OK, so say so where so. (Tag in OSM accordingly). If you wish to
subtract from the polygon areas which you are absolutely certain no
timber production is allowed or possible, go for it. I won't argue.
Your list is a good start.
Well, perhaps we have a happy compromise here. Tell you what: I'll
start with the assumption that a forest should be tagged forest.
(That's fair, and/or I'm listening to your alternative proposition).
WHEN, WHERE and IF you know a particular area to be expressly NOT a
forest, you are perfectly welcome to exclude that subset from said
polygon. I'm fine with that.
Wikipedia says National Forest is a classification of federal lands in the
United States. This doesn't mean that the name National forests implies a
forest tag (it's just an administrative classification). Further Wikipedia says
National Forests are largely forest and woodland areas. I guess this is why
you want to use the landuse=forest tag as a first approximation with the
intention that mappers will go ahead and modify (exclude subsets)
appropriately. The problem with this approach is that it makes further editing
hard and discouraging (exactly the opposite of creating forward momentum). When
the landuse=forest tag is part of the administrative boundary one needs to
create complicated mulitpolygones for any further refinement of the map. This
stops (or at least discourages) me as a contributer from making the map better.
Moreover the generic landuse=forest tag adds no new information that isn't
already there with the name National Forest and the administrative boundary.
It is OK to do first approximations when mapping, but one needs to make sure
that these will not seriously hinder further refinement. For this reason I am
against general tagging of vast areas simply because they are largely
forests. Imagine somebody tagging Finnland (75% forests) as landuse=forest [or
natural=wood].
In this sense my alternative proposition is remove the generic landuse=forest
tag and thus encourage OSM contributors to go ahead and build a beautiful map.
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