[OSM-talk] Path vs footway vs cycleway vs...

[Steve Bennett]

On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 9:54 PM, Roy Wallace <waldo000000 at gmail.com> wrote:

> 1) I told them that *the wiki recommends* that they do need to use
> cycleway=opposite where appropriate.
>
> 1a) This is different to *me* telling them what to do - the wiki
> carries more weight as it is the outcome of discussion (see the
> discussion page, for example). It's also where newbies go to learn how
>

Ok, to recap, I said
>
> IMHO "Don't piss off the whole world, just piss off one country" is a bad
> solution, if there is no need to piss off anyone at all.

And you said:
>+1

(It's ok if you don't agree with the position, but you're having it both
ways - saying you don't want to piss off Noppia, but then complaining when
the Noppians get pissed off.

to map, and where others (me, at least) go for reference. Using a
> common set of guidelines like this is key to maintaining consistency.
>

Across all countries? Why?


> Also, importantly, if the Noppians think something is suboptimal in
> the wiki, and want to re-open the discussion, propose something else,
> etc., there are mechanisms available for that.
>

But they're only one country. As long as there is an assumption that
everyone has to follow the same rules, then there are going to be losers.


>
> 1b) Is it really so hard to add cycleway=opposite where applicable?
>

Yep. Like I said, I refuse to add "direction=clockwise" to mini_roundabouts.
One extra tag is a lot of extra effort, when the total number of tags you're
adding is usually 2-3.


> Really? Maybe I'm missing something (but then again, I'm one of those
> strange people who have no problem adding source=* tags to everything
> I change). I am always a little perplexed at some people's aversion to
> extra tags - we have autocomplete, presets, DB compression, ... I
> don't think it is ever worth compromising consistency to save
> keystrokes.
>

What if you had to type "bicycle=yes" on every single road? It would suck.
How about "car=yes"? How about
"bicycle=yes;car=yes;bus=yes;surface=paved;smoothness=5;colour=black;lines=white;parking=parallel;lanes=2;"
on every road?

2) They may think "everyone" knows the rules in Noppia, but this is
> unlikely to be true. e.g. what if I visit Noppia on holiday or
> business?




> What if my routing software uses the defaults for oneway=*
> as described in the wiki?
>

Then your routing software needs to be Noppia-compatible. And since,
theoretically, we have published an RFC explaining all the international
variations in an XML file, what the rules are, that's easy.


>
> 3) You say the citizens "refuse" to follow the wiki's recommendations.
> If they do realise that this is a problem, I cannot imagine that they
>

They don't have a problem. Their maps render fine, and they know exactly how
oneway streets.


> would refuse to change their practices - after all, usually OSM
> contributors do want to contribute to a consistent i.e. useful OSM
>

Locally consistent.


>
> But Steve, the point is that surely the Noppians also want to come up
> with a solution that gives us the best possible OSM database. Right? I
> would ask them: what do they think is the best way to achieve that?
>

That's one goal. I suspect most people's goals are more pragmatic and
localised. Do I really care what the Bulgarian OSM data looks like? Not
unless I'm going there. Do I care what the Melbourne data looks like? Yes.
Do I care what the Melbourne bike path data looks like? Yes, a lot.

Am I out of line here? Of course I want to see a globally consistent, useful
database. But ultimately, I want to see the most number of users happy with
their local data. And if that means tags mean something slightly different
in Cambodia than they do in Ireland, then...what was the problem again?

Steve
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