Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[OSM Volunteer stevea]

(I'll try that again, without the link syntax that got scrubbed).

Apologies for length, yet this is long and requires words.

> brad  wrote:
> I like this
> (what Joseph Eisenberg wrote)
> better than calling a state park a national park.  Tagging them state parks 
> with the national park tag is an abstract concept that will just result in 
> confusion.

Brad, I "like it," too (what Joseph wrote, as it correctly meets present-day 
OSM conventions), but I won't (right now) go so far as to say I like it 
"better."  We have both, as both definitions and tagging are messy; we have 
multiple tagging methods for meaning the same thing.  I say this partly because 
the concept OSM defines as "national_park" seems (to me) to directly fit onto 
state parks.  I am not alone, as I look at how we tag in the USA:  hundreds of 
"parks" (park-like things) are tagged boundary=national_park when they are not 
"National Parks" as administered by the National Park Service.  Try this OT 
query (which geocodes in randomly-chosen Oregon, searching for 
boundary=national_park there):  overpass-turbo.eu/s/IHx .  You get 20 
megabytes:  hundreds of results representing dozens of "parks," some of them 
national monuments, national recreation areas, national forests, national 
historic parks, a national grassland and yes, even a national_park (as you'd 
expect), Crater Lake NP.

However, note there are also numerous STATE parks, STATE forests, STATE 
recreation areas and things like STATE recreation site, STATE scenic viewpoint 
and STATE natural area.  See:  in one randomly selected state alone, several 
STATE parks NOW TAGGED boundary=national_park!  I am being descriptive (what 
is) as I report these data, not prescriptive (what should be), as I don't say 
how we OUGHT to tag.  I observe that there appear to be few or no consistent 
tagging standards on "parks" in the USA (where I spend time looking, this may 
be true more widely in OSM).  That was my point as I initiated this thread:  so 
we might achieve both better understanding of parks and better (more 
consistent) tagging on parks.

"Tagging them state parks with the national park tag" is NOT "an abstract 
concept," it is correct.  I don't want to get overtly political, but the 50 
states are sovereign.  Period, full stop.  Including how states define parks.  
Please see the US constitution's 10th amendment, and 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_divisions_of_the_United_States, which 
states "According to numerous decisions of the United States Supreme Court, the 
50 individual states and the United States as a whole are each sovereign 
jurisdictions," with cite.  This is settled, well established US legal 
doctrine.  I hope OSM can agree with the US Supreme Court along with centuries 
of decisions by US jurists and citizens (and I think we largely do).

>   If the consensus is to tag them the same then I suggest depracting the 
> national park tag and coming up with something else so it isn't confusing.

I hear you as you say you are confused.  I hope this post has helped w.r.t. 
state sovereignty and the fact that many others in the USA both understand 
state sovereignty and continue to tag "true" (NPS) national parks, 
national-park-like (but aren't) federal areas AND state parks and 
state-park-like areas with boundary=national_park.  (Understandably, and I 
believe correctly, given our wiki definitions and the USA's legal/political 
realities).  I observe I am simply describing and not prescribing (thou shalt 
tag like this...).  I observe this appears messy to many and that untangling it 
has been, is and likely will be difficult.  IMO, Joseph's observations are 
similar positive-contribution suggestions.  I speak for myself, but this thread 
in talk-us seem a proper forum for this dialog.  If, after reading this, you 
have similar forward-looking observations and suggestions of your own, I wish 
to hear those.  Including deprecating the national_park tag, while I listen as 
you might suggest with what we might replace it, and how.  These might align 
perfectly with Joseph's suggestions (though he doesn't appear to advocate for 
deprecation of national_park), or they might not.  I listen.

Thanks,
SteveA

> (what Joseph Eisenberg wrote):
>> I would recommend starting to use boundary=protected_area for State
>> parks, and other parks that are large natural areas that are designed
>> for a balance of tourism and protection of the natural environment but
>> are not actually National Parks.
>> 
>> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:boundary%3Dprotected_area
>> 
>> You can tag state parks like this:
>> 
>> boundary=protected_area + protect_class=2 + protection_title="State Park"
>> 
>> Protect Class 2 is the same type as National Parks, and will be
>> rendered and interpreted the same by most database users, but the
>> protection title makes it clear that it's actually a State Park, not a
>> National Park.
>> 
>> For county parks: many of these are small parks 

Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[OSM Volunteer stevea]

Apologies for length, yet this is long and requires words.brad  wrote:I like this(what Joseph Eisenberg wrote)better than calling a state park a national park.  Tagging them state parks with the national park tag is an abstract concept that will just result in confusion.Brad, I "like it," too (what Joseph wrote, as it correctly meets present-day OSM conventions), but I won't (right now) go so far as to say I like it "better."  We have both, as both definitions and tagging are messy; we have multiple tagging methods for meaning the same thing.  I say this partly because the concept OSM defines as "national_park" seems (to me) to directly fit onto state parks.  I am not alone, as I look at how we tag in the USA:  hundreds of "parks" (park-like things) are tagged boundary=national_park when they are not "National Parks" as administered by the National Park Service.  Try this OT query (which geocodes in randomly-chosen Oregon, searching for boundary=national_park there):  https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/IHx .  You get 20 megabytes:  hundreds of results representing dozens of "parks," some of them national monuments, national recreation areas, national forests, national historic parks, a national grassland and yes, even a national_park (as you'd expect), Crater Lake NP.However, note there are also numerous STATE parks, STATE forests, STATE recreation areas and things like STATE recreation site, STATE scenic viewpoint and STATE natural area.  See:  in one randomly selected state alone, several STATE parks NOW TAGGED boundary=national_park!  I am being descriptive (what is) as I report these data, not prescriptive (what should be), as I don't say how we OUGHT to tag.  I observe that there appear to be few or no consistent tagging standards on "parks" in the USA (where I spend time looking, this may be true more widely in OSM).  That was my point as I initiated this thread:  so we might achieve both better understanding of parks and better (more consistent) tagging on parks."Tagging them state parks with the national park tag" is NOT "an abstract concept," it is correct.  I don't want to get overtly political, but the 50 states are sovereign.  Period, full stop.  Including how states define parks.  Please see the US constitution's 10th amendment, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_divisions_of_the_United_States, which states "According to numerous decisions of the United States Supreme Court, the 50 individual states and the United States as a whole are each sovereign jurisdictions," with cite.  This is settled, well established US legal doctrine.  I hope OSM can agree with the US Supreme Court along with centuries of decisions by US jurists and citizens (and I think we largely do).   If the consensus is to tag them the same then I suggest depracting the national park tag and coming up with something else so it isn't confusing.I hear you as you say you are confused.  I hope this post has helped w.r.t. state sovereignty and the fact that many others in the USA both understand state sovereignty and continue to tag "true" (NPS) national parks, national-park-like (but aren't) federal areas AND state parks and state-park-like areas with boundary=national_park.  (Understandably, and I believe correctly, given our wiki definitions and the USA's legal/political realities).  I observe I am simply describing and not prescribing (thou shalt tag like this...).  I observe this appears messy to many and that untangling it has been, is and likely will be difficult.  IMO, Joseph's observations are similar positive-contribution suggestions.  I speak for myself, but this thread in talk-us seem a proper forum for this dialog.  If, after reading this, you have similar forward-looking observations and suggestions of your own, I wish to hear those.  Including deprecating the national_park tag, while I listen as you might suggest with what we might replace it, and how.  These might align perfectly with Joseph's suggestions (though he doesn't appear to advocate for deprecation of national_park), or they might not.  I listen.Thanks,SteveA(what Joseph Eisenberg wrote):I would recommend starting to use boundary=protected_area for Stateparks, and other parks that are large natural areas that are designedfor a balance of tourism and protection of the natural environment butare not actually National Parks.https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:boundary%3Dprotected_areaYou can tag state parks like this:boundary=protected_area + protect_class=2 + protection_title="State Park"Protect Class 2 is the same type as National Parks, and will berendered and interpreted the same by most database users, but theprotection title makes it clear that it's actually a State Park, not aNational Park.For county parks: many of these are small parks that are similar to ausual urban park, with gardens, playgrounds, sports fields etc, andcan be tagged with leisure=park. Others are natural areas or naturereserves, and could use boundary=protected_area + 

Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[brad]

I like this better than calling a state park a national park. Tagging 
them state parks with the national park tag is an abstract concept that 
will just result in confusion.   If the consensus is to tag them the 
same then I suggest depracting the national park tag and coming up with 
something else so it isn't confusing.


On 4/29/19 8:51 AM, Joseph Eisenberg wrote:

I would recommend starting to use boundary=protected_area for State
parks, and other parks that are large natural areas that are designed
for a balance of tourism and protection of the natural environment but
are not actually National Parks.

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:boundary%3Dprotected_area

You can tag state parks like this:

boundary=protected_area + protect_class=2 + protection_title="State Park"

Protect Class 2 is the same type as National Parks, and will be
rendered and interpreted the same by most database users, but the
protection title makes it clear that it's actually a State Park, not a
National Park.

For county parks: many of these are small parks that are similar to a
usual urban park, with gardens, playgrounds, sports fields etc, and
can be tagged with leisure=park. Others are natural areas or nature
reserves, and could use boundary=protected_area + protect_class=5 +
protection_title="County Park".

State and National Forests, which are used for logging and grazing as
well as recreation, can be tagged as:
boundary=protected_area + protect_class=6 + protection_title="National
Forest" or "State Forest".

These features will all be rendered the same as boundary=national_park
and leisure=nature_reserve in many renderings styles, but it's nice to
be a little more specific.

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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[Kevin Kenny]

On Tue, Apr 30, 2019 at 5:12 PM OSM Volunteer stevea
 wrote:
> I myself have also used landuse=conservation (long ago) and/or 
> leisure=nature_reserve (neither of which render, not really the point).

My understanding is that landuse=conservation is deprecated in favor
of boundary=protected_area.

leisure=nature_reserve does indeed render.

boundary=protected_area, I am given to understand, renders if the
protection class is between 1 and 6 (with 1a and 1b also rendering).

> > I think the entire "national_park" tag is unfortunate, as it wraps up a
> > lot of concepts that vary by country, and makes people understand things
> > when they don't.  In the US, it should mean "preserve the land while
> > allowing access and enjoyment", there is a notion that the place is
> > relatively distinguished, and it doesn't really have a connotation of
> > size.
>
> Some say "size matters" with national_park, some say it's too confusing for 
> size to matter.  It doesn't seem we're going to eliminate 
> boundary=national_park anytime soon, as even though this shouldn't have 
> mattered, it did:  this was a tag that rendered, so people used it.  (How 
> rendering — presently, eventually, politically-within-OSM... — gets coupled 
> to tagging is another chewy topic).

Some say that 'level of government matters' or that 'title matters' as
well, but I think that the right way to think about it is function.The
two parks in New York that enjoy constitutional protection effectively
function as if they were national parks in other countries, as do many
facilities in the US that are titled, 'National Monument' or even
'National Forest'. They conform with the Wiki definition of 'national
park'. I suspect that relatively few, even among the tourists who've
been there, could distinguish among the coterminous 'Sequoia National
Park', 'Giant Sequoia National Monument, and 'Sequoia National
Forest'.
There was a proposal in the 1960's to transfer control of the
Adirondack Park to Uncle Sam, which would have created the nation's
largest National Park at the time. It was tremendously unpopular and
never went anywhere, but it was recognition that the two systems serve
a similar purpose. Baxter State Park in Maine is more stringently
protected than the adjoining Katahdin Woods and Waters National
Monument, and its scenery is considerably more spectacular.

For New York's confusing array of facilities, I've been careful to
retain protected_area tagging, in case we should lose all the
arguments and have no other consistent tagging left to us.
Unfortunately, to have that make sense, I've had to choose
protect_class=21 protection_object=recreation, since they aren't
generally nature-protected areas. (I try to tag them case by case -
I've not done a massive botched import.) Since that protection class
doesn't render, we're little better off from the standpoint of showing
something on the map.

About half the array of facilities is represented in the table on
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/NYS_DEC_Lands. Nothing there is
tagged 'park', it's all nature_reserve - with a handful of exceptions
(fish hatchery, historic site, and notably state forest). Multiple Use
Area probably *should* be the same as whatever we wind up deciding is
right for the typical 'state park' but right now they're nature
reserves.  The remaining half of the facilities are the State Parks,
State Historic Sites, and State Recreation Areas (maybe other titles,
too, I need to check my notes) that are administered by a completely
different department of the state government.

