Hi, the DWG has been called upon to mediate a conflict between mappers, and one small part of this conflict is the question of "when is a park a park".
Some of you know the persons involved and some of you might *be* the persons involved but I would like to discuss this not on a personal level and have therefore tried to separate these examples from any changeset discussions or usernames, and I'm not providing direct links to OSM either, to avoid clouding anyone's judgement by mixing up personal and factual issues. I have prepared four examples on which I'd like to hear the opinion of a couple people (if you are one of the mappers in conflict here, please refrain from participating) but there are more like this. ------- Case 1: http://www.remote.org/frederik/tmp/case1.png Two small coastal areas that look a bit like rock outcroppings. I believe they might originally have come from an nmixter import with a "zone=PR-PP" which was then interpreted as meaning it's somehow a "park". It has temporarily been leisure=park AND natural=beach and park:type=county_park and now it is boundary=protected_area and leisure=nature_reserve and park:type=county_park and protect_class=7, without any indication where that protection comes from (and looking at the aerial imagery it will be difficult to verify anything). ------- Case 2: http://www.remote.org/frederik/tmp/case2.png The tree-covered green area in the middle of the image is a leisure=park, the woodland all together (sharing the eastern border of the "park" but otherwise much larger) is a natural=wood area. In the south and west the "park" connects to "residential" areas (that are partly covered by the natural=wood), in the north the park connects to a landuse=industrial (also partly covered by wood). One mapper says "not a park", the other mapper says that according to CPAD 2018a and SCCGIS v5 this is a park (none of these are listed as a source though) and then proceeds to say: "It is a park in the sense of American English as of 2019. Whether it is a park according to OSM may be debatable, as it is an "unimproved" park, meaning it is under development as to improvements like restrooms and other amenities. However, it is an "urban green space open to public recreation" and therefore does meet OSM's definition according to me." ------- Case 3: http://www.remote.org/frederik/tmp/case3.png The highlighted area in the middle of the picture straddles a street and parts of an amenity=parking north and south of the street and seems to rather arbitrarily cut through the woodland at its northern edge. Mapper 1: "This isn't a park. It's just a small fenced off grassy area.". Mapper 2: "It is a park according to County Park as it meets the leisure=park definition of "area of open space for recreational use" and contains amenities (parking)." It is currently tagged leisure=park. ------- Case 4: http://www.remote.org/frederik/tmp/case4.png Red highlight is a "leisure=park" "zone=PR" (the latter probably left over from an import). Larger, green area that is mostly overlapping this "park" but also cutting an edge in the NW is natural=wood. Mapper 1: "This park doesn't exist." Mapper 2: "It is undeveloped land managed by County Parks in a sort of proto park state. How would YOU map this?" ------- I find that both mappers here make valid points. Generally, in times where every teenager maps their back porch as a park in the hope of attracting Pokemon, I am leaning towards being careful with parks; I would love to have a rule of thumb that says "if it doesn't have a name (or if it's not more than xxxx sq ft) then it's not a park, it is just some trees" or so. Just because an area of a few 100 sq ft is technically a "park" in some county GIS system, doesn't mean we have to call it a park in OSM, and the idea that any patch of earth with three trees on it and two cars parked on it is a "park" because it is "open to the public" and "has amenities" sounds very far-fetched to me. Also, mapping micro-protected areas on a rocky shore seems to be of limited value to me and puts a big burden on anyone who wants to verify that. But I'd like to hear others chiming in. (This particular mapper conflict has other dimensions that just parks and DWG's further actions towards the mappers involved will not depend on the outcome of this discussion.) Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail [email protected] ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" _______________________________________________ Talk-us mailing list [email protected] https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
