[OSM-talk] Tagging schema

[Lester Caine]

Joseph Booker wrote:
> On Mon, 5 Oct 2009 11:02:05 +1100
> Liz <edodd at billiau.net> wrote:
>> On Mon, 5 Oct 2009, Joseph Booker wrote:
>>>  Not sure if you are trolling or just
>>> not aware of the wiki, but I'll give the benefit of the doubt and
>>> assume the latter.
>> I wouldn't say that this guy is trolling at all, but has put a lot of
>> thought into his mail.
>> I don't find your quick answers helpful to myself, who is interested
>> to see a way forward from these discussions, not sideways or
>> backwards.
> 
> Figured a sideways look would help for perspective. Just wanted to make
> clear that there is an accepted schema, which may not be as strictly
> enforced as the original poster would like but matches most of his
> thoughts.
> 
> The similarity of his ideas with the way things are currently run
> (excluding the "classes" of tags based on what kind of values they
> accept) with the obvious desire for controlling clients is what made me
> think this was trollish, but like I said, I'm just going to assume he
> was unaware of the wiki and the procedures done there to formalize the
> tags in the database.
> 
> Egil, sorry if I came off as rude. I just think your email not
> accounting for the wiki serving (maybe ineffectively, that is another
> discussion) the purpose of your strict "tagging" mail group reflects
> some misunderstandings. If I am wrong, please let me know and I would
> be happy to offer comments on your proposal itself.

Actually - I think Egil's email packages up completely what IS missing 
from even the wiki ...
As soon as you ARE looking to add detail, the wiki collapses into 
something of a free for all?
His idea for a table of keys with their details is something I've been 
advocating for a long time, and *IS* essential to add a level of 
compatibility once you actually allow multi-lingual use of the tools.
( Simply replacing long English strings with a unique numeric tag IN the 
data would then be the natural way to compact the core data without 
affecting any of the detail! )

YES the wiki has the basics, but if English is not a language you easily 
understand, then the 'translations' where they do exist are not 
particularly consistent with the basic English 'rules' ( at least that 
is my understanding - based on feedback - since I even have trouble with 
English sometimes ;) )

( Egil - a little aside, while a check box for boolean would be nice, 
there is still an element of 'NULL' - that is in addition to setting a 
boolean tag, one still needs to decide if it should or should not be 
present )

-- 
Lester Caine - G8HFL
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