My personal worst case of 'city park' is one that would fall solidly
within the European definition of 'park' - except that, well, it's
sort of also a cemetery.  https://www.openstreetmap.org/note/1438926 I
made the somewhat arbitrary decision of using multipolygons that
follow the land use rather than the property line.

It's a mess, and it's what I've got.

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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[OSM Volunteer stevea]

Apologies if I've already answered these.

On Apr 24, 2019, at 4:34 PM, Greg Troxel  wrote:
> I think Kevin has it right that we should tag primarily by something
> about land use, not by owne/operator, although it's fine to tag
> operator.

I 100% agree.  Yet I peruse landuse key values (except park is noted 
leisure=park, which means I'm chasing my tail so I ignore it) and find that 
none of them come close to describing "park" (the American English sense).  I 
myself have also used landuse=conservation (long ago) and/or 
leisure=nature_reserve (neither of which render, not really the point).

> I think the entire "national_park" tag is unfortunate, as it wraps up a
> lot of concepts that vary by country, and makes people understand things
> when they don't.  In the US, it should mean "preserve the land while
> allowing access and enjoyment", there is a notion that the place is
> relatively distinguished, and it doesn't really have a connotation of
> size.

Some say "size matters" with national_park, some say it's too confusing for 
size to matter.  It doesn't seem we're going to eliminate 
boundary=national_park anytime soon, as even though this shouldn't have 
mattered, it did:  this was a tag that rendered, so people used it.  (How 
rendering — presently, eventually, politically-within-OSM... — gets coupled to 
tagging is another chewy topic).

SteveA
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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[OSM Volunteer stevea]

The linguist in me feels compelled to be a bit pedantic:  terms like "plain 
language" and "human language" used to distinguish between data/code/machine 
kinds of "language," including what we mean by "tagging" or "codepoint" are, I 
believe, well-expressed with the (linguistic community) phrase "natural 
language."

Much of what OSM is going through with "park" is because:

1)  leisure=park wasn't clearly defined (this is essentially the most important 
lesson),
2)  "park" has wide variation in what is meant (I have noted a distinctly 
American English dialect usage that is much more inclusive than that how OSM 
defines "park" as in 1),
3)  the drift apart between less-precise (over 15 years of tagging) usage of 
leisure=park, more-precise definition of leisure=park (which we partly say 
"what we meant all along" but others disagree, as it was less-precisely 
defined) has become severe, brought into focus as we recently made more precise 
the definition of leisure=park.  (Ostensibly to mean "what we meant all along," 
but which appears to be a significant re-definition to many, especially in the 
USA, where American English is used and its word "park" shaped the lack of 
precision definition in our wiki for the first 15 years of OSM).

Well, about there, anyway.  I think most or even all of us know this, I wanted 
to state it as explicitly as I do here.  These are my opinions, though they 
rise from long-term observation.

SteveA
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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[OSM Volunteer stevea]

At today's creation of https://wiki.osm.org/wiki/Talk:Key:park:type , I 
introduce a proposal to reduce usage of the park:type tag (initially, in the 
USA) with the goal of better clarifying USA park tagging.  There are a couple 
of "low hanging fruit" tasks we might do as a pilot run, though past these easy 
ones this will require additional community interaction.  That Discussion page 
is a good place to do so.

If you think you might offer some perspective on how the many values of 
park:type (state_park, city_park, state_beach, county_park, national_forest, 
state_game_land, state_recreational_area, private_park...) might help us better 
characterize and improve USA park tagging, please take a look at the brief 
discussion initiated there.  You are invited to participate.

Thank you,
SteveA
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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[Greg Troxel]

brad  writes:

>>> Why not simply call anything which is a 'large public area for
>>> recreation', a park, and specify it additionally with additional tags?
>> Because we have existing norms, and it is not generally a good idea to
>> ask that tagging of thousands of objects be thrown out and redone.
> OK, but I think that's what you're asking for if county parks, state
> parks, and large city parks can't be tagged as parks.

If people in one country have mistagged things, then I think it's ok to
fix that.  I don't think it's ok to ask the rest of the world to change
to accomodate our mistagging.

The notion of what leisure=park means (that many "state parks" aren't
included) has been clear to me for years, from reading the wiki when I
joined OSM.

But I'm not really clear on the total statistics of use of leisure=park
in the US and not in the US.


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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[brad]

On 4/29/19 4:11 PM, Greg Troxel wrote:

brad  writes:


It seems that plain language can be used here, and from the Oxford
dictionary, a park is:

No.  Plain language cannot be used to define what tags mean.  Each tag
is actually a codepoint, not human language, and needs a definition.
That is fundamental to how tagging works in OSM.
Agreed, but the tag language should be close to human language where 
possible



Why not simply call anything which is a 'large public area for
recreation', a park, and specify it additionally with additional tags?

Because we have existing norms, and it is not generally a good idea to
ask that tagging of thousands of objects be thrown out and redone.
OK, but I think that's what you're asking for if county parks, state 
parks, and large city parks can't be tagged as parks.


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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[Greg Troxel]

Andy Townsend  writes:

> With regard to British English usage, I think you're
> correct*. Something described here as a "park" would pretty much match
> the current description at
> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:leisure%3Dpark (without the
> urban requirement, but you've already talked about that).  In the UK a
> "national park" (or something like the Pentland Hills Regional Park
> which was already mentioned) isn't really a subset of "park" in any
> way - it's something else altogether.

So it seems that the definition of leisure=park we have converged on in
the US matches more or less leisure=park and what humans mean when
speaking en_UK.  That seems like a very sane place to be.

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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[Greg Troxel]

Joseph Eisenberg  writes:

> On 4/29/19, Greg Troxel  wrote:
>
>> With leisure=nature_reserve, leisure=park, golf courses, cemetaries,
>> schools, etc., we represent them on the map by some kind of shading or
>> fill.  But, boundary=protected_area is represented by denoting the
>> border, and this does not serve map users well.
>
> If you are talking about the Openstreetmap-carto style (the standard
> map layer on openstreetmap.org), then this is not quite correct.
>
> It's true that leisure=park and golf courses are represented by a fill
> color for the whole polygon.
>
> However, leisure=natural_reserve, boundary=national_park and
> boundary_protected area (with protect_class  1 thru 7 and 97-99) are
> currently rendered identically, with a green semi-transparent outline.
> (There is also a semi-transparent green fill at low zoom levels).

Sorry, I was off on nature_reserve.   But my point is that we have fill
sometimes and sometimes not, and that focusing on thinking about
boundary seems to lead to not filling, and I think that's unfortunate.

It's at high zooms that I think the fill is needed; some of these are
large enough that zooming in means the border isn't showing.

> Military areas and tourist areas (zoos, theme parks) are also rendered
> with outlines in red and purple.

Military at least also has a fill pattern, so they are not just
observable from the edges.  I have no problem with special edges; my
complaint is the decision that no fill is necessary.

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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[Greg Troxel]

brad  writes:

> It seems that plain language can be used here, and from the Oxford
> dictionary, a park is:

No.  Plain language cannot be used to define what tags mean.  Each tag
is actually a codepoint, not human language, and needs a definition.
That is fundamental to how tagging works in OSM.

> Why not simply call anything which is a 'large public area for
> recreation', a park, and specify it additionally with additional tags?

Because we have existing norms, and it is not generally a good idea to
ask that tagging of thousands of objects be thrown out and redone.

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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[OSM Volunteer stevea]

I do think it important we hear about distinctions between British English (and 
how it had a defining influence on much tagging in OSM), and American English, 
which I often say distinctly affected the way Americans have used the 
leisure=park tag.  "Park" in American English is much more encompassing than 
"park" in British English AND leisure=park, and whether good or bad, this 
semantic sense of the word has blurred US tagging to be wide and wild.  OK, 
enough history.  (The problem may be worldwide in OSM, with the US having its 
own quirky reasons and tangles).  Then, there is what we might do going forward.

I am heartened to see so much earnest discussion.  Yet I feel the same way 
Mateusz does when he says while thinking loudly, he is not sure "what exactly 
should be done here."  Yes.

And this is not the first time similar discussion has happened.  A result is 
things mostly grind along as they have.  Or perhaps (as with the introduction 
of the boundary=protected_area, ostensibly created as a new scheme to solve 
many things), we get MORE complexity.  I wish I didn't sound so negative or 
like I'm sowing chaos — I'm not — genuinely, I would love to see clarity 
emerge, yet it seems elusive.  Though I'll say it again:  talk, talk and more 
talk, while tedious and even exhausting sometimes, seems it's better than not 
talking, as sometimes a kernel of better understanding shakes out.  I continue 
to hold out for that here.

SteveA
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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[Andy Townsend]

On 29/04/2019 17:04, Mateusz Konieczny wrote:




29 Apr 2019, 17:36 by kevin.b.ke...@gmail.com:

On Mon, Apr 29, 2019 at 11:24 AM Mateusz Konieczny
mailto:matkoni...@tutanota.com>> wrote:

Why not simply call anything which is a 'large public area for
recreation', a park, and specify it additionally with
additional tags?

That would require redefining leisure=park and while would
match use of word "park" in USA
it would start mismatching use of work "park" in UK. It would
also start to mismatch how
leisure=park is used in Europe.

Generally British English is preferred in OSM and redefining
popular tags is deeply problematic.


Are we talking about the use of the *tag*, or the use of the *word* in
British English?

It is supposed to be about both, I attempted to check both but I open 
to discovering that I am mistaken.
In case of British English I attempted to consult with people who are 
native speakers of BE
and people better in English than myself but maybe my 
questions/examples failed to capture

cases of what should be described park (and or leisure=park).

I know that it is possible, that is part of the reason why I posted 
quoted message (it would be embarassing
to discover that my claims were wrong but I prefer to discover as soon 
as possible).


With regard to British English usage, I think you're correct*. Something 
described here as a "park" would pretty much match the current 
description at https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:leisure%3Dpark 
(without the urban requirement, but you've already talked about that).  
In the UK a "national park" (or something like the Pentland Hills 
Regional Park which was already mentioned) isn't really a subset of 
"park" in any way - it's something else altogether.


National Parks such as Yellowstone were established in the US many years 
ago as pretty much their own thing - they're almost nothing like parks 
such as Derby Arboretum (arguably the first public park in Britain).  In 
concept Britain's "National Parks" owe more to the American National 
Parks than they do to earlier local parks.  There are significant 
differences in how they are managed and run, but the model was borrowed 
from the US.  The fact that the "Peak District National Park" has the 
word "park" in it does not make it a "park" in the normally understood 
sense.


Turning to things in the US, there's no way that I'd describe 
https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/3003169/history ("Joseph D Grant 
County Park") as "more like" Derby Arboretum / Golden Gate Park than the 
Peak District National Park in England or Yosemite. Sure, it's a sliding 
scale, with most bits of Joseph D Grant significantly "less wild" than 
Yosemite, but my impression of it after having been there is "not really 
a park in the British English sense".


Obviously different communities worldwide stretch OSM tags to match 
local differences and important local distinctions that may not exist in 
the British English tag definitions (for example, apparently German 
gravel has a different name depending on whether it's sharp or rounded), 
and it's up to the US community to decide how to tag things in the US, 
but I'd suggest that substantially broadening the usage of a tag that 
means something else everywhere else is not the best approach.


Best Regards,

Andy

* for the benefit of anyone who may not know, I'm a native English 
(British) English speaker.


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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[Mateusz Konieczny]

29 Apr 2019, 17:36 by kevin.b.ke...@gmail.com:

> On Mon, Apr 29, 2019 at 11:24 AM Mateusz Konieczny
> <> matkoni...@tutanota.com > > wrote:
>
>> Why not simply call anything which is a 'large public area for recreation', 
>> a park, and specify it additionally with additional tags?
>>
>> That would require redefining leisure=park and while would match use of word 
>> "park" in USA
>> it would start mismatching use of work "park" in UK. It would also start to 
>> mismatch how
>> leisure=park is used in Europe.
>>
>> Generally British English is preferred in OSM and redefining popular tags is 
>> deeply problematic.
>>
>
> Are we talking about the use of the *tag*, or the use of the *word* in
> British English?
>
It is supposed to be about both, I attempted to check both but I open to 
discovering that I am mistaken.
In case of British English I attempted to consult with people who are native 
speakers of BE 
and people better in English than myself but maybe my questions/examples failed 
to capture
cases of what should be described park (and or leisure=park).

