[OSM-talk] New tool in Potlatch 2 for areas that share a way
Frederik Ramm
frederik at remote.org
Tue Feb 1 13:04:11 GMT 2011
Hi,
On 02/01/11 03:37, Steve Bennett wrote:
> Furthermore, you might be reduced to categorising individual elements
> of the factory. Would the administrative wing really be
> landuse=industrial? Surely it should be landuse=commercial. etc etc.
Before long you'll be tagging the restrooms as
landuse=wastewater_facility or something.
> I don't think there's any single answer that can give the right
> information to every consumer. Sometimes OSM has to make actual
> choices between different uses of the data.
Well the goal certainly is being totally consumer agnostic - "We map
what's on the ground, and you decide how you want to use that."
It is true that we sometimes do make choices that make things easier for
a common use and may cause problems for a less common use (for example:
we usually map streets as lines even though, on the ground, they are
areas). But this is not a final decision, but rather a compromise for
the time being - with tools and software as they are, mapping all roads
as areas would be too difficult for most people at this time. This does
not mean it will remain so forever; indeed I am pretty sure that sooner
or later we *will* have the actual surface area for all roads in our
database.
In my eyes, the goal is always to come as close to reality as possible,
but this is tempered by the current state of tool quality, database and
data model performance, community aptitude etc.; so what you see in OSM
right now is the current compromise between what is feasible and what is
desired. This compromise is not a decision or a choice that has been
made; it is floating.
Bye
Frederik
More information about the talk
mailing list