Summary: I propose that the unifying feature of the typical State Park is its protection status, and propose that one tag combination that ought to appear on its boundary is `boundary=protected_area protect_class=21`. I solicit community feedback before trying to stitch this idea into the Wiki or opening a ticket requesting that OSM-Carto render these areas.
(I wrote a much longer diary entry about this at https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/ke9tv/diary/390260 that presents some of the background and argues in much greater detail. I hope that it could serve as the foundation of a Wiki description. I make a briefer discussion below.) Over the few years that I've contributed to OSM, I've seen several quite acrimonious controversies erupt over the tagging of State Parks in the US. The controversy seems to stem from the fact that although State Parks are named and signed as unified wholes, a typical State Park is multiple things according to the OSM data model and therefore 'ought' to be mapped as components: this part is a recreation ground, this part is a nature reserve, this part is indeed a 'park' in the sense of a sculpted landscape for visual enjoyment, and so on. There is no place for the whole. Likewise, 'boundary=national_park' has been controversial for State Parks. While some 'quack like a duck', many more don't look like or perform the same function as our National Parks. Moreover, some mappers object to 'boundary=national_park' for any feature that doesn't have National Park in its name, or any feature that is not administered by the National Park Service. Recently, it occurred to me that one aspect that does unify a State Park is the idea of protection. A State Park is a protected_area. None of the classes 1-6 fits it, because, generally speaking, it is not a nature-protected area. Rather, it is a community-protected area. It may be extensively developed with recreational facilities, but it is protected against someone buying the land and strip-mining it or building condos. In fact, on the Wiki page, https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:boundary%3Dprotected_area#Social-protected-area - I see class 21: 'community protected area', listing typical protection objects as, religious, sacred areas, associative areas, and recreation. We therefore already have appropriate tagging for this type of protection! (Unfortunately, it doesn't yet render. That's fixable, I presume.) In fact, some time ago, I had gone through New York State facilities, and tagged the recreational ones with exactly this combination. At the time, it was not with the intention of floating a proposal such as this, it was out of ignorance - I saw what appeared to be the appropriate protection class on the Wiki, and used it. At the time, I didn't check taginfo or Overpass, and so was entirely unaware that I was virtually the only mapper to use the `protect_class=21` tag. New York therefore could provide a test case. Of course, we can continue to have a healthy discussion over `landuse=*` and `leisure=*` for these areas, but I wonder if all the parties can at least agree that tagging these features as protected areas is correct and appropriate? If so, we can ask that the renderer work off the protection status and at least have some common ground to start from, allowing the features to appear on the map without dispute even as the taxonomic arguments continue. Given the amount of heat that has surrounded the tagging of State Parks, I raise this idea with some trepidation, but ... what do other mappers think? (For what it's worth, I've run the idea in private past a few of the more strident voices, and while there has been the expected quibbling over details, nobody seems to have a real objection to the broad contours of the idea.) _______________________________________________ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
