Thank you for the constructive reply. I don't doubt you are acting in
good faith and with more care than my initial message might have
implied. However, I do think it is very important that these sort of
systematic changes are fully discussed first. There have been a number
of cases where such changes have been done badly in the past, so I do
tend to view them with concern, especially when they are done unexpectedly.
The specific change you made that led to my original message was
shop=tyre being replaced with shop=car_repair. I'm not familiar with any
of the locations changed, but shop=tyre seems to me to be a more
specific tag than shop=car_repair, so I don't think it should have been
replaced without consultation (and preferably checking on the ground).
I'm not very keen on the shop=tyre tag, but it does at least indicate a
garage that specialises (sometimes only) in selling and fitting tyres,
which is something worth tagging in my view. There are about 10 such
places tagged in Nottingham currently (Tyre Link, Tyre Point, Tyre Zone,
etc...).
I do certainly support the idea of discussing and agreeing recommended
tagging for high street chains, but I think mappers on the ground should
make the final judgement, because as I wrote in my earlier message,
different branches of the same chain can sometimes vary depending on
things like size and location.
Cheers,
Will
On 24/10/2014 12:38, Matthijs Melissen wrote:
Hi Will,
On 24 October 2014 11:42, Will Phillips <[email protected]> wrote:
I'm confused by your actions. Yesterday you started the formal process for
making an uncontroversial change to the tagging of bookmakers, but since
then you have made a series of considerably more controversial edits with no
discussion at all. I wish to register my objection to these changes.
As far as I am aware, the bookmaker tagging is more controversial than
the changes I did today and yesterday. Bookmaker versus betting is a
longstanding controversy, with (until recently) nearly equal tagging
and strong proponents for both sides. Moreover the numbers for the
bookmaker changes are quite large (hundreds on both sides). On the
other hand, the changes I made today and yesterday are shops where
mappers have expressed a strong preference for a particular tagging,
and only involve small numbers (mostly less than 10 shops), so easy to
revert manually.
You are standardising the tagging for particular brands, removing the
original judgements made by mappers who looked at them on the ground. I find
it particularly de-motivating when these mass changes strip meaning from my
tagging, changing a specific tag to a more general one. I'm not against my
tagging being changed through discussion, but distinctions should be kept,
even if moved to a sub-tag (e.g. shop=bed versus shop=furniture
furniture=bed).
I agree with that. Can you give examples of changes where I stripped
meaning from tags? That should not have happened. I noticed the
shop=bed situation myself, and already concluded myself that it would
be good to carry out this change, but not without advance discussion.
I have other concerns about these sorts of edits:
Are you sure all the shops belonging to a chain sell the same thing and
offer the same services? In my experience this isn't always the case. For
example, WH Smith at train stations and airports sell a much narrower range
than their larger high street stores.
I have surveyed 3016 shops myself (no, I'm not only an armchair
mapper), so I think I have a fairly good understanding of what
products shops sell. I might always have made a mistake of course, so
if you spot any, feel free to point them out. I know WHSmith is a
difficult case, so I won't touch it without prior discussion.
Where you are 'correcting' tagging based just on the name tag, how can you
be sure its not an administrative office, distribution depot or something
else other than a shop?
I look at location of course. I only changed high street / retail
centre locations. In other cases, I added OSM notes.
So personally I think I have sufficient checks in place to not
overwrite useful data.
That said, I don't mind reverting some or all of my changes if you
consider them controversial, and discussing them beforehand. If so,
please specify which changes you refer to.
-- Matthijs
_______________________________________________
Talk-GB mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
