Re: [OSM-talk] Abuse of natural=cliff tag

[Sarah Hoffmann]

Hi,

On Fri, Sep 06, 2019 at 02:42:06PM +0200, Vladimir Vyskocil wrote:
> Around this area : https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=16/50.9034/14.2763 
>  there is a flagrant 
> misuse and abuse of the usage of the natural=cliff tag. It is used to map the 
> iso altitude lines and not real cliff as stated in the WIKI :
> 
> A cliff  is a vertical or almost 
> vertical natural drop in terrain topography as it occurs for example in form 
> of coastal cliffs or escarpments. The face of the cliff usually consists of 
> bare solid rock but can occasionally also consist of clay, compacted sand, 
> ice or other solid materials.  

I know that area very well and I can assure you, that natural=cliff is no misuse
under this definition. The area is full of rock towers like those:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:20171124195DR_Lohmen_Basteiaussicht_zum_Sieberturm.jpg

That's what you see on the map.

> I already removed the natural=cliff ways mapped by MichaOSM after asking him 
> to fix this but without response the changeset comment was : 
> 
> "Felsen, Riffe, Topografie nach GeoSachsen digitale Geländemodellhoehenlinien 
> 2.5m, digitales Geländereliefmodell, DTK10, topografische Karte”
> 
> For example this changeset : 
> https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/66373825#map=15/50.9016/14.3093 
> 
> 
> It say that it used a 2.5m topographic map to map all these false cliffs in 
> this area, he was mapping the topography (MNT) and this is forbidden in OSM.

You missunderstood, he was mapping rock edges. A terrain model is more helpful
for that task than arial imagery. We have permission to use the terrain model
for OSM as far as I know.

I would kindly request that you reinstate deleted natural=cliffs for
the moment. If you are still not convinced from the photo above that the
tagging is correct then we need to have a fundamental discussion first about
how to tag these kind of rock towers. But that would rather be something for
the tagging mailing list (or talk-de if you want to get the locals involved).

Sarah

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Re: [OSM-talk] Reports of FB problems to FB rather than to OSM (was: Attribution guideline status update)

[Kathleen Lu via talk]

Andy - what I meant was the hypothetical that Nuno suggested would be
terrible. *If* the Facebook button created a note in OSM, then OSM *would*
be inundated with 1000s of notes re nonactionable Facebook complaints. The
fact that there are several hundred already *without* a button on
Facebook's website auto-creating notes every time someone made a report
seems to support my theory.


On Tue, Sep 10, 2019 at 12:14 PM Andy Townsend  wrote:

> On 10/09/2019 17:40, Kathleen Lu via talk wrote:
> > Not that I've heard (I don't think that was ever the case), but 1000s
> > of notes about FB on OSM sounds terrible to me - they would only add
> > noise for mappers who check notes for things to fix, and some editors
> > show notes in the interface. My understanding is that FB *is* fixing
> > whatever errors get reported to them, so isn't it better for them to
> > do all that work?
> >
> Quite a lot of the "Facebook" tickets that the DWG currently get are of
> the form "I tried to contact Facebook, nothing happened, so I'm
> contacting you".  I therefore wouldn't assume that FB is fixing
> everything that is reported to them (or even that everything reported to
> them is actually a problem; I mentioned before that quite a few or the
> DMCA tickets that the DWG sees aren't really actionable).
>
> OSM notes are a different issue.  Of the OSM notes mentioning Facebook:
>
> https://api.openstreetmap.org/api/0.6/notes/search?q=facebook&closed=0
>
> quite a lot are of the "please add company X" variety (some spam, some
> not), but there are also quite a few "Facebook's map of X is wrong"
> too.  I don't know how many there are of these in total as OSM's notes
> API just returns the first 100 matching.  My "finger in the air" guess
> (based on how far back in time 100 notes goes) is that there are ~300 or
> so still open rather than "1000s".
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Andy
>
>
>
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[OSM-talk] Reports of FB problems to FB rather than to OSM (was: Attribution guideline status update)

[Andy Townsend]

On 10/09/2019 17:40, Kathleen Lu via talk wrote:
Not that I've heard (I don't think that was ever the case), but 1000s 
of notes about FB on OSM sounds terrible to me - they would only add 
noise for mappers who check notes for things to fix, and some editors 
show notes in the interface. My understanding is that FB *is* fixing 
whatever errors get reported to them, so isn't it better for them to 
do all that work?


