Simon Poole wrote:
It has been pointed out in numerous places before, but just in case you
missed it: there is an ongoing effort (since months) to remove all
"catch alls" from the standard style.
This implies that stuff you thought was rendered might vanish, but in
fact it was just accidental that it was shown in the first place. If
there is a feature that you feel strongly should be displayed with the
standard style, then you should submit a feature request.
Thanks to the talk-us community for entertaining my grumpiness about
this, but I truly believe there is a direct connection between asking
OSMers to "map well" and the visual feedback (rewards? yes, I think
so) we get by doing so. Sure, it's great that beaches (and many
other mapped objects, usually named polygons that describe an area,
like a beach, shopping center or many other "things") can be easily
found from OSM's main map via a simply-type-it-in Nominatim search:
that IS good. But when we see rendered labels disappearing, even
when this is explained by the reason given, it can be disheartening.
I DID "miss that" news/memo about this "since months" effort. Where
might I have learned this?
I am (slowly, even after being an OSM volunteer for over five years)
discovering there are ways to effect how our map looks (carto-issues
bug reporting, the potential to enter a mapnik feature request --
where?). But I do think it would be helpful if these "assumed to be
known by everybody" facts (they aren't!) were better promulgated.
Either in our wiki somewhere, or with a link from the main page, or
some other relatively easily findable method. I conscientiously read
(and contribute to) our wiki pages, I follow talk-us, I explore code
in github, I play around with rendering tools...yet about the
machinations that make our map look and behave the way it does, on a
day-to-day basis -- AND the changes that happen to it -- I seem to
learn absolutely nothing. Until after the fact.
Let's say I were to carefully consider that I DO think beaches (a
polygon with tags natural=beach and name=*) should render in mapnik.
What else? Polygons tagged landuse=commercial that also have a
name=Shopping Center tag? (Maybe). And a hundred other potential
things that used to (accidentally) render, but are now not being
rendered in the interests of not rendering "catch alls." Do I enter
a feature request for each and every one of them? Maybe, as that
means I considered each and every one of them. But how do WE
consider each and every one of them? Do we even do that? I ask
sincerely. It seems many mapnik render decisions on an ongoing basis
are made in a vacuum. That doesn't feel very OSM to me.
In short: how might intermediate mappers like me better learn how
our map is built and the processes which influence and effect changes
within it? We should all have a stake in participating in these
processes, should we wish to do so. That starts with better learning
about them in the first place. I don't mean for it to seem like I
think OSM's inner machinations are some big secret, I'm just asking
for a bit of light to be shined along a path I can find this stuff
out largely by myself.
I'm pretty smart and resourceful, and can easily be pointed to the
right places and told "Go." But I don't know a whole heck of a lot
of what and where are these resources. Thanks in advance for a wide
swath of pointers to get me (us) started.
With my best attempt to remove any residual grumpiness,
SteveA
California
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