I know that it is possible, that is part of the reason why I posted quoted 
message (it would be embarassing
to discover that my claims were wrong but I prefer to discover as soon as 
possible).

> If we're talking about the use of the word 'park' in common speech,
> the British Isles have ample examples of 'park' being used in a sense
> much like the US one: > https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/359617831 
> 
> happened to be the first one I noticed, but
> https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/421685070 
> >  and others are also
> present. If these aren't 'parks' in UK English, why do they exist in
> the UK with 'park' in their names?
>
Neither of them is tagged leisure=park and it seems that
"national park" is in some way similar to "business park" or "industrial park"
- word park is in the name but it is not considered as a special case
of "green human-sculpted landscape" that is commonly referred to as
a "park".

Note that I may be mistaken here, my check was quick sanity check of
a biased group of people not some scientific research

> I also notice that Great Britain has similar situations to the US
> national parks, where other land uses are embedded. I see that
> Cairngorms National Park
> https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/1947603 
> >  embeds at least four
> villages (Avlemore, Ballater, Grantown-on-Spey and Kingussie).
>
This one is not surprising to me, it is probably result of compromise/conflict
resulting in potected area with some objects that are contrary to any 
nature protection attempts.
Poland has cases of legal large-scale active logging in Tatra mountains 
that is result of conflict between local people and desire to protect nature.

See 
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wsp%C3%B3lnota_Le%C5%9Bna_Uprawnionych_O%C5%9Bmiu_Wsi
 

- conflict dates back to creation of the Tatrzański Park Narodowy (=Tatra 
National Park).

See also motorways going sometimes through protected or "protected" areas.
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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[Mateusz Konieczny]

29 Apr 2019, 05:12 by stevea...@softworkers.com:

> How much consensus IS there for tagging national_park on "large, (important?) 
> state parks" which roughly (or not) meet the national_park definition in our 
> wiki?
>
It seems that national_park is likely to be affected by problem similar to 
leisure=park.
Many countries have things  called "national park" that are some form of nature 
protection
but details are very different.

Given that there is viable alternative that may be less ambiguous it may be 
preferable to
avoid national_park or at least be aware that meaning is likely to be strongly 
affected by regional
differences.

For example:
in Poland "national park" is basically "large/very large nature reserve that 
has stronger legal 
protections and is more famous". Some of them are tiny (probably comically tiny 
by USA standards)
like Ojcowski Park Narodowy ("Park Narodowy" directly translates into "Naional 
Park")
at https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/6247785#map=12/50.2054/19.8272 
 - 
covering 21 square km.

I am tempted to treat boundary=protected_area as preferable, despite that tags 
specifying exact type
are unreadable codes.

(I am loudly thinking here, and not sue what exactly should be done here)

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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[Greg Troxel]

Kevin Kenny  writes:

> The smaller state parks - the thousand-acre type that you contemplate
> - are often not what IUCN considers to be protected areas, and so I've
> taken to using protected_area tagging, but with protection classes
> such as 21 (which woud be accompanied with
> 'protection_object=recreation').  That doesn't render, so as a
> stopgap, I've been tagging them 'leisure=nature_reserve' or
> 'leisure=park', whichever seems to fit, recognizing that further
> developments are likely eventually to make the dual tagging
> unneccessary. https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/6442393 is
> typical.

I completely fail to understand why IUCN protection status has become
the main thing.  Whether something is functioning as a park now seems to
me to have nothing to do with long-term legal protection.   I am not
objecting to tagging the legal status.  I just don't see how denoting
legal status somehow removes the need to describe what is.

> What I struggle with is are more complex situations - that may always
> necessitate some 'abuse' of tagging. The thousand-acre park with a
> forty-acre developed section is handled quite nicely with your scheme.
> When you have a 'park' comprising hundreds of thousands, or millions
> of acres, operated in public-private partnership, things start to
> break down. This is true of New York's two huge parks; of the USA's
> larger National Parks; and of US National Monuments, National Forests,
> and BLM recreation lands. The outer ring - the legally designated area
> - may not really enclose anything recognizable as a 'park', while the
> stricter 'park' land management may be somewhat diffuse, in many
> discrete protected areas. The larger area is also protected, but
> limited sustainable development is often permitted.

Agreed this is messy.  I meant merely to broach the notion of tagging
usage in sub-parts separately from tagging the name of the entity on the
large object.

> Looking at the IUCN definitions, the only class that fits these large
> parks is '2' - 'national park'. IUCN, like our Wiki, doesn't actually
> require that 'national park' be constituted by a national government.
> It simply embodies a hidden assumption that only a nation-state has
> the resources to constitute one. leaving the bigger state-defined
> facilities in terminologic limbo.

I would ask if it's really a good thing that OSM has adopted IUCN as the
basis for what is and is not a park.  It seems to me that it's causing
trouble.

> Another odd case that I've mapped a lot of are the undeveloped
> recreation areas owned by New York City to protect its water supply.
> The city bought them to protect them from development, and allows
> public access (in some cases requiring that the user apply for a free
> permit, in others, "come one, come all!") I've tagged these with
> boundary=protected_area protect_class=12 protection_object=water, and
> then added leisure=nature_reserve as a rendering stopgap (because
> class 12 doesn't render either).

We used to have "landuse=reservoir_protection" (although maybe these
places are watershed protection, not reservoir).  Part of what I object
to about the IUCN hegemony is the view that everything should be turned
into some complicated protect_class and other tagging removed.

But, in this case, your approach seems reasonable in terms of denoting
the landuse.

I would argue that if people are welcome, then in addition to whatever
protection tags, it deserves "leisure=nature_reserve" *also*.  There is
no reason to conclude from "water protection" that humans are or are not
allowed.  Near me, there is reservoir protection land, and it has "no
trespassing - public water supply" signs.  I think the protection
tagging ought to match your case (but maybe protection_object=reservoir
instead of =water), but also access=no and definitely no nature_reserve.

(I agree with your notion that free permit means access=yes to first
order.)

> One reason that I disfavour 'leisure=park' is, simply, the renderer.
> (I know, don't tag for the renderer!) The objects that render with
> borders (nature_reserve, national_park, protected_area for classes
> 1-6) don't obscure landcover, so those who wish to map landcover in
> these large areas can do so without collision. The only place where
> I've really tried to do that has been Bear Mountain - where I was
> producing a detailed map for a group outing a couple of years ago. I
> didn't push beyond the specific area that I needed.
> https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/6467468

There is a much larger issue in the standard style between landuse and
landcover, and not having an integrated vision for which is rendered
how, to avoid colliding.

Around me, golf courses have a color fill and nature_reserve doesn't,
and that has always seemed broken.

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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[Kevin Kenny]

On Mon, Apr 29, 2019 at 11:24 AM Mateusz Konieczny
 wrote:
> Why not simply call anything which is a 'large public area for recreation', a 
> park, and specify it additionally with additional tags?
>
> That would require redefining leisure=park and while would match use of word 
> "park" in USA
> it would start mismatching use of work "park" in UK. It would also start to 
> mismatch how
> leisure=park is used in Europe.
>
> Generally British English is preferred in OSM and redefining popular tags is 
> deeply problematic.

Are we talking about the use of the *tag*, or the use of the *word* in
British English?

If we're talking about the use of the tag, then we get to define it,
but if it is too far removed from a word's commonly understood
meaning, we have to expect extensive mistagging.

If we're talking about the use of the word 'park' in common speech,
the British Isles have ample examples of 'park' being used in a sense
much like the US one: https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/359617831
happened to be the first one I noticed, but
https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/421685070 and others are also
present. If these aren't 'parks' in UK English, why do they exist in
the UK with 'park' in their names?

I also notice that Great Britain has similar situations to the US
national parks, where other land uses are embedded. I see that
Cairngorms National Park
https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/1947603 embeds at least four
villages (Avlemore, Ballater, Grantown-on-Spey and Kingussie).

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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[Mateusz Konieczny]

Sorry for a previous empty message. I clicked send too early by an accident.

29 Apr 2019, 15:02 by g...@lexort.com:

> So, I'd be in favor of having a way on the parcel boundary, and another
> denoting the park-type sub-piece, calling those outer and inner and
> tagging:
>
>  outer: name="Foo State Park"
>  inner: leisure=park
>  relation wtih outer/inner: leisure=nature_reserve
>
> Or, perhaps not having a relation and putting leisure=nature_reserve on
> the outer, with the expectation that renderers/etc. will resolve the
> overapping landuse to the smaller geometry.
>
I think I would base deciding whatever leisure=nature_reserve (or 
boundary=protected_area)
should be multipolygon excluding inner or cover both should be based on a 
situation.

For example - is leisure=park area exempt from (all/nearly all) rules 
protecting remaining area?
It is probably should be multipolygon.

Is leisure=park area more intensively used but there are still some real 
restrictions? Probably
boundary=protected_area should also cover it.
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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[Kevin Kenny]

On Mon, Apr 29, 2019 at 9:05 AM Greg Troxel  wrote:
> The other case is a large area with subareas that are each clearly one
> or the other.  Consider:
>
>   1000 acre parcel, almost entirely forest in a natural state, with dirt
>   hiking paths
>
>   a 40 acre sub-piece of this on the edge, that is different:
> - paved parking lot
> - visitor center / bathroom building
> - grass and a few trees (city park like)
> - picnic tables, grills
>
>   probably there are different rules for the two pieces.  Dogs might be
>   allowed in the 40-acre chunk, but not in the larger forest, for
>   example.
>
>   the entire thing is called "Foo State Park", owned by a state
>   government.  Legally it is one parcel, and run by the same state
>   agency.
>
> I think the basic issue is that we tend to focus on the larger
> definition of area and think we must give it one tag, so we frame the
> question: "Is this 1000 acre place a =park or a =nature_reserve?".
> Stepping back, I see a park and a nature_reserve as separate and related
> things.
>
> So, I'd be in favor of having a way on the parcel boundary, and another
> denoting the park-type sub-piece, calling those outer and inner and
> tagging:
>
>  outer: name="Foo State Park"
>  inner: leisure=park
>  relation wtih outer/inner: leisure=nature_reserve
>
> Or, perhaps not having a relation and putting leisure=nature_reserve on
> the outer, with the expectation that renderers/etc. will resolve the
> overapping landuse to the smaller geometry.
>
> (As I see it this applies to many National Parks too, but we don't worry
> about that because we just call them national_park.)

That's more or less what I've been doing - tag the outer ring, but
without cutouts for the inner ring(s). (It's also slightly more
complicated than you describe, since the developed areas are
frequently, if indeed not usually, on the margin of the larger park,
but I do understand multipolygon topology and can deal with that case
readily as well.) There's nothing wrong with embedding a
protect_class=1b or a protect_class=4 within a protect_class=2.

The reason for avoiding cutouts is to make it clear what is and is not
part of the named park. Many of the parks that I deal with have
private inholdings that are not part of the park but may be completely
surrounded by it. Those do get cutouts.

I haven't even attempted yet to map the strange intermediate beasts
like public-access conservation easements - common on lumber-company
land - or private leaseholds of public land - common to allow the
larger parks to embed facilities like youth camps that restrict public
access. I'm doing what I can manage!

The smaller state parks - the thousand-acre type that you contemplate
- are often not what IUCN considers to be protected areas, and so I've
taken to using protected_area tagging, but with protection classes
such as 21 (which woud be accompanied with
'protection_object=recreation').  That doesn't render, so as a
stopgap, I've been tagging them 'leisure=nature_reserve' or
'leisure=park', whichever seems to fit, recognizing that further
developments are likely eventually to make the dual tagging
unneccessary. https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/6442393 is
typical.

What I struggle with is are more complex situations - that may always
necessitate some 'abuse' of tagging. The thousand-acre park with a
forty-acre developed section is handled quite nicely with your scheme.
When you have a 'park' comprising hundreds of thousands, or millions
of acres, operated in public-private partnership, things start to
break down. This is true of New York's two huge parks; of the USA's
larger National Parks; and of US National Monuments, National Forests,
and BLM recreation lands. The outer ring - the legally designated area
- may not really enclose anything recognizable as a 'park', while the
stricter 'park' land management may be somewhat diffuse, in many
discrete protected areas. The larger area is also protected, but
limited sustainable development is often permitted.