Quite a lot of the "Facebook" tickets that the DWG currently get are of 
the form "I tried to contact Facebook, nothing happened, so I'm 
contacting you".  I therefore wouldn't assume that FB is fixing 
everything that is reported to them (or even that everything reported to 
them is actually a problem; I mentioned before that quite a few or the 
DMCA tickets that the DWG sees aren't really actionable).


OSM notes are a different issue.  Of the OSM notes mentioning Facebook:

https://api.openstreetmap.org/api/0.6/notes/search?q=facebook&closed=0

quite a lot are of the "please add company X" variety (some spam, some 
not), but there are also quite a few "Facebook's map of X is wrong" 
too.  I don't know how many there are of these in total as OSM's notes 
API just returns the first 100 matching.  My "finger in the air" guess 
(based on how far back in time 100 notes goes) is that there are ~300 or 
so still open rather than "1000s".


Best Regards,

Andy



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Re: [OSM-talk] [Osmf-talk] Attribution guideline status update

[Kathleen Lu via talk]

Not that I've heard (I don't think that was ever the case), but 1000s of
notes about FB on OSM sounds terrible to me - they would only add noise for
mappers who check notes for things to fix, and some editors show notes in
the interface. My understanding is that FB *is* fixing whatever errors get
reported to them, so isn't it better for them to do all that work?

On Mon, Sep 9, 2019 at 11:44 PM Rihards  wrote:

> On 10.09.19 03:12, Kathleen Lu via osmf-talk wrote:
> >
> https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Working_Group_Minutes/DWG_2018_11_15#Facebook_update
>
> A good example of "always assume the best intents" :)
>
> Kathleen, please note that this is about reports going to DWG - that is
> indeed inappropriate.
> Have we seen FB reports going into OSM notes, and negative effects from
> that?
>
> > On Mon, Sep 9, 2019 at 1:47 PM Nuno Caldeira
> > mailto:nunocapelocalde...@gmail.com>>
> wrote:
> >
> > I was not aware of that. Is that information public or been
> > published somewhere? Also what does it do? notes for OpenStreetMap
> > or the so called "Facebook maps"?
> >
> > Às 19:33 de 09/09/2019, Kathleen Lu escreveu:
> >>
> >>
> >> On Mon, Sep 9, 2019 at 12:10 PM Nuno Caldeira
> >>  >> > wrote:
> >>
> >> Today i was check the maps on their website and noticed they
> >> have a report button, which i thought would create a note on
> >> OSM. Oh i was wrong, no note on OSM, wonder where that report
> >> will go to.
> >>
> >>
> >> ??? Nuno, you do realize that DWG complained to Facebook about too
> >> many reports from Facebook users going to OSM and DWG, and asked
> >> Facebook for cooperation in re-directing those? (which as I
> >> understand was accomplished)
> >> It would be terrible for the report button to create a note on
> OSM.--
>  Rihards
>
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Re: [OSM-talk] Tagging Governance

[Simon Poole]

Thanks.

BTW I'm not saying that it is always clear when a "good idea" is
actually controversial or that you and Quincy are not subject to
multiple forces pulling or pushing in opposite directions, but the only
solution can be to escalate such issues to a wider audience before
implementation, when that is or becomes clear. Widely harmless current
example: 
https://github.com/openstreetmap/iD/issues/6836#issuecomment-529988108

Am 10.09.2019 um 17:12 schrieb Bryan Housel:
>>>
>>> The decisions we make in iD with the tags are mostly because 1.
>>> someone asked us to in a ticket or pull request, and we try to give
>>> people what they want..  or 2. we are trying to solve an actual
>>> problem - for example, the explicit tagging of piers and platforms
>>> came from us trying to detect routing islands (we rolled this back
>>> when people complained).  
>> Well that is a -slight- simplification of what happened. We can
>> partially follow it here
>> https://github.com/openstreetmap/iD/issues/6409#issuecomment-494888256
>> Except that we don't even know why in the end the changes were reverted,
>> insight? External pressure? Or what? Obviously it wasn't just people
>> complaining or else it would have been far earlier.
>
> I said why here:
> https://github.com/openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website/pull/2267
>
>



