[OSM-talk] Relation/Routes and Hikes in open Country

[BEHRING Carsten]

I enter a bit late in this discussion. But this was the only place I
found which discussed the issued of the "nonoffical" 
routes, because I would like to do the same, so a kind of "sharing  of
unoffical cycling routes." with OSM.

I have a kind of mixed feeling about this. One one side I understand
that the fundamental data of the OSM data base should be 
based on "verifiable facts on the ground" but on the other side there
are some use cases which the current OSM data base does not (officialy)
address.

The first one is exactly the question of "unoffical" route proposals. I
find it very covinient and logical to create my "private routes" as
relations in JOSM by assmembling them from existing ways, such as any
normal relation. But I agree that we should use special tagging for it,
so that "by default" they do not appear on an offical map. But I would
like to be able to "link to them" somehow or enable them.

And it is true that the questions about when does a route changes from
"subjective" to "objective" is quite tricky to decide.

Are the requirements for making a route "objective" are really needed
and a clear criteria of adding a route to the OSM database, such as:
- marked on the ground
- maintained and supported by an organisation

This factors can change over time, so maybe the province stops maintaing
a certain route, so the signs get invisble, the maps disappear. Should
we then remove it from OSM ?
(Or think about the future in which everyboddy has a GPS with OSM maps,
so "marking" of routes is not needed any more ...)

Maybe an individual person can "maintain" a route better then an
organisation (even by just maintaining a web site with up-to-date
information)


I am not sure if the existing tags such as "operated by" are a good
mechanism or not to diffenciate this.

Maybe it would be just easier to simply use a tag such as "marked=no"
which simply says if or if not we consider a route to follow the rules
of "verifiable on the ground" or not and the renderes by default ignore
them.


Regards,

Carsten 



 


>> I'd define it slightly differently - its do we want *subjective*
>> routes in OSM? I don't think anyone is arguing that notable
>> *objective* routes, like the Pennine Way in the UK or the Appalachian
>> Way in the US can certainly be included as a route.
>>
>
> Hi all,
> I'm going to be a bit provocative here, please bear with me....
>
> 1) At what point does a route change from being 'subjective' to
'objective'?
> 2) 'Open Street Map is a map of everything'.
> 3) 'Your map, your way'.
>
>
> I understand the concern that we don't want the official map to be
> saturated with additional non-official (whatever that means) routes,
> however I don't think that it is a reason to prevent
people/organisations
> adding there own relation/routes to the data base.
>
> At present the offical map does not render the relation/routes, when
it
> does it can limit the ones it shows by using the operator and/or
network
> tags.
>
> In the case of Bob Spirko, there is a huge resource of write-up and
photos
> on his website. I believe that it is a benefit to add this information
to
> the OSM database and (in my opinion) relation routes are the best way
to
> do this. The first batch of trails are actually based around those
> published in a book, does this make them 'objective'?
>
> For OSM this get us additional ways on the ground, showing footpaths
and
> tracks on the ground. The use of relations removes the surplus naming
of
> ways (ie. a footpath would not have to be tagged 'Anderson Peak Trail'
for
> example) and other marking of non-physical things.
>
> For Bob Spirko (or whomever) it gives the ability to render maps
showing
> his routes (which can be done offline with osmarender or some other
> scheme) or to make GPS compilations for navigation.
>


I've not got much problem with "notable" subjective routes being
stored in the database. Obviously "notable" is a vague moving target,
but what I mean here is that it's not a completely arbitrary
concoction that no-one else has ever heard of. If we have a well known
person writing books on walks etc then I see no problem in adding
these to the DB.

The problem is how you add them.

A route relation, as in type=route, route=foot, has so far implied a
signed, "official" route. This is what is being referred to as an
objective route -- the key feature is generally that it is maintained
by someone (the operator). For the subjective routes where someone has
gone and looked for a nice walk, wrote it down and published it, this
probably isn't the case. I'd rather the former weren't diluted by the
latter, with no easy way to distinguish them.

What I'd suggest is that you just change some of the tag names:
   type=suggested_route
   route=foot
   suggested_by=Bob Spirko

Then everyone knows where they stand, and what this represents.
I'm sure there are people convinced this is a bad idea... and if the
goal is to avoid conversations about what is considered "notable" then
I'd probably take their point.

Dave


 
Carsten Behring
Software Development Manager

Information Technology and Operations

	
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