[OSM-talk] On the ground rule on the wiki

Anthony osm at inbox.org
Mon May 31 05:11:48 BST 2010


On Sun, May 30, 2010 at 6:48 PM, Nathan Edgars II <neroute2 at gmail.com>wrote:

> On Sun, May 30, 2010 at 9:28 AM, Anthony <osm at inbox.org> wrote:
> > In any case, more important than the etymology of the phrase "map what's
> on
> > the ground" is what it means and whether or not it's good advice.  In
> terms
> > of its use in excluding verifiable information I think it is quite
> > problematic.  When a route isn't written "on the ground" that's exactly
> when
> > it's most useful to have it identified in a map.
>
> Not really; maps are primarily used for navigation, whether
> computer-routed or human-read. If the map shows that Long Street is
> the A1889, someone using the map will be looking for the A1889. But if
> Long Street is not marked "on the ground" as the A1889, that
> designation is about as relevant as the fact that it was once the
> route of the A1. In other words, if we know for sure that Long Street
> is officially the A1889, it might make sense as a separate
> ref_unmarked=A1889 tag, like old_ref=A1, but using the same tagging
> for signed and unsigned routes helps nobody.
>

Agreed.  Using the exact same tagging would be inappropriate.  You might as
well be taking that from the private message I sent you earlier today, where
I said as much (I said we should map unsigned routes and add a tag of
signed=yes/no).

But you're looking at only half of the picture.  Yes, if you know where you
want to go on the map and you want to find it in the real world, you want to
have access to the signs that are on the ground.  Of course, for that
purpose we're better off mapping most of the signs as nodes, not as ways.

But what if you're looking for A1889?  If it's not on the map, and it's not
on the ground, you're not going to find it.

I guess the suggestion to "map what's on the ground" is good advice as long
as it's not exclusionary.  But my beef is with people who tell us to "map
what's on the ground" to the exclusion of everything that isn't on the
ground.
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