"Amacri" <ama...@tiscali.it> writes: > Tag place=isolated_dwelling, which should be used to name an almost > unpopulated place (often in the mountains), can be currently defined as node > (point) or polygon (area), but not as a way (line). Same consideration for > place=hamlet or place=locality: using way is not allowed for them. > > It often happens that, when a place cannot be clearly delimited in the > mountains, traditional maps typically draw its text, where the text itself > outlines and shapes the covered region.
I think you are blurring rendering and denoting the data. Points make sense for settlements, as there is often a single place (which is really not quite a place) that people consider the center of town. Areas make sense too, although as you say there is a fuzzy edge to what is part of the settlement and what is not. It seems like the motivation for line is to aid in rendering with text. Is that true? Or are you trying to define historical things when the only source data is text on a map, with no more information? Perhaps there should be some more explicit tagging to denote uncertainty. But drawing a polygon around the buildings that are part of the settlement, and including areas that if a new building were built there, it would be considered part of the settlement seems sensible. This is logically well-defined, even if it's hard to answer in detail. I can see an argument that a point is wrong, but really a point is a different representation, showing not really the centroid but the logical center of the settlement. A line would be a polygon with no width but significant length, which omits covering houses and has some new notion of near. So it's sort of a blend of an area and the center, and that seems to raise more issues and complexity than it helps. I run into some of this around me. There are town names, which have actual boundaries with monuments, and there is little uncertainty. There are also place names that are not towns, and are usually areas of towns. Many had an original meaning where there was a cluster of houses, and sometimes there is now an intersection of modern roads with shops that people thing of as that place name. I tend to put the node on the traditional place, as that seems the usage favored by those who understand the most. But these are all point type nodes, not area; in modern times there is continuous building and no defined edges to the historical settlements.
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