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Re: [OSM-talk] Tagging Governance

[Bryan Housel]

>> 
>> The decisions we make in iD with the tags are mostly because 1. someone 
>> asked us to in a ticket or pull request, and we try to give people what they 
>> want..  or 2. we are trying to solve an actual problem - for example, the 
>> explicit tagging of piers and platforms came from us trying to detect 
>> routing islands (we rolled this back when people complained).  
> Well that is a -slight- simplification of what happened. We can
> partially follow it here
> https://github.com/openstreetmap/iD/issues/6409#issuecomment-494888256
> Except that we don't even know why in the end the changes were reverted,
> insight? External pressure? Or what? Obviously it wasn't just people
> complaining or else it would have been far earlier.

I said why here:
https://github.com/openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website/pull/2267 



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Re: [OSM-talk] Tagging Governance

[Simon Poole]

Am 10.09.2019 um 16:08 schrieb Bryan Housel:
> Simon you’re completely wrong about this, but I doubt there is anything that 
> I can say that would change your mind.  The "US-corporate bubble" does not 
> care about the tags used by the iD presets as much as you think they do.  

I don't think I remotely implied that the actual tags were at question
in this case.

>
> The decisions we make in iD with the tags are mostly because 1. someone asked 
> us to in a ticket or pull request, and we try to give people what they want.. 
>  or 2. we are trying to solve an actual problem - for example, the explicit 
> tagging of piers and platforms came from us trying to detect routing islands 
> (we rolled this back when people complained).  
Well that is a -slight- simplification of what happened. We can
partially follow it here
https://github.com/openstreetmap/iD/issues/6409#issuecomment-494888256
Except that we don't even know why in the end the changes were reverted,
insight? External pressure? Or what? Obviously it wasn't just people
complaining or else it would have been far earlier.
>
> Anyway, good luck with tagging.  When you frame the discussion this way, 
> don’t be surprised when we are reluctant to participate.

If there was more upfront transparency and discussion then likely the
whole thing likely wouldn't be needed. I'm not saying there wouldn't be
any disagreement, but it would be centred around the actual changes and
not around your behaviour which is what in the end is causing the high
tension.

Simon

>
> Bryan
>
>
>
>> On Sep 10, 2019, at 9:55 AM, Simon Poole  wrote:
>>
>> Roland
>>
>> I can't help noticing that you are tiptoeing a bit around the actual
>> issue which started the whole discussion: unilateral changes by the iD
>> maintainers (everybody else doesn't have enough leverage to enforce
>> their position, so it is not me specifically picking on them, it is
>> simply a consequence of the power they can wield). And these changes are
>> not just questions of which tags to use, but far more fundamental
>> questions, for example implicit vs. explicit tagging (which seems to be
>> something the US-corporate bubble whispered to them, likely that unknown
>> organisations holding the purse strings).
>>
>> If you don't address that I'm not quite sure what the point of the whole
>> discussion is.
>>
>> Simon
>>
>> Am 10.09.2019 um 06:50 schrieb Roland Olbricht:
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> I have got into the duty to talk about tagging governance on the SotM
>>> and I would like to develop that opportunity towards something that is
>>> rather helpful in the long term.
>>> To ensure that I am on the right track and not unintentionally after a
>>> personal agenda I would like to ask you to comment on the findings so
>>> far listed below.
>>>
>>> To encourage a widespread discussion, I have spread this message on
>>> German and French lists as well (these two because I understand the
>>> languages) and will do so in addition on the tagging list. Feel free to
>>> spread this message further as long as you remember to channel back all
>>> feedback.
>>>
>>>
>>> Imperfect Flow of Information
>>>
>>> Although many parts of the OpenStreetMap project are well translated,
>>> the tagging documentation has substantial deficiencies. Over a random
>>> sample of 10 tags the number of declared languages varies between 2 and
>>> 18, but only few are complete and up to date (sample: 2 of 10 for
>>> German, 3 of 10 for French).
>>>
>>> Another kind of imperfect information flow is that tag definitions can
>>> be changed on the wiki page long after the tag is in widespread use.
>>>
>>> The converse case that a tag is introduced without any documentation is
>>> also happening. While this happens by ordinary users usually slow enough
>>> to make sense of the added data, an import or organized edit might be
>>> able to substantially skew the de facto meaning of a tag, regardless
>>> whether it is in widespread use, documented, both, or none.
>>>
>>>
>>> More Structure needed
>>>
>>> The translation issues have been conflated with a different problem:
>>> Different features may look very different between regions. E.g.
>>> highway=primary and highway=unclassfied versus highway=track
>>> need different sets of examples in Germany and the urban US on the one
>>> hand and Iceland or rural Africa on the other. It is easy to mix this
>>> with the translation into the predominant language in the area,
>>> but the tagging challenges in Belgium, Canada, and Niger are
>>> substantially different, although all three countries happen to have
>>> French as official language. Conversely, there is no sane reason to
>>> change tagging rules every block of houses in Brussels.
>>>
>>> Additionally, people often have different search terms than the British
>>> English tag names or their translations, and the wiki search engine is
>>> infamous for its bad performance. Having explicit keywords to direct the
>>> attention of a mapper to the list of pos