Looking at the IUCN definitions, the only class that fits these large
parks is '2' - 'national park'. IUCN, like our Wiki, doesn't actually
require that 'national park' be constituted by a national government.
It simply embodies a hidden assumption that only a nation-state has
the resources to constitute one. leaving the bigger state-defined
facilities in terminologic limbo.

Another odd case that I've mapped a lot of are the undeveloped
recreation areas owned by New York City to protect its water supply.
The city bought them to protect them from development, and allows
public access (in some cases requiring that the user apply for a free
permit, in others, "come one, come all!") I've tagged these with
boundary=protected_area protect_class=12 protection_object=water, and
then added leisure=nature_reserve as a rendering stopgap (because
class 12 doesn't render either).

One reason that I disfavour 'leisure=park' is, simply, the renderer.
(I 

Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[Mateusz Konieczny]

29 Apr 2019, 15:02 by g...@lexort.com:

> The other case is a large area with subareas that are each clearly one
> or the other.  Consider:
>
>  1000 acre parcel, almost entirely forest in a natural state, with dirt
>  hiking paths
>
>  a 40 acre sub-piece of this on the edge, that is different:
>  - paved parking lot
>  - visitor center / bathroom building
>  - grass and a few trees (city park like)
>  - picnic tables, grills
>
>  probably there are different rules for the two pieces.  Dogs might be
>  allowed in the 40-acre chunk, but not in the larger forest, for
>  example.
>
>  the entire thing is called "Foo State Park", owned by a state
>  government.  Legally it is one parcel, and run by the same state
>  agency.
>
> I think the basic issue is that we tend to focus on the larger
> definition of area and think we must give it one tag, so we frame the
> question: "Is this 1000 acre place a =park or a =nature_reserve?".
> Stepping back, I see a park and a nature_reserve as separate and related
> things.
>
> So, I'd be in favor of having a way on the parcel boundary, and another
> denoting the park-type sub-piece, calling those outer and inner and
> tagging:
>
>  outer: name="Foo State Park"
>  inner: leisure=park
>  relation wtih outer/inner: leisure=nature_reserve
>
> Or, perhaps not having a relation and putting leisure=nature_reserve on
> the outer, with the expectation that renderers/etc. will resolve the
> overapping landuse to the smaller geometry.
>
> (As I see it this applies to many National Parks too, but we don't worry
> about that because we just call them national_park.)
>
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> 
>

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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[Mateusz Konieczny]

29 Apr 2019, 15:28 by bradha...@fastmail.com:

> It doesn't restrict, as the leisure:park wiki does, to smaller, urban 
> human-sculpted parks.
>
I am partially responsible for recent rewrite. The rewrite was supposed to 
explain how leisure=park
is used in OpenStreetMap, and not redefine meaning of this tag. USA is a tricky 
case as typical
use of leisure=park was not matching use of leisure=park that was intended and 
initial and
dominating in other well mapped areas.

Restricting to "human-sculpted parks" was 100% intentional, "smaller" as in 
"area covering 
hundreds square kilometers is extremely unlikely to be leisure=park" was 
intentional.

Restricting it cities was not intentional and should be fixed if it  happened, 
some leisure=parks
exist in rural areas.

> Why not simply call anything which is a 'large public area for recreation', a 
> park, and specify it additionally with additional tags?
>
That would require redefining leisure=park and while would match use of word 
"park" in USA
it would start mismatching use of work "park" in UK. It would also start to 
mismatch how
leisure=park is used in Europe.

Generally British English is preferred in OSM and redefining popular tags is 
deeply problematic.

If someone feels that leisure=park as described by me here (and partially on 
Wiki)
misrepresents situation - I would participate in some wider discussion 
on global tagging mailing list if someone would start it.

Just recently leisure=park OSM Wiki page was basically without definition and 
discussion
page had basically failed definition attempt and I hope that was is now on the 
page is an improvement
over no definition/explanation at all, but...
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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[Joseph Eisenberg]

I would recommend starting to use boundary=protected_area for State
parks, and other parks that are large natural areas that are designed
for a balance of tourism and protection of the natural environment but
are not actually National Parks.

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:boundary%3Dprotected_area

You can tag state parks like this:

boundary=protected_area + protect_class=2 + protection_title="State Park"

Protect Class 2 is the same type as National Parks, and will be
rendered and interpreted the same by most database users, but the
protection title makes it clear that it's actually a State Park, not a
National Park.

For county parks: many of these are small parks that are similar to a
usual urban park, with gardens, playgrounds, sports fields etc, and
can be tagged with leisure=park. Others are natural areas or nature
reserves, and could use boundary=protected_area + protect_class=5 +
protection_title="County Park".

State and National Forests, which are used for logging and grazing as
well as recreation, can be tagged as:
boundary=protected_area + protect_class=6 + protection_title="National
Forest" or "State Forest".

These features will all be rendered the same as boundary=national_park
and leisure=nature_reserve in many renderings styles, but it's nice to
be a little more specific.

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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[Joseph Eisenberg]

On 4/29/19, Greg Troxel  wrote:

> With leisure=nature_reserve, leisure=park, golf courses, cemetaries,
> schools, etc., we represent them on the map by some kind of shading or
> fill.  But, boundary=protected_area is represented by denoting the
> border, and this does not serve map users well.

If you are talking about the Openstreetmap-carto style (the standard
map layer on openstreetmap.org), then this is not quite correct.

It's true that leisure=park and golf courses are represented by a fill
color for the whole polygon.

However, leisure=natural_reserve, boundary=national_park and
boundary_protected area (with protect_class  1 thru 7 and 97-99) are
currently rendered identically, with a green semi-transparent outline.
(There is also a semi-transparent green fill at low zoom levels).

The other type of boundary is "boundary=aboriginal_lands" and
"boundary = 'protected_area" with "protect_class=24" - these are used
for American Indian and Alaskan Native reservations and other similar
features, and are
rendered with a brown outline.

Military areas and tourist areas (zoos, theme parks) are also rendered
with outlines in red and purple.

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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[brad]

It seems that plain language can be used here, and from the Oxford 
dictionary, a park is:

" A large public garden or area of land used for recreation."
It doesn't restrict, as the leisure:park wiki does, to smaller, urban 
human-sculpted parks.
In CO the county, city (some very large parks), and state parks are 
tagged as leisure:park.    This makes sense from the local dialect 
perspective as well as the Oxford english.


Why not simply call anything which is a 'large public area for 
recreation', a park, and specify it additionally with additional tags?


Sorry I'm chiming in late to the discussion, I've been travelling and 
mostly unplugged for a week.


On 4/29/19 5:37 AM, Greg Troxel wrote:

The real problem is that we have two linguistic traditions: one is plain
langauge, and one is tagging tokens.  People keep blurring them, and of
course this is going to continue.  We end up with having to explain
"Just becuase it says 'Foo Park' doesn't mean it's a park."  If we had

#define LEISURE_PARK0x451

and we were talking about if something were a LEISURE_PARK then it would
be clearer about plain language vs tagging tokens.

OSM Volunteer stevea  writes:


So, what emerges is that going forward, leisure=park is as our wiki
describes it (a smaller, urban-scale, human-sculpted place for
leisure/recreation), EVEN THOUGH many areas which aren't this are now
tagged this way.

I think that's a correct assessment.  Except that we have to be careful
about "recreation" -- a place that is largely soccer and baseball fields
is recreation_ground.  If you mean walking around, then agreed.

In Massachusetts, I'd say an interesting data point in distinguishing
"park" vs "nature_reserve" is that in a park you are not that likely to
pick up ticks (ixodes scapularis), and in a nature_reserve it is very
likely.  But that's just a proxy for "sculpted" vs "natural".


Going forward, NEW "parks" (in the USA) get this tag only as it is
meant/now wiki-described, as we use the Existing 4 more properly.  In
other words, it is correct to use the Existing 4 INSTEAD of solely
leisure=park when appropriate.  Simultaneously, it is inevitable that
many now-tagged-leisure=parks will have that tag changed to one of the
other Existing 4.  Yes?

I don't really follow "going forward" and "inevitable".  If you mean:

   We the mailinglist more or less agree, to the extent we ever do, that
   things that don't meet definition above  should not be leisure=park,
   and we should tag those things appropriately, both for new objects,
   and people fixing old objects.

then that sounds right.

Another question is: If we didn't have the special national_park tag,
how would they be tagged?  I would say that most would be
leisure=nature_reserve overall, with perhaps some small segments as
leisure=park, and then a few messy cases (Dry Tortugas, maybe Mesa
Verde).  I don't seriously expect us to get rid of the national_park
tag, so that's a moot point.


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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[Greg Troxel]

One of the things that has come up is "mixed-use parks", where an area
is not clearly one thing or the other.  I see two kinds of cases (with
of course a blurry line between the cases).

One case is an area where there are two kinds of uses close together, in
a way that's hard to draw a sensible line.  More "this place is both"
than "there are two places near each other treated as the same name".
Consider a smallish area that is both leisure=park and
leisure=recreation_ground.  Assume there is some grass with paved paths,
perhaps some flowers, a few trees, and an area with picnic tables,
perhaps with some roofs, and some charcoal grills.  That's clearly
leisure=park.  Then add a pond with swimming and a bath house for
changing.  Or two soccer fields.  Those by themselves are
leisure=recreation_ground.  Assume that this area is one parcel, managed
as one entity, and named as one thing by the owning body.  So how to tag
it?  Here, I would argue that one should simply look the more
significant use, and pick that and don't worry.  I would lean to park
when on the park/recreation_ground line, because the sports fields will
be tagged as pitches, and once those are there, they are rendered and
findable, regardless of the overall area being tagged as
recreation_ground.

The other case is a large area with subareas that are each clearly one
or the other.  Consider:

  1000 acre parcel, almost entirely forest in a natural state, with dirt
  hiking paths

  a 40 acre sub-piece of this on the edge, that is different:
- paved parking lot
- visitor center / bathroom building
- grass and a few trees (city park like)
- picnic tables, grills

  probably there are different rules for the two pieces.  Dogs might be
  allowed in the 40-acre chunk, but not in the larger forest, for
  example.

  the entire thing is called "Foo State Park", owned by a state
  government.  Legally it is one parcel, and run by the same state
  agency.

I think the basic issue is that we tend to focus on the larger
definition of area and think we must give it one tag, so we frame the
question: "Is this 1000 acre place a =park or a =nature_reserve?".
Stepping back, I see a park and a nature_reserve as separate and related
things.

So, I'd be in favor of having a way on the parcel boundary, and another
denoting the park-type sub-piece, calling those outer and inner and
tagging:

 outer: name="Foo State Park"
 inner: leisure=park
 relation wtih outer/inner: leisure=nature_reserve

Or, perhaps not having a relation and putting leisure=nature_reserve on
the outer, with the expectation that renderers/etc. will resolve the
overapping landuse to the smaller geometry.

(As I see it this applies to many National Parks too, but we don't worry
about that because we just call them national_park.)

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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[brad]

Unless we're going to be clear that a national park is a park 
owned/operated by a nation,  I'd be on board with this. Associating it 
with size is too ambiguous


On 4/29/19 5:24 AM, Greg Troxel wrote:

OSM Volunteer stevea  writes:


How much consensus IS there for tagging national_park on "large,
(important?) state parks" which roughly (or not) meet the
national_park definition in our wiki?

My view is that we should deprecate the national_park tag entirely, and
end up with tags that represent what something is and who
owns/administers it separately.  And generally separate things that are
sane to separate.

Plus, I really doubt that what gets called "national park" in various
countries is the same definition.

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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[brad]

Agreed.
'National Park' is very specific.   We have national parks and we have 
state, county, regional ... parks.


National:
*: *belonging to or maintained by the federal government

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/national


On 4/27/19 8:06 PM, Paul Johnson wrote:



On Wed, Apr 24, 2019, 18:35 Greg Troxel > wrote:


I think the entire "national_park" tag is unfortunate, as it wraps
up a
lot of concepts that vary by country, and makes people understand
things
when they don't.  In the US, it should mean "preserve the land while
allowing access and enjoyment", there is a notion that the place is
relatively distinguished, and it doesn't really have a connotation of
size.


I agree, the national_park tag is rather unfortunate, some other tag 
should be used to connote state or national parks in an easily 
distinguishable fashion while not making it excessively difficult to 
find parks in general. With the existing national park tag, I'd use it 
for national (US and indian tribal), but not state parks.


