On Mon, 18 Jan 2010, Ulf Lamping wrote: > Am 18.01.2010 04:47, schrieb Alan Mintz: > > At 2010-01-17 19:33, Steve Bennett wrote: > >> According to the wiki "map features" table, a "power=station" is "A > >> tag for electricity stations. Wires from power lines come in or go out > >> here." > >> > >> Two questions: > >> 1) Does everyone use it this way? Without having looked at the table, > >> I would have guessed that a "power=station" was a power plant (ie, a > >> coal, or gas or whatever plant that generates power), whereas that > >> appears to be a "power=generator". > >> 2) What is a "power station" exactly? I think I know the type of thing > >> it's referring to (although I have, perhaps mistakenly, called these > >> "sub stations" in the past). What does it do? Does it simply convert > >> high voltage down to lower, consumer-level voltage? > > > > This is another one of those areas where OSM terminology differs from > > that used in the US, or maybe is just plain wrong. The utility companies > > that own the typical ~1 acre step-down/switching complex, fed by > > "high-voltage" lines (>100 kV), do indeed call them sub-stations. I have > > adhered to the wiki, though, in tagging them as power=station. > > > > I use substation for the occasional, smaller, usually single-user complex > > with just a few transformers, fed by lower voltage lines (usually 12-60 > > kV in the US I think). > > > > Unless people have largely ignored the wiki in practice, I'd suggest > > leaving it as is, in lieu of having to globally analyze and fix existing > > tags. > > The wiki has a definition of the tag and a photo of what it's meant. > > It's not a good idea to trying to "globally fix" stuff. These tags are > in wide usage, so "I'll just change the Wiki" means: "I'll change the > meaning of tags that a lot of others before intended differently". But > people will continue to use the tag the "old way". > > In the end this means you can't distuinguish if the former or latter > meaning of the tag is used for a specific entry in the database. You'll > just "burn the tag"! > > This is a very bad, bad idea - even if the wording might be slightly wrong. > > Remember there are 20000 active mappers out there having a specific idea > about that tag in their head, that's a furphy ( http://bit.ly/7fbGMz ) none of know how many mappers are using the tag at all so how about we figures from Tagwatch ?
> there's also software that's using the > definitions as in the wiki already. > > Regards, ULFL > > Redoing the tagging, and leaving the disputed tag out of the new scheme is a way to go forward. I don't have Randy's qualifications, but to me a "power station" means potential energy in and electrical energy (plus waste heat) out. The area on the ground containing transformers that step down from high voltages to medium voltages is a "substation" So we can ignore power=station and have electricity generation plants, with subkeys for oil, gas, coal, nuclear, wind, methane, whatever have substations and have transformers Liz _______________________________________________ Tagging mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