Re: [OSM-talk] Tagging Governance

[Bryan Housel]

Simon you’re completely wrong about this, but I doubt there is anything that I 
can say that would change your mind.  The "US-corporate bubble" does not care 
about the tags used by the iD presets as much as you think they do.  

The decisions we make in iD with the tags are mostly because 1. someone asked 
us to in a ticket or pull request, and we try to give people what they want..  
or 2. we are trying to solve an actual problem - for example, the explicit 
tagging of piers and platforms came from us trying to detect routing islands 
(we rolled this back when people complained).  

Anyway, good luck with tagging.  When you frame the discussion this way, don’t 
be surprised when we are reluctant to participate.

Bryan



> On Sep 10, 2019, at 9:55 AM, Simon Poole  wrote:
> 
> Roland
> 
> I can't help noticing that you are tiptoeing a bit around the actual
> issue which started the whole discussion: unilateral changes by the iD
> maintainers (everybody else doesn't have enough leverage to enforce
> their position, so it is not me specifically picking on them, it is
> simply a consequence of the power they can wield). And these changes are
> not just questions of which tags to use, but far more fundamental
> questions, for example implicit vs. explicit tagging (which seems to be
> something the US-corporate bubble whispered to them, likely that unknown
> organisations holding the purse strings).
> 
> If you don't address that I'm not quite sure what the point of the whole
> discussion is.
> 
> Simon
> 
> Am 10.09.2019 um 06:50 schrieb Roland Olbricht:
>> Hi all,
>> 
>> I have got into the duty to talk about tagging governance on the SotM
>> and I would like to develop that opportunity towards something that is
>> rather helpful in the long term.
>> To ensure that I am on the right track and not unintentionally after a
>> personal agenda I would like to ask you to comment on the findings so
>> far listed below.
>> 
>> To encourage a widespread discussion, I have spread this message on
>> German and French lists as well (these two because I understand the
>> languages) and will do so in addition on the tagging list. Feel free to
>> spread this message further as long as you remember to channel back all
>> feedback.
>> 
>> 
>> Imperfect Flow of Information
>> 
>> Although many parts of the OpenStreetMap project are well translated,
>> the tagging documentation has substantial deficiencies. Over a random
>> sample of 10 tags the number of declared languages varies between 2 and
>> 18, but only few are complete and up to date (sample: 2 of 10 for
>> German, 3 of 10 for French).
>> 
>> Another kind of imperfect information flow is that tag definitions can
>> be changed on the wiki page long after the tag is in widespread use.
>> 
>> The converse case that a tag is introduced without any documentation is
>> also happening. While this happens by ordinary users usually slow enough
>> to make sense of the added data, an import or organized edit might be
>> able to substantially skew the de facto meaning of a tag, regardless
>> whether it is in widespread use, documented, both, or none.
>> 
>> 
>> More Structure needed
>> 
>> The translation issues have been conflated with a different problem:
>> Different features may look very different between regions. E.g.
>> highway=primary and highway=unclassfied versus highway=track
>> need different sets of examples in Germany and the urban US on the one
>> hand and Iceland or rural Africa on the other. It is easy to mix this
>> with the translation into the predominant language in the area,
>> but the tagging challenges in Belgium, Canada, and Niger are
>> substantially different, although all three countries happen to have
>> French as official language. Conversely, there is no sane reason to
>> change tagging rules every block of houses in Brussels.
>> 
>> Additionally, people often have different search terms than the British
>> English tag names or their translations, and the wiki search engine is
>> infamous for its bad performance. Having explicit keywords to direct the
>> attention of a mapper to the list of possibly fitting tags might help.
>> 
>> A substantial problem source of the concept of proposals is
>> that it interacts with lots of tags in a nontrivial way and is
>> practically never properly applied to all affected tag definitions.
>> A proposal currently is an extra page although it should have much more
>> an impact like a Git commit, grouping changes across various tag
>> definition pages in a single changeset.
>> 
>> 
>> Legitimacy and Governance
>> 
>> What legitimation has a process if only a handful of people have that
>> have the time to write mails on a mailing list and to write wiki pages
>> are involved? In particular, if the proposals end up as being full of
>> contradictions or vague terms and leave necessary answers undefined.
>> Yet these still are the people that have shown the necessary long-term
>> endurance to assure maintenance and that d