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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[Greg Troxel]

Jmapb  writes:

> On 4/26/2019 9:49 PM, OSM Volunteer stevea wrote:

>> No, I think leisure=playground aligns a bit more closely with "kids
>> play here," though some people like snap-tight definitions, others
>> consider things as much more elastic.  It's difficult to please
>> everybody; semantics can be messy.
>
> Certainly. But speaking as a map user, if I saw a playground on a map
> and then arrived there and found it was just an empty lot or an
> undeveloped bit of land, I would find fault with that map. So if these
> places (kids play here but it's unofficial) are to be mapped, I'd
> suggest different tagging.

THe issue is that leisure=playground does not mean "kids do play here".

It means instead:

  This is a place that has been established as a place to play, and is
  maintained in such a way that such activities are reasonable.  It is
  more or less open to the public (or perhaps associated with a school
  or other facility, or gated community, etc. for exclusive use of their
  people).  It is almost certainly known as a playground or similar to
  those living in the area.

That excludes play sets in back yards, and places where kids go in the
woods in an ad hoc or against-the-rules manner.

It does mean that leisure=playground access=private is going to happen,
in gated community-ish places.  But that's fine, I think.

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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[Greg Troxel]

OSM Volunteer stevea  writes:

> It may be emerging that tagging boundary=protected_area (where
> correct) where leisure=park now exists and we delete it, begins to
> supersede leisure=park on many North American now-called-parks.  I
> think that's OK, maybe even overdue.  To be clear, there are plenty of
> "we now call them parks" which are more like protected_area boundary
> areas or maybe "it is what it is today, nothing more."

I think you are not saying that a proper leisure=park should be
protected_area, but that some things which are really protected_area are
mistagged as park.

Here I will mostly talk about leisure=nature_reserve sorts of places, to
include national_park sorts of places that would be
leisure=nature_reserve if we didn't have national_park tags.

I have two problems with the notion of boundary=protected_area:

1) The current landuse is one thing, and legal protection for the future
is another.  Just because something is a nature reserve now doesn't mean
it has legal protection.

A town might own 300 acres of woods, have hiking trails, and have it
signed as "Foo Conservation Area".  That's enough to tag it
landuse=conservation (because that's the current actual landuse) and
leisure=nature_reserve.  But, 20 years from now, they might sell that to
a developer to buy some other land which has conservation value and
enough upland to build that new schoool they want.  So in this case
boundary=protected_area is completely inappropriate.

2) boundary=protected_area is semantically confused, because what is
being tagged is not the boundary, but the status of the area within the
boundary.

Of course, there is a computer-sciency duality between a boundary and
the area within the boundary.  From this viewpoint, things are entirely
equivalent.  But, humans interpret tags other than according to the
strict tagging definition semantics, and they tend to treat
boundary=protected_area as being about the boundary, particularly in
rendering.

With admin boundaries, there is a sense of "the land inside is in this
town", but we have a long cartographic culture of drawing lines on the
map.  These separate towns and states, for example, and it's understood
that this is a large feature and that shading them is not that useful,
except on small-scale maps where there is arbitrary coloring to
visualize that.

With leisure=nature_reserve, leisure=park, golf courses, cemetaries,
schools, etc., we represent them on the map by some kind of shading or
fill.  But, boundary=protected_area is represented by denoting the
border, and this does not serve map users wel.

> I think the greatest thing to "shake out" of this so far is that the
> leisure=park tag can (and should be) frequently be dismissed in
> preference to boundary=protected_area.  This alone will assert a great
> deal of sanity back into things around here.  Whether we invent a tag
> called proto_park ('cause there are such things, the city council just
> hasn't budgeted or spent the money to build it into a more fully
> human-leisure-place, yet).

There is no sanity in boundary=protected_area!  There would be in
area_protected=yes, if it were only used to describe areas that actually
have legal protection (easement or conservation restriction, state or
national And).

That aside, I think favoring boundary=protected_area for parks is a
major step backwards from separating separate concepts.  What is on the
ground, and what the legal protections are against change, are separate
things and should be kept separate.

Arguably, National Parks are no more protected than a parcel of woods
owned by a town (absent any CR/easemetn/state conservation status)
because the owning body can change the rules in the same manner.

In contrast, formal conservation land owned by towns in Mass requires
permission of the state to take out of conservation status.  And there's
the NY example, where the state government can't change things via
normal law.

But, it comes down to "how hard would it be politically", and that's not
really that useful.

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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[Greg Troxel]

The real problem is that we have two linguistic traditions: one is plain
langauge, and one is tagging tokens.  People keep blurring them, and of
course this is going to continue.  We end up with having to explain
"Just becuase it says 'Foo Park' doesn't mean it's a park."  If we had

#define LEISURE_PARK0x451

and we were talking about if something were a LEISURE_PARK then it would
be clearer about plain language vs tagging tokens.

OSM Volunteer stevea  writes:

> So, what emerges is that going forward, leisure=park is as our wiki
> describes it (a smaller, urban-scale, human-sculpted place for
> leisure/recreation), EVEN THOUGH many areas which aren't this are now
> tagged this way.

I think that's a correct assessment.  Except that we have to be careful
about "recreation" -- a place that is largely soccer and baseball fields
is recreation_ground.  If you mean walking around, then agreed.

In Massachusetts, I'd say an interesting data point in distinguishing
"park" vs "nature_reserve" is that in a park you are not that likely to
pick up ticks (ixodes scapularis), and in a nature_reserve it is very
likely.  But that's just a proxy for "sculpted" vs "natural".

> Going forward, NEW "parks" (in the USA) get this tag only as it is
> meant/now wiki-described, as we use the Existing 4 more properly.  In
> other words, it is correct to use the Existing 4 INSTEAD of solely
> leisure=park when appropriate.  Simultaneously, it is inevitable that
> many now-tagged-leisure=parks will have that tag changed to one of the
> other Existing 4.  Yes?

I don't really follow "going forward" and "inevitable".  If you mean:

  We the mailinglist more or less agree, to the extent we ever do, that
  things that don't meet definition above  should not be leisure=park,
  and we should tag those things appropriately, both for new objects,
  and people fixing old objects.

then that sounds right.

Another question is: If we didn't have the special national_park tag,
how would they be tagged?  I would say that most would be
leisure=nature_reserve overall, with perhaps some small segments as
leisure=park, and then a few messy cases (Dry Tortugas, maybe Mesa
Verde).  I don't seriously expect us to get rid of the national_park
tag, so that's a moot point.


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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[Greg Troxel]

OSM Volunteer stevea  writes:

> How much consensus IS there for tagging national_park on "large,
> (important?) state parks" which roughly (or not) meet the
> national_park definition in our wiki?

My view is that we should deprecate the national_park tag entirely, and
end up with tags that represent what something is and who
owns/administers it separately.  And generally separate things that are
sane to separate.

Plus, I really doubt that what gets called "national park" in various
countries is the same definition.

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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[OSM Volunteer stevea]

How much consensus IS there for tagging national_park on "large, (important?) 
state parks" which roughly (or not) meet the national_park definition in our 
wiki?

We have two in New York, quite a few in California, some in other states.  Do 
we wish to keep these as they are?  Do we rough out "rules" of when it is 
appropriate to use this tag?  I might be wrong about this, but it does seem 
that geographic size (sheer area) does play an important role in whether we 
might say "yes" or "no."  "How big" is that threshold?  (If any).

I know:  this gets chewy quickly.  Park tagging is difficult when we put things 
into categories.  We now use four tags to contain a vast universe of parks and 
park-like things, MANY of which are quite different from one another.  Can we 
improve upon this or am I simply barking at a tree?

SteveA
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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[Kevin Kenny]

On Sun, Apr 28, 2019 at 2:43 PM OSM Volunteer stevea
 wrote:
> 1)  As states are as sovereign as the federal government (for purposes of 
> saying "what a park is around here"), the tag boundary=national_park has 
> rather widely been applied to state parks and state-park like lands.  (I know 
> Kevin Kenny has made a good case for why he uses this tag on certain New York 
> state "lands" of a certain sort.  And a lot of state parks in California and 
> other states get this tag.

More or less repeating my earlier argument:

I've applied this tag in exactly two instances: the 'blue line' that
surrounds the Adirondack and Catskill Parks. This line delineates the
portion of the state legally known as the Forest Preserve, and
enshrined in article XIV of the state constitution:
> The lands of the state, now owned or hereafter acquired, constituting the 
> forest preserve as now fixed by law, shall be forever kept as wild forest 
> lands. They shall not be leased, sold or exchanged, or be taken by any 
> corporation, public or private, nor shall the timber thereon be sold, removed 
> or destroyed.

Note that this land is an entirely different kettle of fish from the
areas entitled 'State Park' in New York.

Article XIV confers a sui generis protection, being enshrined at the
constitutional level. Unlike any of the US National Parks, which could
be wiped out by a simple Act of Congress, altering the Forest Preserve
needs a constitutional amendment. The *easiest* way to pass such a
thing is a supermajority vote of both houses of the state legislature,
in two consecutive sessions (with a general election intervening),
followed by a majority in a popular referendum. A number of amendments
have been passed to Article XIV, but they've all been relatively
small-scale changes to the state's holdings, to allow for construction
and maintenance of highways, well fields, utility lines, and similar
facilities. Generally, the amendments that concede land have all been
accompanied by adding land of greater value elsewhere.

The Forest Preserve plays a similar role to a large National Park. The
Catskill Park is of a similar size to a medium National Park like
Joshua Tree; the Adirondack Park would be able to fit Yellowstone,
Everglades, Glacier, Grand Canyon and Yosemite, with room to spare.
LIke some of the National Parks, the state landholdings are complex,
with many inholdings and leaseholds where the state does not own the
land (but highly regulates its use, including in many instances
mandating recreational access when active logging is not in progress).

The definition that appears in the Wiki:
> A  national park is a relatively large area of land declared by a government 
> (just as boundary=administrative are declared/recognised by governments), to 
> be set aside for human recreation and enjoyment, as well as the protection of 
> the natural environment and/or cultural heritage of an area. This would 
> normally also come with restrictions on human activity, particularly 
> development, for the protection of wildlife and scenery. National parks are 
> often named "X national park" (with translation).

is apposite. If US 'National Parks' are 'relatively large', then these
two qualify. The Adirondack Park is larger than any except for the
Alaska mega-parks; the Catskill Park is about of a size with Joshua
Tree or Yosemite.  They are set aside for the purposes mentioned in
the Wiki article. They come with stringent restrictions on
development. They simply are not administered by the Federal
government, because they were established in 1885, thirty-one years
before the National Park Service was established. The only National
Parks in existence were Yellowstone (Wyoming was not yet a state),
Mackinac (turned back to the State of Michigan in 1895), and Rock
Creek (an urban park in the DIstrict of Columbia, and so likewise
outside any state). Yosemite and Sequoia were in existence, as
California state parks.

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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[OSM Volunteer stevea]

Oops, I meant landuse=recreation_ground.  (Not landuse=recreation_area).  My 
apologies.
SteveA

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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[OSM Volunteer stevea]

James Umbanhowar  wrote:
> Just to throw another curveball in here, there is also
> leisure=nature_reserve which is frequently (occasionally?) used for the
> city/county parks that are less structured and used for hiking and
> nature appreciation.

Thanks, James.  Reiterating, when I say "Existing 4," (as "tags we use on 
park-like things"), I mean:

leisure=park
leisure=nature_reserve
boundary=national_park
boundary=protected_area

Number "4-1/2" (or a 5th) might be landuse=recreation_area, which sometimes, 
even according to its wiki, conflates with leisure=park.  But use 
landuse=recreation_area when appropriate, of course.

I hear (loud and clear) the unfortunate-ness of boundary=national_park.  I know 
an easy go-to fix might be "how about we Americans coin the boundary=state_park 
tag...".  Two things about that which I hope are enlightening.

1)  As states are as sovereign as the federal government (for purposes of 
saying "what a park is around here"), the tag boundary=national_park has rather 
widely been applied to state parks and state-park like lands.  (I know Kevin 
Kenny has made a good case for why he uses this tag on certain New York state 
"lands" of a certain sort.  And a lot of state parks in California and other 
states get this tag.

