[OSM-talk] What's the point of the Wiki 'k=v' icon?

[Andrew Hain]

Dave F. <davefox <at> madasafish.com> writes:

> 
> Hi
> 
> Bearing in mind the wiki is used more often by new OSM 
contributors & 
> therefore should be a clear & concise as possible, I'm curious why 
this 
> icon is so
> prevalent:
> 
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/images/thumb/5/5f/Osm_element_tag.sv
g/200px-Osm_element_tag.svg.png 
> 
> There's no description of what it means or relates to. It refers 
purely 
> to 'behind the scenes' business. New users are interested in that. 
Even 
> if it were described, it would still be irrelevant as *all* tags 
are 
> based on a key=value format.

The graphic is used when there isn’t a specific image to put in a 
tag value infobox, with a k= graphic for key descriptions. A “No 
image yet” graphic used to be used. The message is buried within the 
{{description}} template. Although there are some pages that could 
have pictures but don’t it doesn’t always make sense to have one.

> In a similar vein I notice a few wiki pages concerning tagging 
have XML 
> OSM database code. Completely unnecessary & again, might put off 
users 
> who believe you have to have programming experience to contribute.

Where?

> Dave F.