the osm tag was derived, just the second canvec tag that contains a
> textual, english language definition of the first tag.  On *every*
> object that uses the tag, the exact same two-three english sentences
> (see the prime numbers example)

I think one of the problems here is that there is no real mechanism IN 
OSM for providing that data as part of the OSM downloads? There is a lot 
of duplication, but if I see a 'canvec' or any other external source 
tag, then should I have to start searching for external references to 
supply more information? But if there was a means whereby 'exact same 
two-three english sentences' could be packaged to provide a lookup table 
that any viewer could then access things would be a lot easier? While 
I'm ranting ... is there a cross reference OF sources that can be used 
for attribution details?

But then I still don't accept that things like 'tourism=hotel, rating=3 
stars' has to be duplicated everywhere anyway when the API can quite 
easily convert a simple alphnumeric tag to what ever language the target 
viewer requires? You can still retain the flexibility of people creating 
their own undocumented main tags, but one gets a unified view of all the 
core material without the misunderstanding caused by forcing english on 
everybody?

I've suggested in the past that there should be a unified 'place' table 
with a well structured hierarchy so that everybody uses the same id 
number for a place name, and this is the place that mappings such as 
gnis:county_id=052 - gnis:county_name=Multnomah would be added and 
referenced from? Looking up gnis, canvec or tiger in the place table 
would show which areas the relevent source covers?

-- 
Lester Caine - G8HFL
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