I think what Mark wanted to express
is more about some general guidelines which could be established.
The tagging systems are very inconsistent, just have a look at the
different "service" syntax (namespaces)
of a car vs. bicycle vs. motorcycle shop (and none for others).
There could be a system of different levels of discussions, for example.
I'm personally not keen on reading every single mail of every topic,
but there's no possibility to choose some topics.
To stay with the "shop" example :
There should be a consensus first what all shops have in common,
THEN the single shops may be discussed, not bottom-up.
Same for the namespace syntax.
It would be good to have some simple voting system
without having to edit the page code.
So when people are able to choose their topics
and an easy way to vote, more will participate
and the "consensus" of currently some dozens
which are willing to withstand the current mess
would be on a broader base (really democratic).
So let's discuss the possible structural enhancements
instead of presuming political opinions
(he didn't really mention "strong leadership, did he ?)
Ideas ?
Am 09.06.2018 um 02:22 schrieb EthnicFood IsGreat:
> Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2018 08:29:25 +0200
>> From: Frederik Ramm
>> To: "Tag discussion, strategy and related tools"
>>
>> Subject: Re: [Tagging] The endless debate about "landcover" as a
>> top-level tag
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> it is a gut reaction by people when forced with difficult issues to call
>> for strong leadership to solve them once and for all. OSM is no
>> exception.
>>
>> On 08.06.2018 01:29, EthnicFood IsGreat wrote:
>>> I wouldn't mind if all the existing tags were replaced tomorrow with a
>>> brand new set of "intelligently-designed" keys.
>> Designed by... a visionary leader? A board of experts? A random draw?
>> And if something turns out to be designed wrongly, how will it be
>> challenged?
>
> Of course any system would have to have a means of making revisions,
> as better ways of tagging things become apparent over time. There
> could still be innovation.
>
>>
>>> And I wouldn't mind if
>>> these keys were enforced from now on.
>> Not having an enforced set of keys and values was definitely a big part
>> of OSM's success (there *were* competing projects which got stuck trying
>> to define the one true set of keys and values that would work for
>> everything).
>>
>> Some people say that while this may be true, the time has now come to
>> get rid of the old ways that got us where we are, and change tack to
>> something more conservative. This is a valid argument but I am not
>> convinced; a lot of innovation is still going on with tags, and strict
>> enforcement would run the risk of killing that.
>>
>>> Someone some time ago on one
>>> of the OSM mailing lists summed up the current situation by stating,
>>> "It
>>> seems OSM is incapable of moving forward."
>> OpenStreetMap is becoming a larger group of more diverse people with
>> more diverse interests, and since we don't - and don't aim to - have a
>> dictator at the top, things need to be done by consensus. These people
>> who take to the internet complaining about how OSM is incapable of
>> moving forward usually are people who are unwilling, or unable, to
>> convince the "great unwashed" their idea of "forward" is a good thing.
>> So they lament the lack of leadership and complain about "gatekeeping",
>> but it's really just them being unable to do the work required to
>> establish consensus in a large project.
>>
>> Because that takes much more than a couple of blog posts (cf. the
>> license change).
>>
>> Bye
>> Frederik
>>
>
>
> I have been editing in OSM for almost four years, and I've been a
> member of this mailing list almost since then. I read every single
> post. During that time I have never seen what I would consider a
> consensus reached on anything. I'm not sure it's even possible.
> Whenever someone proposes a way to tag something, you can be
> guaranteed that people will bring up every possible angle and nuance
> concerning the meaning of the tag, and nobody wants to compromise.
> Consequently there is never a consensus. Eventually people get tired
> of the debate, when they see it's a no-win situation, and the debate
> just dies away, until somebody brings it up again next year. Case in
> point: the current issue of landuse versus landcover. There was no
> consensus the last time this was brought up and there is none now.
>
> I've seen several tags debated more than once in four years. I can
> only assume that each time, a different group of people get drawn in
> to the discussion, unaware that the issue has been debated before,
> with no resolution. This cycle is doomed to repeat itself over and
> over, as long as OSM proceeds the way it is. A waste of time and effort!
>
> I don't see how OSM can work well when mappers are free to tag however
> they want. Different people have diametrically opposed ideas about
> how things should