2)  Once we go down the road of state_park as a value on boundary, we'll begin 
to tag (if we already haven't, I could check taginfo) county_park, city_park, 
maybe even private_park and other oddities which "break" a strict hierarchy of 
government administration.  (My psuedo/proto-protosal of a park_level=* tag, 
with values that mimic admin_level goes here, but that's an aside).  We have 
sort of tried this with the park:type tag (noted in the Subject), and that has 
been so wide-open (since at least 2009) that it didn't even have a wiki page 
about it until I sketched in a loose one late last week.  (I'm dancing as fast 
as I can).  The park:type tag is a mess, and in my opinion should enter early 
stages of deprecation right now as I believe it is too free-form and confusing. 
 I mean, I'm all for coining tags and plastic values, but this one seems to 
have simply become overly messy.

Perhaps new tags (in addition to the Existing 4 or 5) are in order, so that we 
may better address the "unfortunateness" of boundary=national_park.  But it 
would have to be a quite-well-thought-out proposal, might NEED to include the 
concept of park_level (which can be supplemented by operator=* and/or owner=* 
tags), and should scale to the whole world of OSM, rather than be USA-specific. 
 I'm pretty sure, anyway.  Or maybe we don't need any new tags (maybe values?) 
and we simply need good "rules" (rough logical mappings, maybe tightened up 
over time, or state-by-state) to apply the Existing 4 or 5 that mappers in the 
USA agree are crystal-clear, if that's possible.

SteveA
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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[Paul Johnson]

On Wed, Apr 24, 2019, 18:35 Greg Troxel  wrote:

> I think the entire "national_park" tag is unfortunate, as it wraps up a
> lot of concepts that vary by country, and makes people understand things
> when they don't.  In the US, it should mean "preserve the land while
> allowing access and enjoyment", there is a notion that the place is
> relatively distinguished, and it doesn't really have a connotation of
> size.
>

I agree, the national_park tag is rather unfortunate, some other tag should
be used to connote state or national parks in an easily distinguishable
fashion while not making it excessively difficult to find parks in
general.  With the existing national park tag, I'd use it for national (US
and indian tribal), but not state parks.
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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[James Umbanhowar]

Just to throw another curveball in here, there is also
leisure=nature_reserve which is frequently (occasionally?) used for the
city/county parks that are less structured and used for hiking and
nature appreciation.

On Sun, 2019-04-28 at 08:48 -0500, Aaron Forsythe wrote:
> On 4/26/2019 9:49 PM, OSM Volunteer stevea wrote:
> >> Other than that I can't think of any tags that would be applicable
> to
> >> these sorts of situations. We tend to tag the regulations
> themselves,
> >> not the extent to which they're adhered to. Certainly just calling
> it a
> >> park because kids play there doesn't seem consistent with OSM
> standards.
> >> We don't raise the speed limit in places where everyone speeds, or
> tag
> >> bicycle=yes on ways where they're prohibited but frequently used.
> > 
> > 
> > No, I think leisure=playground aligns a bit more closely with "kids
> play
> > here," though some people like snap-tight definitions, others
> consider
> > things as much more elastic.  It's difficult to please everybody;
> semantics
> > can be messy.
>  
> I disagree.  Going by that definition, my front yard would be
> leisure:playground.  I believe the tag should be used for "a place
> designated
> as an area for children to play".  Also, just because someone puts a
> swing set
> in their back yard, shouldn't mean their back yard should be tagged
> as a
> playground.
>  
> On another note, there are places defined as “city parks” here that
> are no
> more than land that can't really be used for anything.  For instance,
> a lot in
> a subdivision that’s used for storm drainage is labeled as a nature
> park. 
> It's due to the fact they planted native plants on the lot to attract
> wildlife.  You would not know it's a "park" if you didn't read the
> small sign
> stating so.  It just looks like an overgrown, unleveled lot.
>  
> Aaron Forsythe
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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[OSM Volunteer stevea]

On Apr 28, 2019, at 9:27 AM, Josh Lee  wrote:
> Where is the consensus or vote? The wiki page says "Status: de facto"
> which implies that the wiki page should document *actual usage* and
> not some sort of idealist, narrow viewpoint.

Perhaps this is where I throw up my hands in exasperation.  Without 
exhaustively describing the threads, private missives, backchannel email 
discussions, hair-pulling exercises, now-stale imports (from when we had no 
Import Guidelines) and even flame-wars in the map (one in my area that has been 
a raging brush fire for a couple of weeks is now in 
truce/detente/notes-are-getting-resolved mode), "the consensus" has been 
evolving for the almost-decade I've been mapping here.

This talk-us thread is intended to address what US tagging of leisure=park 
"should better be" going forward, recognizing there is plenty of "legacy 
tagging" usage of leisure=park, often in California.  Some 
not-strictly-what-the-wiki-says and how leisure=park IS understood "around the 
OSM world" is certainly found in the US beyond California, that is quite true.  
So this topic isn't a fresh, clean sheet of paper, as much has been said and 
written.  But much confusion/misunderstanding (and legacy tagging) exists 
across the USA.

I agree that what our leisure=park wiki says, while it has been tightening up 
recently, isn't absolutely "actual usage," that isn't my fault, it is what 
thousands of contributors have tagged.  And as I've said, my inclinations as to 
why this is so is because our leisure=park wiki wasn't strictly accurate (until 
recent attempts to make it accurate) likely combined with the American English 
usage of the word "park" to be more inclusive (of park-like areas often with 
"park" in their name) than the original OSM concept/usage of leisure=park, 
which we now better wiki-document than we did before.

So, we now have better wiki (which feels fragile, as it is a new consensus, 
though it does appear to be "what we meant all along") AND we have 
legacy-tagging usage in the USA.  Rather than asking for an audit trail of how 
we got here, may we look ahead to how we'll "better" tag areas (with the 
Existing 4 tags, not just leisure=park) going forward?

I think we have "wrung out" (as largely irrelevant) the "government-level" 
semantic component as being unimportant (or we capture it with operator=* 
and/or owner=* tags), although using the specific example in the USA of "how do 
we tag a county park?" roughly asks this ticklish question — not because of 
"county" or that it is admin_level=6, but because county parks are often 
more-rural, larger, not-as-manicured "things" that we often call parks and 
which don't strictly meet how OSM means "leisure=park."

So, what emerges is that going forward, leisure=park is as our wiki describes 
it (a smaller, urban-scale, human-sculpted place for leisure/recreation), EVEN 
THOUGH many areas which aren't this are now tagged this way.  Going forward, 
NEW "parks" (in the USA) get this tag only as it is meant/now wiki-described, 
as we use the Existing 4 more properly.  In other words, it is correct to use 
the Existing 4 INSTEAD of solely leisure=park when appropriate.  
Simultaneously, it is inevitable that many now-tagged-leisure=parks will have 
that tag changed to one of the other Existing 4.  Yes?

Onward,
SteveA
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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[Josh Lee]

On Sun, Apr 28, 2019 at 12:10 PM OSM Volunteer stevea
 wrote:

> Does OSM tag these leisure=park?  "We" (the people, the Departments of 
> Parks...) do, yet should we in OSM?  This IS talk-us; a major reason I 
> brought this up here is that USA park tagging drifts from elsewhere as "more 
> generous with the tag."  Yet the tag has recently become more precise, 
> narrowing it from how it is often used in the USA.

If the wiki history
 is to be
believed, it looks like one editor besides yourself has unilaterally
decided to change the wiki page to refer to something which is not how
the tag is actually used.

Where is the consensus or vote? The wiki page says "Status: de facto"
which implies that the wiki page should document *actual usage* and
not some sort of idealist, narrow viewpoint.

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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[OSM Volunteer stevea]

> Jmapb  wrote:
> ...if I saw a playground on a map
> and then arrived there and found it was just an empty lot or an
> undeveloped bit of land, I would find fault with that map. So if these
> places (kids play here but it's unofficial) are to be mapped, I'd
> suggest different tagging.

I would find fault with that map, too.  Our leisure=playground clearly states 
"Often they provide equipment..." but maybe "often" could be better stated 
"nearly always."  That's my experience, though I hesitate to re-write the wiki. 
 Full disclosure, I did just propose on leisure=playground's Talk page that we 
add two simple words, "and schools" to describe areas where playgrounds are 
found, as lots of schools micro-map their campus as an OSM introduction.  
Giving a wiki-nod to playgrounds explicitly being found at schools seems 
welcoming.

> If recreation really is the primary human activity in these areas, you
> might consider landuse=recreation_ground -- though the way I read the
> wiki, it sounds like the intended use is a little more formal than the
> situations you're describing.

Yes, I considered recreation_ground as making the "Existing 4" actually 5.  
However, recreation_ground's wiki has a note in the See Also section that says 
"in many cases area is both recreation ground and a park. In such cases usual 
tagging is to add just leisure=park."  So while recreation_ground is a specific 
tag for specific uses, there are conflations to park which are both appropriate 
and recognized in the wiki.  So we sort of have "Existing 4-1/2."  There are no 
quick and easy ways to neatly put everything into buckets!


Aaron Forsythe  wrote:
...that he disagrees with my interpretation (not strict definition) of "kids 
play here."  To be clear, I am 100% in agreement with our wiki definition of 
playground as "a children's playground. These are outdoor (sometimes indoor) 
areas for children to play...".  The wiki definition's second sentence aligns 
with my interpretation/characterization, but it is not a definition of (only) 
what is included in the set, it is an elastic "these are also included" 
characterization of the set.  As I said, semantics can be tricky.

Aaron also wrote:
> On another note, there are places defined as “city parks” here that are no 
> more than land that can't really be used for anything.  For instance, a lot 
> in a subdivision that’s used for storm drainage is labeled as a nature park.  
> It's due to the fact they planted native plants on the lot to attract 
> wildlife.  You would not know it's a "park" if you didn't read the small sign 
> stating so.  It just looks like an overgrown, unleveled lot.

I've also noticed that land next to creeks, for drainage, which is too steep to 
build on, which sometimes floods...is frequently included in what 
municipalities/park agencies "call" parks, or manage as what might someday 
become a park (the "proto_park" concept I mentioned).  I've also seen 
"walkways" which are little more than a path next to a drainage (which does 
contain/attract native plants, frogs, birds), yet might be as little as ten 
feet wide but go on for hundreds of feet, and this is called a "park."

Does OSM tag these leisure=park?  "We" (the people, the Departments of 
Parks...) do, yet should we in OSM?  This IS talk-us; a major reason I brought 
this up here is that USA park tagging drifts from elsewhere as "more generous 
with the tag."  Yet the tag has recently become more precise, narrowing it from 
how it is often used in the USA.

Thanks to all who contribute to the discussion,
SteveA
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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[Aaron Forsythe]

On 4/26/2019 9:49 PM, OSM Volunteer stevea wrote:
>> Other than that I can't think of any tags that would be applicable to
>> these sorts of situations. We tend to tag the regulations themselves,
>> not the extent to which they're adhered to. Certainly just calling it a
>> park because kids play there doesn't seem consistent with OSM standards.
>> We don't raise the speed limit in places where everyone speeds, or tag
>> bicycle=yes on ways where they're prohibited but frequently used.
>
>
> No, I think leisure=playground aligns a bit more closely with "kids play 
> here," though some people like snap-tight definitions, others consider 
> things as much more elastic.  It's difficult to please everybody; semantics 
> can be messy.

I disagree.  Going by that definition, my front yard would be 
leisure:playground.  I believe the tag should be used for "a place designated 
as an area for children to play".  Also, just because someone puts a swing set 
in their back yard, shouldn't mean their back yard should be tagged as a 
playground.

On another note, there are places defined as “city parks” here that are no 
more than land that can't really be used for anything.  For instance, a lot in 
a subdivision that’s used for storm drainage is labeled as a nature park.  
It's due to the fact they planted native plants on the lot to attract 
wildlife.  You would not know it's a "park" if you didn't read the small sign 
stating so.  It just looks like an overgrown, unleveled lot.

Aaron Forsythe
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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[Jmapb]

On 4/26/2019 9:49 PM, OSM Volunteer stevea wrote:

Other than that I can't think of any tags that would be applicable to
these sorts of situations. We tend to tag the regulations themselves,
not the extent to which they're adhered to. Certainly just calling it a
park because kids play there doesn't seem consistent with OSM standards.
We don't raise the speed limit in places where everyone speeds, or tag
bicycle=yes on ways where they're prohibited but frequently used.



No, I think leisure=playground aligns a bit more closely with "kids play here," 
though some people like snap-tight definitions, others consider things as much more 
elastic.  It's difficult to please everybody; semantics can be messy.