Re: [OSM-talk] Tagging Governance

[Simon Poole]

Roland

I can't help noticing that you are tiptoeing a bit around the actual
issue which started the whole discussion: unilateral changes by the iD
maintainers (everybody else doesn't have enough leverage to enforce
their position, so it is not me specifically picking on them, it is
simply a consequence of the power they can wield). And these changes are
not just questions of which tags to use, but far more fundamental
questions, for example implicit vs. explicit tagging (which seems to be
something the US-corporate bubble whispered to them, likely that unknown
organisations holding the purse strings).

If you don't address that I'm not quite sure what the point of the whole
discussion is.

Simon

Am 10.09.2019 um 06:50 schrieb Roland Olbricht:
> Hi all,
>
> I have got into the duty to talk about tagging governance on the SotM
> and I would like to develop that opportunity towards something that is
> rather helpful in the long term.
> To ensure that I am on the right track and not unintentionally after a
> personal agenda I would like to ask you to comment on the findings so
> far listed below.
>
> To encourage a widespread discussion, I have spread this message on
> German and French lists as well (these two because I understand the
> languages) and will do so in addition on the tagging list. Feel free to
> spread this message further as long as you remember to channel back all
> feedback.
>
>
> Imperfect Flow of Information
>
> Although many parts of the OpenStreetMap project are well translated,
> the tagging documentation has substantial deficiencies. Over a random
> sample of 10 tags the number of declared languages varies between 2 and
> 18, but only few are complete and up to date (sample: 2 of 10 for
> German, 3 of 10 for French).
>
> Another kind of imperfect information flow is that tag definitions can
> be changed on the wiki page long after the tag is in widespread use.
>
> The converse case that a tag is introduced without any documentation is
> also happening. While this happens by ordinary users usually slow enough
> to make sense of the added data, an import or organized edit might be
> able to substantially skew the de facto meaning of a tag, regardless
> whether it is in widespread use, documented, both, or none.
>
>
> More Structure needed
>
> The translation issues have been conflated with a different problem:
> Different features may look very different between regions. E.g.
> highway=primary and highway=unclassfied versus highway=track
> need different sets of examples in Germany and the urban US on the one
> hand and Iceland or rural Africa on the other. It is easy to mix this
> with the translation into the predominant language in the area,
> but the tagging challenges in Belgium, Canada, and Niger are
> substantially different, although all three countries happen to have
> French as official language. Conversely, there is no sane reason to
> change tagging rules every block of houses in Brussels.
>
> Additionally, people often have different search terms than the British
> English tag names or their translations, and the wiki search engine is
> infamous for its bad performance. Having explicit keywords to direct the
> attention of a mapper to the list of possibly fitting tags might help.
>
> A substantial problem source of the concept of proposals is
> that it interacts with lots of tags in a nontrivial way and is
> practically never properly applied to all affected tag definitions.
> A proposal currently is an extra page although it should have much more
> an impact like a Git commit, grouping changes across various tag
> definition pages in a single changeset.
>
>
> Legitimacy and Governance
>
> What legitimation has a process if only a handful of people have that
> have the time to write mails on a mailing list and to write wiki pages
> are involved? In particular, if the proposals end up as being full of
> contradictions or vague terms and leave necessary answers undefined.
> Yet these still are the people that have shown the necessary long-term
> endurance to assure maintenance and that do the work. Thus every change
> to replace processes with better processes must be geared towards
> broadening not narrowing the base of long-term maintainers.
>
> Conversely, I fully understand mappers that are wary of sudden changes
> in the rendering or the access to tags in edting software. A lot of
> people whould probably appreciate to better understand what happens on
> the way from a tag discussion to a final change in the renderer or
> editing software. These processes are not secret, but often
> under-documented.
>
> Again, the various discussion channels and the lacking information flow
> between them contribute to the bad mood. Even worse, the ratio between
> people and channels means that evil or just plainly incompetent people
> could easily take over some channels and contribute substantially to the
> confusion. Good ideas how to redirect people and close down some of the
> chan

