"Erik Johansson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Thu, Nov 6, 2008 at 3:24 AM, Frederik Ramm <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> but wherever we can [..] say "have it both ways", that's a victory for >> freedom in my opinion. > > +1 > > But software drives tagging, and "one true way" is easier for > applications to handle. Considering that parsing tags is something > each applications does on its own, I have to wonder if we can really > "have it both ways".
It certainly is difficult to find a balance between giving everyone the freedom to do what he wants and to produce a common product (the database) that users of the data are able to work with. I give Mapnik and Osmarender a lot of credit for promoting consistent tagging. A lot of people are concerned about their stuff showing up on *the map* and they do whatever it takes to achieve that. Unfortunately, this sometimes includes "tagging for the renderer". > >> Out of interest, I'd like to know where Wikipedia currently is >> for example; can I still create articles that don't use the >> structure or will there immediately be a flurry of people telling me what I >> did wrong, > > Yes people improve your article in wikipedia. Usually it's style, > language, POV or wiki related. If I post a small article someone might > slap a small templated fact box on the right edge, and usually put it > in the right category and make my links go to the right disambiguated > page. I don't think many people object if someone amends their articles or changes the wording a little bit to clarify things. What is objectionable is when someone comes and says "This is completely wrong!" and changes the whole thing. This is disrespectful. Especially when it is just a matter of opinion. In the matter of OSM tagging this is probably always the case. There are always many solutions possible for the problem of how to tag something. Which one is the best depends on the viewer. Nevertheless I believe it is very beneficial different tagging schemes for the same thing somehow merge into one for the sake of conistency and usability of the data. Matthias _______________________________________________ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
