Javbw

> On Sep 3, 2015, at 12:17 AM, Daniel Koć <daniel@koć.pl> wrote:
> 
> It also means that real importance could be tagged one day instead of 
> "official" importance, so we have at least something proper once people will 
> have what they really want anyway. =}

Rant:

I agree that importance is very important. But not everyone agrees. 

I mentioned "importance" on the -carto github page (rendering mountain icons 
based on a tagged "importance" score or something), and gravitystorm informed 
me that it is unmappable because it is unverifiable, linking to a "verifiable 
knowledge" page on the wiki. 

It is verifiable. It just that it is not documented in a neat tidy way. 

We can't even separate hills from mountains because they are all "peaks" for 
some reason. 

I mean, a 30m tall hill called "fujiyama" (there are hundred or more little "Mt 
fuji" hills and mountains throughout Japan) and the iconic Mt Fuji have the 
same name, characters (富士山), icon, and rendering in OSM. This particular name 
issue famously led some Chinese tourists to my small town looking to climb Mt 
Fuji, and they arrived at"base of mt fuji" train station (fujiyamashita) - 
which is below a hill that takes 5 minutes to walk up. It is a national joke. 
Google Uses it in ads to show off Android. 

It obviously is known and documented that this hill is less important. But 
making one icon render at z8 and one render at z15 is not allowed, because it 
is "unverifiable". ><

 OSM is stuffed full of value judgements - but the ones that could improve 
renderings on tiny, large, and iconic non-manmade items the most is not 
allowed. 

Labeling Denali or the Grand Canyon or Mt Everest or other natural landmarks 
*correctly* requires a value judgement by someone. Every online map does this. 
Someone put the special "mt fuji" icon in Apple Maps for a reason. Ot is an 
internationally famous peak. 

It requires prioritizing their rendering over other mountains, and their own 
sub-peaks. And cluttering the map with peak icons that appear and disappear all 
at the same zoom level gives no idea as to the size, visibility, cultural 
importance, nor landmark status of the peaks and other natural features. 

I purchased a USA map that won a national mapping contest - this 1 guy spent 
years choosing features to include and exclude - highest points, POIs, and 
historic features - his map beat out NatGeo and other maps in the contest. It 
is beautiful. 

Capturing local / regional information on what should and shouldn't be shown at 
certain zoom levels - importance - makes a better map.

Ignoring it seems to be the exact opposite of OSM's mission to capture local 
knowledge to make a superior map. 

Javbw
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