Re: [OSM-talk] Tagging Governance

[john whelan]

If the discussion takes place in a mailing list there is a record of it.

Slack is restricted and I'm not certain if a record is available.  Same for
chat or mumble discussions.  Both are valuable but not for formally
recording why a decision was made and the reasons behind it.

Cheerio John

On Tue, Sep 10, 2019, 6:54 AM Valor Naram,  wrote:

> Hello Roland and other "talkers",
>
> I also thought about creating a new better channel for tagging discussions
> where all sites (mappers (newbies, experienced), developers, researchers
> etc.) come into play. E.g. we could create IRC rooms for discussions for
> each tag and have one main IRC room where one can "advertise" for a tag
> discussion in an IRC room. Votes can still take place in the wiki. But this
> would just solve one of many OSM issues.
>
>
> I also mentioned in "tagging" the problem of "multiple tags for one
> purpose" but the emerging discussion there was not kind of discussion I
> hoped for. I also think that Mailing list isn't the right format for
> discussions. I think a chat is better suited for discussions. Telegram
> groups like @osm_de show that it can work throw chatting.
>
> Cheers
>
> Sören Reinecke alias Valor Naram
>
>
>  Original Message 
> Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] Tagging Governance
> From: Christoph Hormann
> To: talk@openstreetmap.org
> CC:
>
>
>
> Hello Roland,
>
> not sure if you have seen - i already gave my initial thoughts on this
> on
>
> https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/imagico/diary/390599
>
> --
> Christoph Hormann
> http://www.imagico.de/
>
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Re: [OSM-talk] Tagging Governance

[Valor Naram]

Hello Roland and other "talkers",I also thought about creating a new better channel for tagging discussions where all sites (mappers (newbies, experienced), developers, researchers etc.)  come into play. E.g. we could create IRC rooms for discussions for each tag and have one main IRC room where one can "advertise" for a tag discussion in an IRC room. Votes can still take place in the wiki. But this would just solve one of many OSM issues.I also mentioned in "tagging" the problem of "multiple tags for one purpose" but the emerging discussion there was not kind of discussion I hoped for. I also think that Mailing list isn't the right format for discussions. I think a chat is better suited for discussions. Telegram groups like @osm_de show that it can work throw chatting.CheersSören Reinecke alias Valor Naram Original Message Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] Tagging GovernanceFrom: Christoph Hormann To: talk@openstreetmap.orgCC: Hello Roland,not sure if you have seen - i already gave my initial thoughts on this onhttps://www.openstreetmap.org/user/imagico/diary/390599-- Christoph Hormannhttp://www.imagico.de/___talk mailing listtalk@openstreetmap.orghttps://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk___
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Re: [OSM-talk] Tagging Governance

[Christoph Hormann]

