[Tagging] The value of the list (was Observations of the use of the diet: tag)
On Wed, Jul 3, 2013 at 6:25 AM, Pieren pier...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Jul 3, 2013 at 5:14 AM, Serge Wroclawski emac...@gmail.com wrote: My experience with mapping has been that after talking on the tagging list, and being voted down, when I just went ahead and used my tags, they were adopted by the community, on more than one occassion. Yeah, you can just ignore the feedbacks. Then we end up with the mess of tags like power=substation or shop=bakery or designation=* which are completely misinterpreted in different countries. Then it takes years until we can clarify the situation (if it will happen ever), thanks for the guys ignoring the talks or votes (which are more opinion polls)... OSM data is a key/value store. What people decide to put in those key/value pairs is up to them. What I've found, over years of participating, is that: 1. This list is a small subset of OSMers. It doesn't represent many of the supermappers, and it doesn't include editor authors or renderer people either. In other words, it's a small, self-selected group of people who are spending a lot of time talking, or arguing, in an echo chamber. 2. This list's idea of good tags differs from the OSM community at large. Most OSMers dislike complex schemes, and will avoid relations when they can. But relations are quite common here. The same goes for colon tags, which are heavily proposed (such as in the diet proposal) but not often used by the public except in very limited circumstances (addr). 3. This list often ignores usage If two proposals are up for discussion, there seems to be little or no weight placed on existing usage vs this list's idea of correctness. There is value in having a place to discuss issues of a tagging question, or problem, but I fear that this list isn't it. If people on this list wanted to do more community work that wasn't mapping, there would be tremendous value in going in to the wiki, finding the tags that are in use but not documented well, and expanding, or translating those pages. That would be a useful exercise, and I would participate. But right now, my view, and my advice to others, is generally to go out and map.[1] - Serge [1] This is my advice to individuals doing individual mapping via manual survey. As it relates to imports or automated edits, I have very different views. ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
Re: [Tagging] The value of the list (was Observations of the use of the diet: tag)
2013/7/3 Serge Wroclawski emac...@gmail.com OSM data is a key/value store. What people decide to put in those key/value pairs is up to them. yes, up to the point that they are using duplicate values for well established keys. As we can only put one value for a key, the well established one should be used when it comes to tagging something for what there is already a convention. What I've found, over years of participating, is that: 1. This list is a small subset of OSMers. It doesn't represent many of the supermappers, and it doesn't include editor authors or renderer people either. In other words, it's a small, self-selected group of people who are spending a lot of time talking, or arguing, in an echo chamber. every one is invited to take part in tagging discussions. If you decide not to do so, you shouldn't complain afterwards that your ideas aren't integrated. 2. This list's idea of good tags differs from the OSM community at large. don't agree. Most OSMers dislike complex schemes, and will avoid relations when they can. But relations are quite common here. actually my experience is that relations aren't very common here. Most mappers have understood that something that can be expressed without a relation should be done so. The same goes for colon tags, which are heavily proposed (such as in the diet proposal) but not often used by the public except in very limited circumstances (addr). colon tags have the advantage of creating kind of a namespace that helps distinguishing and avoiding misinterpretations and the disadvantage that you have to type more text (not a real problem with autocompletion, but yes, it is a disadvantage). 3. This list often ignores usage If two proposals are up for discussion, there seems to be little or no weight placed on existing usage vs this list's idea of correctness. Personally I don't share this observation (I think usage numbers play a role in the discussions here), but you'll also have to see usage numbers in the context of how many of these features potentially exist in the real world, and how many are already mapped. If there a 2 tags for the exact same thing and one is used 1 times, the other 23 times, it seems clear (as long as there aren't serious problems with these 1 tags), but when one tag is used 120 times and the other 40 times (for a feature that occurs often) it is a good idea to look at the semantics and implications of both ways of doing it, without giving too much importance to the actual (small) use numbers. Another problem with usage numbers is, that one single import can distort heavily the statistics, so looking at how many different people have used a tag also makes sense. There is value in having a place to discuss issues of a tagging question, or problem, but I fear that this list isn't it. do you know a good alternative? In my experience tags are often developed on a national level (on national mailing lists) and when there is some agreement the proposal will be pushed to [tagging] to get comments from the international community. If people on this list wanted to do more community work that wasn't mapping, there would be tremendous value in going in to the wiki, finding the tags that are in use but not documented well, and expanding, or translating those pages. how could they do the expansion? How would they know what definition a mapper had in mind when using a specific tag that is not or not sufficiently documented? How could they even know what is a sufficient definition? OK for translations, but unilateral amendments? cheers, Martin ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
Re: [Tagging] The value of the list (was Observations of the use of the diet: tag)
On Wed, Jul 3, 2013 at 1:56 PM, Serge Wroclawski emac...@gmail.com wrote: 1. This list is a small subset of OSMers. It doesn't represent many of the supermappers, and it doesn't include editor authors or renderer people either. True. But you forget one important point : most of the contributors simply don't care about creating, defining, documenting new tags. If it's not in the editor presets or the huge map features wiki page, they don't tag or just write their blabla=wow special tag and they don't care if it will be recognized later or not. And today, this list is mostly 2. This list's idea of good tags differs from the OSM community at large. But relations are quite common here. Not true. Go back in archives or votes and you will see plenty of messages against unnecessary complexity (incl. relations). The same goes for colon tags, which are heavily proposed (such as in the diet proposal) but not often used by the public except in very limited circumstances (addr). The semi-colon multiple values is an old practice (or recommandation) in OSM. It seemed to be a good idea and practical for contributors in the past but today, with our experience, it's not the case for data consumers neither in editors. 3. This list often ignores usage Again, most of the map features tags are today well defined and documented. Now we come to a point where discussions are about non-geographic features like diet or specialized features like power voltage, type of beers or amount of bridge pillars. Such discussions are also implying a very small subset of the community. Anout tags usage. check the list of designation values and you will see that eventhough it's widely used, it can be massively incorretly used. That would be a useful exercise, and I would participate. But right now, my view, and my advice to others, is generally to go out and map.[1] But this list is about finding consensus about controversial or new tags and put the result on the wiki. The vote is a good point in this way that we call feedbacks from a wider audience (only wiki users, local lists). If you find that this list is not reflecting the real community, then call for more players. List is open and no one will complain. Pieren ___ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
