[OSM-talk] wiki tag page template: ways vs areas vs relations

[moltonel 3x Combo]

On 07/10/2014, Martin Koppenhoefer <dieterdreist at gmail.com> wrote:
> Besides this, in the past I have so often encountered wrong/incomplete
> settings (compared to what is actually done, and to what should / can be
> done according to my own understanding) that I generally ignore these
> icons.

In my view, they are more usefull to contributors (especially newbies)
than consumers. The trigger for my email was
https://help.openstreetmap.org/questions/37353/large-islands-more-than-2000-nodes-of-coastline-how-to-tagrender
where a newbie didn't realize that you could tag place=island on a
multipolygon.

> Do we really need them? Is there any benefit e.g. for data
> consumers, compared to looking at actual usage numbers and cases?

I find them usefull, even for myself. They are complementary to
taginfo stats. It's just part of the description of tags, and anything
that can be standardised and helps me read wiki pages quickly is a
win.

> E.g. the area key: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:area
> the setting is currently "not on ways", but that's nonesense because you
> need this key on some ways (e.g. linear closed barriers) with area=no to
> avoid confusion.

In this case this is correct: non-closed ways shouldn't be tagged
area=*, because "no" is implicit for non-closed ways and "yes" would
by definition turn the object into an "area" rather than a "way".

Concerning your other examples, nothing to add to Jochen's reply.