Hello Roland,

not sure if you have seen - i already gave my initial thoughts on this 
on

https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/imagico/diary/390599

-- 
Christoph Hormann
http://www.imagico.de/

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[OSM-talk] Re : Tagging Governance

[Pierre Béland via talk]

Hi Roland
It would help To better see the structure of
1.main tags2.attributes adding detailed infos To these tags
Also cases like polygons that should not be overlapped when related   To 
landcoverie. Amenity=university vs landuse=retail
Pierre

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  Le mar., sept. 10 2019 à 6:54 AM, Roland Olbricht a 
écrit :   Hi all,

I have got into the duty to talk about tagging governance on the SotM
and I would like to develop that opportunity towards something that is
rather helpful in the long term.
To ensure that I am on the right track and not unintentionally after a
personal agenda I would like to ask you to comment on the findings so
far listed below.

To encourage a widespread discussion, I have spread this message on
German and French lists as well (these two because I understand the
languages) and will do so in addition on the tagging list. Feel free to
spread this message further as long as you remember to channel back all
feedback.


Imperfect Flow of Information

Although many parts of the OpenStreetMap project are well translated,
the tagging documentation has substantial deficiencies. Over a random
sample of 10 tags the number of declared languages varies between 2 and
18, but only few are complete and up to date (sample: 2 of 10 for
German, 3 of 10 for French).

Another kind of imperfect information flow is that tag definitions can
be changed on the wiki page long after the tag is in widespread use.

The converse case that a tag is introduced without any documentation is
also happening. While this happens by ordinary users usually slow enough
to make sense of the added data, an import or organized edit might be
able to substantially skew the de facto meaning of a tag, regardless
whether it is in widespread use, documented, both, or none.


More Structure needed

The translation issues have been conflated with a different problem:
Different features may look very different between regions. E.g.
highway=primary and highway=unclassfied versus highway=track
need different sets of examples in Germany and the urban US on the one
hand and Iceland or rural Africa on the other. It is easy to mix this
with the translation into the predominant language in the area,
but the tagging challenges in Belgium, Canada, and Niger are
substantially different, although all three countries happen to have
French as official language. Conversely, there is no sane reason to
change tagging rules every block of houses in Brussels.

Additionally, people often have different search terms than the British
English tag names or their translations, and the wiki search engine is
infamous for its bad performance. Having explicit keywords to direct the
attention of a mapper to the list of possibly fitting tags might help.

A substantial problem source of the concept of proposals is
that it interacts with lots of tags in a nontrivial way and is
practically never properly applied to all affected tag definitions.
A proposal currently is an extra page although it should have much more
an impact like a Git commit, grouping changes across various tag
definition pages in a single changeset.


Legitimacy and Governance

What legitimation has a process if only a handful of people have that
have the time to write mails on a mailing list and to write wiki pages
are involved? In particular, if the proposals end up as being full of
contradictions or vague terms and leave necessary answers undefined.
Yet these still are the people that have shown the necessary long-term
endurance to assure maintenance and that do the work. Thus every change
to replace processes with better processes must be geared towards
broadening not narrowing the base of long-term maintainers.

Conversely, I fully understand mappers that are wary of sudden changes
in the rendering or the access to tags in edting software. A lot of
people whould probably appreciate to better understand what happens on
the way from a tag discussion to a final change in the renderer or
editing software. These processes are not secret, but often
under-documented.

Again, the various discussion channels and the lacking information flow
between them contribute to the bad mood. Even worse, the ratio between
people and channels means that evil or just plainly incompetent people
could easily take over some channels and contribute substantially to the
confusion. Good ideas how to redirect people and close down some of the
channels (e.g. wiki discussion pages) might be worth pursuing. On top of
that the wiki history is so much less helpful than what developers are
nowadays used to from version control systems that borrowing methaphors
and paradigms from there to the tag documentation is worth consideration.

This hopefully helps to foster that the authors of the documentation and
the mappers using a tag actually agree on its meaning.


