On Fri, Jan 11, 2019 at 09:01:47PM +0100, François Lacombe wrote: > > Currently, both canal and drain refer to structure and usage also. > Canal is designed for useful water while drain is intended for waste water. > usage=* comes to give more information of what canal is intended for. > > Regarding ditch, it regards both useful and waste water. > > If we choose to be consistent in waterway=* values, waterway=drain should > be abandonned in favor of canal + appropriate usage=* values. > Then we'll obtain waterway=canal for artificial waterways whatever their > usage and waterway=river, stream and ditch for natural or not-lined > watercourses.
In normal UK usage, a canal is (or was) navigable: that is the primary purpose. A drain would normally be substantially smaller, and non-navigable. No doubt there are exceptions probably in the Norfolk Broads. But normally drains and canals are quite distinct, so it would be unnatural in British English to remove drain. Yes, I do realise that the word canal is derived from channel. That sort of usage still applies in dentistry, as in a root-canal procedure. But I digress from waterways :-) ael _______________________________________________ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
