[OSM-talk] tag with value lists Was: Proposed mechanical edit to convert alt_name tags

[Jochen Topf]

On Mon, Sep 08, 2014 at 05:52:57PM -0500, Andrew Buck wrote:
> On 09/08/2014 05:44 PM, Eugene Alvin Villar wrote:
> > On Tue, Sep 9, 2014 at 3:00 AM, Florian Lohoff <f at zz.de> wrote:
> > 
> >> Isnt the semicolon the list seperator typically used in OSM? My 
> >> intuitive answer would have been alt_name=a;b;c;d
> >> 
> > 
> > +1
> > 
> > I think using a semicolon-delimited list is better than a
> > potentially open-ended set of keys such as "alt_name_x", and
> > already has precedent. While it is true that semicolon as a
> > multi-value separator is not written as a "law" of OSM tagging, it
> > is quite frequent enough to be a de facto tagging guideline.
> > 
> 
> Both systems are in use and were in use before we started working on
> this GNS stuff.  The tiger tags are one example, but there were
> alt_name_N tags before we started as well.  If you want to have a
> discussion about changing all of these worldwide, that is fine, but
> this thread is about fixing the alt_name:2 ones.
> 
> Please either weigh in on that, or keep silent.  I do not have time to
> have a general discussion about broader topics of how multi-valued
> keys should be handled.  There have been dozens of threads that
> discussed that and no one has ever come up with a good solution, so I
> am not going to have this thread get dragged into the same discussion
> that has been had many times before.
> 
> There has been one person who has said it makes sense to change them,
> and all of the other posts have been about discussion of other topics.
>  So unless someone has some concrete reason _not_ to convert the few
> mistaken ones, I will go ahead and do that.  We can have these other
> discussions some other time when people are not waiting on the results.

Sorry, but this is not how OSM works. You have to allow discussion and
you have to listen what people have to say and engage with them in the
discussion. If you can not do that you can not do any automated edits.

I understand your frustration with the discussion culture in OSM that
often seems to go in endless rounds and leads nowhere, but for better
or worse, this is what we have and what has built OSM as we know it. So
somehow it can't be all bad. There are a lot of people on this mailing
list with long experience in OSM and the software using its data. Chances
are there are a few who know something you don't. It might appear tedious,
but it actually leads somewhere. And if you want to help the discussion
along, you can read all the answers and suggestions and pull them together
into one coherent pro/contro-type document with the different proposals.

Your argument that others are discussing a different topic is bogus. If
you want to change alt_name:2 into alt_name_2 and people don't agree that
this is the right tag, how can that be a different discussion?

Btw I think you have a good chance that this discussion will lead somewhere,
because you seem to be actually using those tags. Most endless discussions
revolve around lofty issues where nobody actually uses any of the variants
in question. So make your case, but keep an open mind, collect information
about the solutions impartially and you will get somewhere. If you think
you don't have the time, maybe you should think about the time of all the
others involved here, too.

Jochen
-- 
Jochen Topf  jochen at remote.org  http://www.jochentopf.com/  +49-721-388298