[OSM-talk] Philosophy about Autorouting for Cyclists and new key class:bicycle

[Ben Laenen]

Felix Hartmann wrote:
> On 03.05.2010 21:47, Ben Laenen wrote:
> > Here's the thing: we just do not map unofficial routes. Only the ones
> > that are signposted. There are enough sites where you can submit your
> > route suggestions, and there's no reason why this should be in the OSM
> > database.
> 
> Well there is a big reason to do so. You cannot import such routes and
> map then onto existing streets. Also no such sites feature a tagging
> interface that is accessible with the tracks. They will not help
> autorouting at all. The data therefore has to be in OSM to be used (a
> parallel database would be stupid, because due to the small amount of
> data would IMHO cause more traffic and data growth than doing it
> directly in OSM).

I agree that it's tricky to link route data to the proper ways in OSM one the 
two were separated, since lots of things could happen to the OSM data. But is 
that a reason to put everyone's favourite route in OSM, just because it would 
be "easier"?

You'd actually make it much harder to map in OSM, because many mappers still 
cannot handle relations well and route relations regularly get broken by these 
inexperienced mappers. Not to mention the fact that say if a crossroad would 
be replaced by a roundabout, we get a huge extra burden to map everything 
correctly if that place was so popular that a few hundred of these routes were 
crossing it and you'd have to split that roundabout up in a lot of small 
pieces just to be able to map all routes correctly with proper 
forward/backward roles.

And who'll be maintaining someone's favourite route? Would I be allowed to 
take the route and slightly adjust it so it would be a little more scenic? Or 
should I then add my own route as well which would then be 99% the same as the 
first one, because I'm not allowed to destroy his favourite route by changing 
it slightly? Would someone be even allowed to delete a favourite route, or are 
we stuck with it forever if someone adds it in OSM? Also, I'm personally 
already discussing enough objective things, that I don't want to end up in 
long conversations where I also have to discuss some route which in my eyes 
doesn't make sense, but someone else found was pretty nice, but wasn't aware 
of some better alternatives for example.

At least with signposted routes you don't end up with these discussions about 
subjective things. There it's clear what needs to be mapped.


> We did not yet do so. But we also map other unofficial unphysical things
> like boundaries (which are in no way public domain in Austria or
> Germany, you are allowed to have information where you are, but not
> where the boundary is running).

I doubt you really cannot see a difference between boundaries (which are by no 
means unofficial by the way, they're very strictly defined by authorities) and 
a route someone likes very much.


> [...]

Greetings
Ben