Best regards,

Roland

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Re: [OSM-talk] Tagging Governance

[stevea]

My zwei Pfennige (two cents) worth.  I am somewhat multilingual (in my context 
of a largely-monolingual USA):  I grew up hearing familial Polish and 
Hungarian, studied seven years of foreign language (Spanish and French) in 
middle and high schools and at university double majored in linguistics and 
computer science.  In the '90s I was an employee at Apple and Adobe in 
multilingual environments, helping to either translate or "localize" software, 
data or documentation in many, many contexts.  When I signed up for OSM over a 
decade ago, I did so with a passion knowing I was joining a worldwide community 
of many languages:  a truly global project.  I have written many wiki pages and 
done much mapping, mostly local (California, USA), though I travel and map 
around the world, too.

I am aware of some of the history of OSM's origin story in the UK, and its 
almost unbelievably enthusiastic adoption in Western Europe, especially 
Germany, BeNeLux countries (do people still say that?!) and around the world.  
(I am especially heartened to see similar enthusiasm in Africa and Asia:  OSM 
is truly global).

Yes, as I read (and write) wiki, wanting to conscientiously bridge the "how do 
we? / how should we?" gaps in the map compared to how we actually DO map by 
contributing to wiki, I have noticed a distinct English-centrism in the wiki.  
At first I attributed this to OSM's UK origins (and British English still 
prevails in tagging, it is helpful to know the reasons why) yet I also noticed 
there was a "chase" or "lag" in both wiki-as-documenting how we DO tag and 
wiki-as-documenting how we SHOULD tag (the so-called "descriptive vs. 
prescriptive" argument about what a wiki page is actually "documenting").  At 
the same time, German-speaking influences have come on strong, showing the deep 
passion for OSM in this part of the world.

Roland mentions an "Imperfect Flow of Information."  What I notice in this 
regard is that people often map without checking wiki, people sometimes write 
wiki without checking the map, and people who either read or write wiki seem to 
be in a distinct minority.  I have no "basis in fact" for saying the latter, 
but I have had much experience in OSM of people who want to map well, they have 
all the required enthusiasm to be excellent mappers, but they seem to abhor 
reading documentation (our wiki, to a large extent it IS our project-wide 
documentation of "how we do things").  A lot of "wheels have been invented" (as 
in the phrase "don't re-invent the wheel (as you don't have to)" and yet people 
see fit to invent their own (wheels) tagging standards, when all that would 
have been required is a five-minutes tour through some fairly-well-written wiki 
pages.  While a certain amount of this is "Goldilocks, 'just right'" (and we 
have votes and talk-discussions and questions-and-answers on our forum and 
local MeetUp groups where beers are drunk and several people all agree "that's 
a pretty good way to tag that!") we sometimes see our "plastic" (free-form) 
tagging taken too far.  Or, people are quick to put their own interpretation on 
things, when the community has already reached consensus, and this is 
documented in our wiki pages.

But coining new tags and spilling them all over the map isn't the major "abuse" 
that I see, it is merely a symptom.  The real "sickness" that seems to continue 
to plague OSM is the very great difficulty it seems to take to reach wide, 
often world-wide agreement.  We have MANY different forums / technologies / 
websites /  chat rooms to discuss, we have MANY different views, we have many 
agendas (whether hidden or open), we have (and use!) MANY methods for "playing 
nice" vs. "being rough" for advancing these ideas "into the map."  Now, most of 
us realize that what we're talking about here, achieving consensus (especially 
on the specifics of tagging) in a worldwide map, in a worldwide community, is 
and is going to be difficult.  I see no way around that.  Yet I am encouraged 
that Roland brings up these topics and at least initiates a wider discussion 
that there MUST be "ways forward" through what feels like a morass of poor 
communication, what is known as "stovepiped" information (very 
compartmentalized, or paid attention to by people who make it their business to 
watch certain highly-specialized aspects of the project) and many other 
problems plaguing OSM.  It isn't simply many languages, esoterica, data vs. 
code, the cacophony of all the various communication methods (including 
proprietary ones like Twitter, Slack and other "secret sauce walkie talkies" 
that require signing a contract to use them, which deserve no good place in an 
"open" project like OSM, in my opinion).  No, it is as Roland says, "More 
Structure needed."  I don't know where the sweet spot between "free form" and 
"More Structured" is, but we're on a path where we are devolving into "too 
little structure" and it seems to be hurting us.  How do we BUILD t