Certainly. But speaking as a map user, if I saw a playground on a map
and then arrived there and found it was just an empty lot or an
undeveloped bit of land, I would find fault with that map. So if these
places (kids play here but it's unofficial) are to be mapped, I'd
suggest different tagging.

If recreation really is the primary human activity in these areas, you
might consider landuse=recreation_ground -- though the way I read the
wiki, it sounds like the intended use is a little more formal than the
situations you're describing.

J


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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[Mateusz Konieczny]

24 Apr 2019, 23:05 by kevin.b.ke...@gmail.com:

> TL;DR - Tag the land use, not the land ownership. A city, town,
> county, or state park may be virtually indistinguishable urban green
> spots, recreation grounds, nature reserves, whatever. The level of
> government that manages them may be of interest and worth tagging, but
> ought not to be the primary determinant of 'park type'.
>
I fully agree - who owns objects is not changing its type.
Especially for parks - it does not matte whatever it is owned by
government, company or a single person.

> I think that the Wiki definition leaves a lot to be desired, and I'm
> groping in a fog, much as you are, so please don't take anything that
> I say here as a confrontational pronouncement.
>
It is one of things that seems easy to define until one actually attempts to do 
it.
Further help is welcomed!

> (...)
> All of these features make for what is essentially a human landscape.
> It's one that's designed to be relaxed, focused on being a respite
> from the hurly-burly of the city, but it's still relatively densely
> developed - with many users concentrated in a relatively small area -
> and definitely human-sculpted.
>
I agree, and I really like term "human-sculpted".

> The 'type' of park ought to be "what type of experience ought the
> visitor to expect" and not "what government manages it."
>
Again, I fully agree.

> Bethpage State Park > https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/6447778 
> >  is
> a golf course. Robert Moses State Park
> https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/6442393 
> >  is a swimming beach. I
> see no reason to map them as anything but what they are, except to
> inform the user that they're state-owned and run by OPRHP (the Office
> of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation).
>
Yes, "park" in the name does not mean that it is leisure=park.

And some leisure=park may not have "park" in the name (not sure how
often it happens in USA).

We have also things called "industrial park" or "business park"
that are also not tagged leisure=park.
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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[OSM Volunteer stevea]

On 4/25/2019 8:39 PM, OSM Volunteer stevea wrote:
>
A hazy sort-of-emerging along with this is wider recognition that a proto_park 
thingy exists.  

And on Fri Apr 26 22:44:56 UTC 2019, Jmapb  replied:
Sounds like a good case for some lifecycle prefixes -- proposed:leisure=park or 
planned:leisure=park.

Excellent!  Yes, "lifecycle prefixes" are perfect for this.  My (careful, 
though I have "burned my fingers" using proposed before, and got spoken to by 
the DWG — the three of us had a nice lunch together — but that was years ago 
about a national mess I was cleaning up and we've straightened it out, as in 
WikiProject USBRS) experience with "proposed" is to use it on something which 
is "brought to fruition to, with or by public officials so responsible; clearly 
planned" at least and the funding is "programmed or likely to be."  That can 
get tricky, as sometimes funding lingers in limbo for a long time, like on 
California High Speed Rail (which I recently scaled back in OSM because our new 
Governor did).  But I certainly agree with your

Once park construction has begun, construction:leisure=park. And finally just 
leisure=park when it opens.

As clearly, construction only happens with funding.

Thank you for reminding us about lifecycle prefixes!

>
 I've seen kids on bikes go under fences and around things and treat "certain 
areas" just like an admittedly fully raw and completely undeveloped park, even 
though it isn't one.  Sometimes with respect, simply hiking around.  What is 
that?  Humans being human.  We should map those, accurately.

We have access=permissive, but I don't think a hole in a fence really
counts as "permissive." (I think de facto access to an area with no
fence/no signage/no enforcement *could* be called permissive.)

I, stevea, agree.  Thank you for your perspective and I hope it clarifies for 
others reading.

Other than that I can't think of any tags that would be applicable to
these sorts of situations. We tend to tag the regulations themselves,
not the extent to which they're adhered to. Certainly just calling it a
park because kids play there doesn't seem consistent with OSM standards.
We don't raise the speed limit in places where everyone speeds, or tag
bicycle=yes on ways where they're prohibited but frequently used.

No, I think leisure=playground aligns a bit more closely with "kids play here," 
though some people like snap-tight definitions, others consider things as much 
more elastic.  It's difficult to please everybody; semantics can be messy.  I'm 
glad we're better sharpening up leisure=park, it deserves more good discussion.
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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[Jmapb]

On 4/25/2019 8:39 PM, OSM Volunteer stevea wrote:


A hazy sort-of-emerging along with this is wider recognition that a proto_park thingy exists.  Put 
it in the planning departments "bin" for "department of parks budget, depending how 
much we convert protected_area into human-leisure-activity in the next budget or ten."  Maybe 
never, humanity and this planet can hope.  Hey, this could be a park someday if and as we improve 
it.


Sounds like a good case for some lifecycle prefixes --
proposed:leisure=park or planned:leisure=park. (No one seems to know
exactly what the difference is, or if one of these is further along in
the lifecycle than the other. Regardless, proposed:*=* is much more
widely used.)

Once park construction has begun, construction:leisure=park. And finally
just leisure=park when it opens.



I've seen kids on bikes go under fences and around things and treat "certain 
areas" just like an admittedly fully raw and completely undeveloped park, even 
though it isn't one.  Sometimes with respect, simply hiking around.  What is that?  
Humans being human.  We should map those, accurately.


We have access=permissive, but I don't think a hole in a fence really
counts as "permissive." (I think de facto access to an area with no
fence/no signage/no enforcement *could* be called permissive.)

Other than that I can't think of any tags that would be applicable to
these sorts of situations. We tend to tag the regulations themselves,
not the extent to which they're adhered to. Certainly just calling it a
park because kids play there doesn't seem consistent with OSM standards.
We don't raise the speed limit in places where everyone speeds, or tag
bicycle=yes on ways where they're prohibited but frequently used.

Jason


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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[OSM Volunteer stevea]

 Doug Peterson  wrote (about "Parks in the 
USA..."):
> It is just that there is so much variety to deal with.

I agree, it proves frustrating from an OSM perspective.  I believe partly what 
happened is OSM started in the UK, where British English is spoken and 
"typically British" concepts entered the map with tags thusly derived, like 
leisure=park.  However and simultaneously, the well established American 
English sense of "park" ("a large area of land kept in its natural state for 
recreational use," my dictionary precedes that with "US") heavily affects how 
OSM USA contributors tag leisure=park.  This divergence from its OSM semantic 
(a British English idea of "smaller, urban, human-sculpted...) into US usage 
has gotten wider for many years.

BTW, this is partly a flame war I have been having for a week or two with 
another California user (starting with a question he asked on the leisure=park 
Talk page) and now seems to be improving in its tone and sanity (call it now 
"only" a brush fire).

What seems to be "shaking out" is that we US park-tagging contributors might 
think twice before NEWLY tagging leisure=park, though now there are a LOT of 
those in our map which likely should not be leisure=park, what many say is 
correct tagging.  So we have plenty of legacy tagging of USA parks which could 
benefit from examination and considering "Did this protected_area / 
national_park / nature_reserve / wide-open somewhat-natural recreation place 
get tagged leisure=park because of how Americans call LOTS of things parks, 
which isn't really how leisure=park is meant to be used?  Or is the 
leisure=park tag OK here, though many would say it's being stretched too far to 
correctly apply?  Many county parks are like this, though as Doug says, "there 
is so much variety" — yes, as many other "things" are in that bucket, too.

Greg Troxel  wrote (about "Parks in the USA..."):
> I don't understand this.

about my
>> I can see tag leisure=park persisting on a lot of county_parks for
>> some time (forever?), yet it seems OSM's worldwide view of "park"
>> excludes them (and we tag boundary=national_park on state and national
>> parks).

What I meant is partly what I say above to Doug:  that there is a lot of legacy 
leisure=park tagging in our map in the USA which persists, may for some time 
(by sheer vastness of number), and even when each and every questionable "park" 
is addressed by careful mappers who wish to do the right thing, there appears 
now to be a wide gulf between when the tag is seen to be appropriate, vs. 
inappropriate:  I circle back again to Doug's "there is so much variety to deal 
with."  There IS muddiness of how Americans use "park" to mean so much (and 
governments, via "Parks Departments" contribute), while our wiki definitions 
endeavor to be laser-focused.  I seek clarity, and slowly we appear to be 
getting there.  This won't get fixed overnight or soon, though, that is 
obvious, although I do believe that longer-term, things will heal towards 
better, more consistent tagging.

SteveA
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[Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[OSM Volunteer stevea]

It may be emerging that tagging boundary=protected_area (where correct) where 
leisure=park now exists and we delete it, begins to supersede leisure=park on 
many North American now-called-parks.  I think that's OK, maybe even overdue.  
To be clear, there are plenty of "we now call them parks" which are more like 
protected_area boundary areas or maybe "it is what it is today, nothing more."

A hazy sort-of-emerging along with this is wider recognition that a proto_park 
thingy exists.  Put it in the planning departments "bin" for "department of 
parks budget, depending how much we convert protected_area into 
human-leisure-activity in the next budget or ten."  Maybe never, humanity and 
this planet can hope.  Hey, this could be a park someday if and as we improve 
it.

Ech, did I just say that's what we 'mericans do with some of our landuse 
planning?  Maybe.  I try not to get political here, rather, I endeavor to 
simply tag well.  I've seen kids on bikes go under fences and around things and 
treat "certain areas" just like an admittedly fully raw and completely 
undeveloped park, even though it isn't one.  Sometimes with respect, simply 
hiking around.  What is that?  Humans being human.  We should map those, 
accurately.

I think the greatest thing to "shake out" of this so far is that the 
leisure=park tag can (and should be) frequently be dismissed in preference to 
boundary=protected_area.  This alone will assert a great deal of sanity back 
into things around here.  Whether we invent a tag called proto_park ('cause 
there are such things, the city council just hasn't budgeted or spent the money 
to build it into a more fully human-leisure-place, yet).

Ahhh.  The more people talk about this (leisure=park tagging going away from 
where it doesn't belong), the more it feels like consensus.

SteveA

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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[Greg Troxel]

OSM Volunteer stevea  writes:

> I'll try to be brief, but there's a decade of history.  The
> leisure=park wiki recently improved to better state it means "an
> urban/municipal" park, while boundary=national_park (or perhaps
> leisure=nature_reserve, maybe boundary=protected_area) works on large,
> national (and state or provincial in North America) parks.  As the
> sharper wiki focus means a "city_park" (a sometimes-found park:type
> value, I've written brand new wiki on park:type) certainly qualifies
> as a leisure=park, this leaves county_parks (and their ilk, like
> county_beaches) in a quirky "how best do we tag these now?" quandary.

I think Kevin has it right that we should tag primarily by something
about land use, not by owne/operator, although it's fine to tag
operator.

I think the entire "national_park" tag is unfortunate, as it wraps up a
lot of concepts that vary by country, and makes people understand things
when they don't.  In the US, it should mean "preserve the land while
allowing access and enjoyment", there is a notion that the place is
relatively distinguished, and it doesn't really have a connotation of
size.

While "urban/municpal park" and "(USish) national park" are two things,
there is another kind of thing, which I label conservation land,
typically not so urban, and not wilderness.

Around me, there are a number of places, some tens of acres, some
hundreds, where there are dirt hiking trails, some blazes, and some
crude parking areas, and that's about it.  If anything, these are
closest to US national parks in concept, except that preserving the land
is a higher priority than allowing human enjoyment.  I tag them
as landuse=conservation leisure=nature_reserve.

> I can see tag leisure=park persisting on a lot of county_parks for
> some time (forever?), yet it seems OSM's worldwide view of "park"
> excludes them (and we tag boundary=national_park on state and national
> parks).

I don't understand this.

As I see it OSM's "park" is about an area that is relatively manicured
and taken care of, certainly green compared to pavement, but not really
in a natural state.  As in: if all the humans walked away and you came
back 10 or 20 years later, how different would it be?  A city park would
look totally different, and the semirural conservation areas would look
much the same except the trails would be indistinct and have trees
fallen across them.


I would expect US counties to have both city parks (think Central Park
in NY) and things that are almost wilderness areas or wildlife refuges,
plus everything in between.  I don't see level8 vs level6 management as
important (or even level4 or level2).



