Frederik Ramm wrote: > I find that this only makes sense when what is left and what is right is > discernible *without* reference to the actual direction of the way.
Why so? The direction of ways is (or can be) indicated with arrows in editors. Why is it a problem to have tagging which is way-direction-dependent? We already have it with e.g. oneway. > E.g. rivers: We have agreed to always tag them in the direction of the > flow. So when I'm there tagging something which is on one side of the > river, I *know* whether it is left or right, or vice versa, if I look up > the way in the database and it is tagged to have a towpath on the left > then I *know* where the towpath will be without even looking at the > lat/lon of the nodes. Even the general public will be able to use the > information that there is something on the "left hand side" of a river. > > On the other hand, when tagging stuff that is to the left and right of a > road or footpath, there is no way to know which direction it will have > in the database. There is no widely agreed general rule on what > constitutes the left side of a road and what the right side. I strongly > dislike using "left" and "right" in such a situation where direction is > arbitrary. I am not suggesting that maps would ever use the terms "left" and "right" with relation to such tagging. You are right, that would be very confusing. But for people editing the data, when the way has a clear direction, I can't think of two better terms to use. What terms would you use? Gerv _______________________________________________ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
