[OSM-talk] Highways tagging vs Polygon

[Tobias Knerr]

Nic Roets wrote:
> My opinion is that all defaults should be global. We should not have any
> country or urban / rural specific defaults. It will mean most ways will need
> a lot of extra tags. So we may need to improve the editors to make it easier
> to add all those tags. For example give the editors modes like "Rural UK"
> where they apply the defaults when new ways are created.

What's the advantage over adding a "Rural UK" tag to the way? If we can
teach it to the editor, we can define a tag for it.

> But it will make it a lot simpler for mappers. If you see a "No Cycling"
> sign on a trunk road and want to compare it to the DB, then you don't need
> to think about where the country border polygon ends.

So when I see that there is _no_ "no cycling" sign, but a bicycle=no in
the DB, what should I do? Remove it? But it might be part of the
country's traffic laws (and was therefore added by someone's editor in
"Motorway Germany" mode). How should I know?

What I would consider simple is my editor displaying the following
information when selecting a way:
* the set of defaults applying ("Rural UK")
* all additional rules coming from signs etc.

I don't need to know what the defaults are! If there is a sign, I add
the restriction. It might or might not overwrite any defaults, Why
should a mapper care?

Tobias Knerr