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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[Doug Peterson]

To be honest, I have a level of indifference to improvements here because I have
seen so much variety or exceptions to the rule. In the area that I live there
are state parks that have been turned into city / suburban parks. There is a
city / urban park that has been turned into a state park.

There are county parks that function like state parks with camping. There are
county parks that are not any different than city parks in what they look like
and some are in suburban areas. 

There are also township parks to consider. They often have ball fields, a
playground and a picnic shelter. They are not any different in look or
appearance except where they are located. With time and development, townships
then sometimes turn into cities / suburbs so how does that change the park?

Maybe there are improvements that can be made. It is just that there is so much
variety to deal with.

Thanks,

Doug Peterson


> Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2019 19:30:56 -0700
> From: OSM Volunteer stevea 
> To: talk-us 
> Subject: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type
> 
> I'll try to be brief, but there's a decade of history.  The leisure=park wiki
recently
> improved to better state it means "an urban/municipal" park, while
boundary=national_park
> (or perhaps leisure=nature_reserve, maybe boundary=protected_area) works on 
> large,
> national (and state or provincial in North America) parks.  As the sharper 
> wiki
> focus means a "city_park" (a sometimes-found park:type value, I've written 
> brand
> new wiki on park:type) certainly qualifies as a leisure=park, this leaves
county_parks
> (and their ilk, like county_beaches) in a quirky "how best do we tag these 
> now?"
> quandary.
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Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[OSM Volunteer stevea]

On Apr 24, 2019, at 2:05 PM, Kevin Kenny  wrote:
(a LOT about parks!  thanks, Kevin!)

> TL;DR
I tried to be brief, sorry if I wasn't.

> - Tag the land use, not the land ownership. A city, town,
> county, or state park may be virtually indistinguishable urban green
> spots, recreation grounds, nature reserves, whatever. The level of
> government that manages them may be of interest and worth tagging, but
> ought not to be the primary determinant of 'park type'.

I tag a whole heck of a lot of land USE, yet exactly HOW do I tag a typical 
"county park?"  (Mmm, there is nothing "typical" about these).  This is what we 
'mericans largely call "park" yet doesn't hew to OSM's newly freshened-up 
leisure=park, which now more strictly means "smaller manicured urban public 
greenery, shady, tidy, semi-natural places to walk within the city, likely a 
restroom, maybe a playground..." with the emphasis on "smaller" and "urban."  
County parks are often more-rural and can be quite large.  Accordingly, the 
newly-narrower leisure=park tag seems no longer an even somewhat-correct tag on 
these.  So what IS the "land use" here?  Especially when it clearly ISN'T 
leisure=park?

I do not mean to put as much emphasis on "level of government which administers 
the park" as people take here:  it's almost a non-issue and can be fully 
captured by operator=* and/or owner=* tags:  if they better clarify, use these. 
 The park_level tag is an old idea of mine we might resurrect to aid in better 
rendering park boundaries if we so choose, that's all it would be good for, 
same as admin_level acts today.  (There are places, especially in far northern 
California, where visually parsing the cacophony of different park jurisdiction 
boundaries would greatly benefit by semiotic aids to do so).

> I think that the Wiki definition leaves a lot to be desired, and I'm
> groping in a fog, much as you are, so please don't take anything that
> I say here as a confrontational pronouncement.

I'm glad to hear you grope, too, as I know you've had a lot of interaction with 
these taggings and what might be done about them.  As I've said, it's a chewy 
problem.

> My read on "urban/municipal" is that it describes setting and land
> use, rather than the operator. To me a "park" in a
> urban/suburban/front-country setting connotes a certain type of
> facilities. It will likely have adequate parking, or else access to
> public transportation. It will likely have public toilets.

Right, this is what I meant by "admin_level=8, LARGELY" as leaving that wiggle 
room is truly required:  it isn't ALWAYS the city parks department that will 
operate every single leisure=park in a given city.  Still, look at how vague is 
talking about "setting."  That's difficult to agree upon right out of the gate. 
 (I'm not complaining, merely re-stating the difficulty of articulating the 
problem, even as we do our best to tease out what we mean).

> ...these features make for what is essentially a human landscape...definitely 
> human-sculpted.

This is a potentially excellent addition to the leisure=park wiki, as you do 
capture an important semantic with this.  Thank you.

> A 'national park' ... (is contradistinguished) to...the rest of the zoo of
> NPS-managed facilities)

But you actually seem to glom them together because of their many similarities. 
 I agree these seem much more similar than they do different.  Still, we are 
left with "national parks" (and things which are so much like them that the tag 
might fit well, more-or-less), leisure=park (which we agree "we know them when 
we see them," yet are hand-wavy vague beyond what we now say in its wiki) and 
this great big slew of "other things called parks" which largely happen to be 
things like county parks, county beaches and similar ilk, which do NOT fit 
(neatly or otherwise) into those two categories.  Hence, the conundrum 
continues.  Especially as I ask again, what IS the "land use" on these?

> It's common for large 'parks' (suitable) to introduce beginners...

This is (almost?) yet another category of (loosely stated) "park," perhaps "a 
kind of human recreation area" which perhaps we have yet to well categorize and 
tag thusly.


> 'Nature reserve' covers a lot of things...particularly in North America

It does seem N.A. does things differently than others in OSM and the greater 
world, but it may be that I simply haven't done enough homework or traveling to 
fully and more correctly state that.  This (parochialism, regionalism) may be a 
primary source of our difficulty.  (I have been to three continents, but of 
course I haven't been to nor do I know everywhere — I more and more rely upon 
OSM for that!)

> ...forests and (effective) game reserves.

Thank you, this offers crucial knowledge which definitely should be expressed 
in precision OSM tagging.  I know you do your best to achieve that where you 
map.  We should all strive to do so well at tagging, which is what many see as 
a topical 

Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[Kevin Kenny]

On Tue, Apr 23, 2019 at 10:33 PM OSM Volunteer stevea
 wrote:
>
> I'll try to be brief, but there's a decade of history.  The leisure=park wiki 
> recently improved to better state it means "an urban/municipal" park, while 
> boundary=national_park (or perhaps leisure=nature_reserve, maybe 
> boundary=protected_area) works on large, national (and state or provincial in 
> North America) parks.  As the sharper wiki focus means a "city_park" (a 
> sometimes-found park:type value, I've written brand new wiki on park:type) 
> certainly qualifies as a leisure=park, this leaves county_parks (and their 
> ilk, like county_beaches) in a quirky "how best do we tag these now?" 
> quandary.

TL;DR - Tag the land use, not the land ownership. A city, town,
county, or state park may be virtually indistinguishable urban green
spots, recreation grounds, nature reserves, whatever. The level of
government that manages them may be of interest and worth tagging, but
ought not to be the primary determinant of 'park type'.


I think that the Wiki definition leaves a lot to be desired, and I'm
groping in a fog, much as you are, so please don't take anything that
I say here as a confrontational pronouncement.

My read on "urban/municipal" is that it describes setting and land
use, rather than the operator. To me a "park" in a
urban/suburban/front-country setting connotes a certain type of
facilities. It will likely have adequate parking, or else access to
public transportation. It will likely have public toilets.

Some are designed as restful spaces within the urban environment. Such
a park may have walking paths, benches, manicured gardens. Or it may
have a part that's allowed to run a little bit wilder, but often in
those cases it will have developed nature trails, perhaps with
placards identifying species or discussing the local ecosystem. They
may have elaborate landscaping, public art works, topiary, and other
features to add visual interest.

They will often have developed picnic facilities, perhaps even with
gazebos or pavilions that can be reserved for parties.

Some parks have further development. It's common to have playgrounds.
Playing fields, swimming pools or beaches, grandstands for spectators
to athetic competitions, and the associated facilities for athletes to
bathe and change clothes are often found. It's not unusual for a park
to have an outdoor theatre or music performance venue. Entertainments
such as carousels or miniature trains are not unheard-of. If a park
has a waterfront, then punts, rowboats, canoes, or pedal-boats may be
among the attractions offered. Concessionaires hawk their wares.

A park on a natural waterbody may well offer a boat launch and docks or quays.

All of these features make for what is essentially a human landscape.
It's one that's designed to be relaxed, focused on being a respite
from the hurly-burly of the city, but it's still relatively densely
developed - with many users concentrated in a relatively small area -
and definitely human-sculpted.

Whether the park is managed by a private conservancy, a city, a
county, a state or province, or a nation doesn't affect this
fundamental character.

A 'national park' typically exists to protect and display some
particularly valuable landscape feature. While more enlightened
management tries to protect the rare species that inhabit such a space
and the rare landforms found therein, what makes national parks so
very popular are the striking viewscapes that can be obtained over
large tracts of undeveloped land. Management will usually try to
concentrate gawkers into a few 'sacrificial' areas, so there will be
paved roads, parking, concessions, campgrounds and the like, and there
will be relatively accessible 'front country' trails, often with staff
conducting interpretive tours.

Beyond that 'front country' development, recreations in national parks
typically are strenuous outdoor pursuits: hiking, mountain biking,
riding of horses or mules, canoeing, fishing and hunting where
allowed, mountaineering, climbing, backcountry skiing. There's a far
greater sense of solitude, and a much greater need for preparedness -
if things go wrong, you're likely to be on your own for quite a while.

Virtually all National Parks in the US (in contradistinction to
National Recreation Area, National Monument, National Historic Site,
National Scenic Trail, National Seashore, and the rest of the zoo of
NPS-managed facilities) have just this sort of structure - a
relatively small, developed 'front country' environment which most
visitors never leave, facing a scenic, wild back country that is
available to more intrepid travelers. Often the backcountry also
partakes of the characteristics of 'nature reserve' in that it is
managed for conservation and research.

It's common for large 'parks' - both National Parks and the large
state and county parks - sometimes to have mixed uses. Many National
Parks, and many state and local facilities near me, have extensive

Re: [Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[OSM Volunteer stevea]

A brief update:  I have blown the dust off of a relevant wiki, 
https://wiki.osm.org/wiki/WikiProject_United_States_Public_Lands , started over 
eight years ago and hardly touched since then.  As originally written, this 
addressed federal (admin_level=2) public lands only.  Mainly, it still does, 
though my recent "beefing up" of it does begin to edge into state parks 
(admin_level=4) also having consensus that boundary=national_park is an 
appropriate tag.  As it also mentions that leisure=park (admin_level=8, 
largely) is appropriate on "urban" (municipal) parks, it reveals the obvious 
hole:  OSM in the USA has yet to tackle the now-difficult question of what to 
do on "county parks" (and county beaches, etc.) at admin_level=6.

So, that wiki might be the primary place to discuss, enrich, contribute ideas.  
There are links there to the (just born) park:type wiki, which seems that while 
it may live on as a "crutch" tagging style (there are thousands of examples in 
use), park:type should eventually move towards deprecation as better consensus 
emerges.

Please at least read this brief wiki and think about how we might better tag 
county parks.

Thanks,
SteveA
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[Talk-us] Parks in the USA, leisure=park, park:type

[OSM Volunteer stevea]

I'll try to be brief, but there's a decade of history.  The leisure=park wiki 
recently improved to better state it means "an urban/municipal" park, while 
boundary=national_park (or perhaps leisure=nature_reserve, maybe 
boundary=protected_area) works on large, national (and state or provincial in 
North America) parks.  As the sharper wiki focus means a "city_park" (a 
sometimes-found park:type value, I've written brand new wiki on park:type) 
certainly qualifies as a leisure=park, this leaves county_parks (and their ilk, 
like county_beaches) in a quirky "how best do we tag these now?" quandary.

We could be unanimous that all US Department of the Interior, National Park 
Service "parks" gets boundary=national_park.  We have very strong consensus 
that boundary=national_park belongs on state_parks, too (states being as 
sovereign as the US).  We keep leisure=park on city_parks.  Yet how do we tag 
county parks?

At the park:type wiki, I discuss (though do not call for a formal vote) a new 
park_level tag, mimicking values from the admin_level of the level of 
government which operates the park (this doesn't preclude owner=* and 
operator=* tags on "parks," it could supplement them).  It seems park:type 
could/should deprecate, yet county-level parks are pesky with our "new park 
wiki" together with the "older, largely done in the Western USA" kind of park 
tagging.

I can see tag leisure=park persisting on a lot of county_parks for some time 
(forever?), yet it seems OSM's worldwide view of "park" excludes them (and we 
tag boundary=national_park on state and national parks).

This could get tedious, but it seems it has to be discussed.

SteveA
California
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