Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Liz]

On Tue, 11 Aug 2009, John Smith wrote:
> No, I'm proposing that a working group be setup and work through existing
> and new proposals. The idea is they will vet ideas before they become
> available for public comment, this will fix the problem with broken english
> proposals and problems in translating them later.
>
> If the working group thinks an idea is a valid one for the "common set of
> tags" then things will progress from there.
>
> It should be discouraged that editors and other software show non-vetted
> tags to maintain a consistency.
and a working group should contain members from all over the globe, as 
possible, because of the differences in legal issues in different places
and yes, it needs members who are native speakers of major world languages to 
help with translation into Spanish, German, French and so on


___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Liz]

On Tue, 11 Aug 2009, Alex L. Mauer wrote:
> OK, but how does that mean it was "forced"?  No one was (or is) held at
> gunpoint and ordered to use highway=path.  We followed the standard,
> documented procedure for adding a tag to the wiki.  We did nothing
> nefarious to stuff the votes (at least I didn't, and I am not aware of
> any sock-puppets or anything like that)
>
> I don't even know where the idea of needing a mandate[1] comes in.  No
> one's being elected to represent someone else.  There are no policies
> that some hypothetical person who would have been elected could have
> made public.  And no goverment(!?) is trying to implement a policy here.
>  So, uh... what?
>
> -Alex Mauer "hawke"

I was not making a personal attack. I am looking at the "rules" and I find 
that neither justice nor good decision making is necessary with the rules as 
they stand.
I am talking about making sure that changes are deliberated by a broader 
church than current procedure demands.

As far as you are concerned you followed the rules.
However, by following those rules to the letter, you have actually been party 
to a fairly big split.
Here it's winter, the nights are long and I have time to read the wiki and 
mailing lists.
When its summer I won't be, I'll be out mapping and having a lot more fun.
So the next contentious issue you wish to get through, do it in my summer, so 
I don't notice until late in winter.




___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[John Smith]

--- On Tue, 11/8/09, Roy Wallace  wrote:

> Ah, so you're proposing basically a one-off overhall of the
> set of
> basic tags, after which everything returns to normal (i.e.
> relative
> chaos)?

No, I'm proposing that a working group be setup and work through existing and 
new proposals. The idea is they will vet ideas before they become available for 
public comment, this will fix the problem with broken english proposals and 
problems in translating them later.

If the working group thinks an idea is a valid one for the "common set of tags" 
then things will progress from there.

It should be discouraged that editors and other software show non-vetted tags 
to maintain a consistency.


  

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Roy Wallace]

On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 3:11 PM, John Smith wrote:
>
> --- On Tue, 11/8/09, Roy Wallace  wrote:
>
> I'm talking about a basic subset of tags that are commonly used, such as 
> normally found on the mapping features wiki page. I'm not talking about 
> forcing anyone to do anything, but simply have a way to facilitate a common 
> consistent set of basic tags that describe 80 to 90% of the things people tag.

Ah, so you're proposing basically a one-off overhall of the set of
basic tags, after which everything returns to normal (i.e. relative
chaos)?

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[John Smith]

--- On Tue, 11/8/09, Roy Wallace  wrote:

> Define "stick" i.e. no one can force people to tag in a
> certain way,
> so what are you referring to? Just the wiki or something
> else? This
> worries me a bit...

I'm talking about a basic subset of tags that are commonly used, such as 
normally found on the mapping features wiki page. I'm not talking about forcing 
anyone to do anything, but simply have a way to facilitate a common consistent 
set of basic tags that describe 80 to 90% of the things people tag.


  

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Roy Wallace]

On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 2:39 PM, John Smith wrote:
> I'm in agreement with Tom's suggestion of a working group, however they 
> should have the ability to make decisions they come to stick, true 
> democracies fail from everyone having their own agendas.

Define "stick" i.e. no one can force people to tag in a certain way,
so what are you referring to? Just the wiki or something else? This
worries me a bit...

> Outline the responsibilities and such of the working group, ask for people to 
> nominate themselves, have a limited number of positions on the working group 
> and they act to filter all future proposals, anything that seems reasonable 
> should be discussed, properly worked out.

This sounds fine. Basically what seems to be going on here is that,
firstly, if someone is given a "role", there is an assumption they
will provide a more valuable contribution. And secondly, that this
structure will provide more useful discussion than the completely
unstructured solution at the moment - the emailing list. Seems
reasonable.

> Once there is a formal proposal it should be put out for a comment period in 
> which anyone can discuss their thoughts on the matter, and from this either 
> the proposal is refined or moves to become official.

Doesn't seem to be any different to the current situation. I guess it
comes down to what you mean by the ability of a working group to "make
decisions stick".

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[John Smith]

--- On Tue, 11/8/09, Alex L. Mauer  wrote:
> If you have a proposal for a better
> system (and I'm
> pretty sure that doesn't include any kind of wiki masters
> who get to
> decide what's useful and what's not), I'm sure we'd be
> happy to hear it.

I'm in agreement with Tom's suggestion of a working group, however they should 
have the ability to make decisions they come to stick, true democracies fail 
from everyone having their own agendas.

I don't think anything should be voted on in person at a SOTM, this 
discriminates against those that can't be there. I also don't think a 
prerequisite of OSMF membership to be on a working group as this also 
discriminates against those that can't afford the membership fee.

Outline the responsibilities and such of the working group, ask for people to 
nominate themselves, have a limited number of positions on the working group 
and they act to filter all future proposals, anything that seems reasonable 
should be discussed, properly worked out.

Once there is a formal proposal it should be put out for a comment period in 
which anyone can discuss their thoughts on the matter, and from this either the 
proposal is refined or moves to become official.


  

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Alex L. Mauer]

John Smith wrote:
> Forced is probably the wrong word, gamed the system is what I would have said.

The system was used exactly as it was intended.  It's not my fault if
few people choose to participate.

> If there is over 100,000 accounts and at least 1% of them actively map and 
> have actively mapped for over 1 year 30 or 40 votes compared to a possible 
> 1000 participants isn't a very indicative outcome.

We only reached 100,000 accounts this year.  When the final vote was
registered on highway=path (May 2008) we were at 35000 users.  Not all
of those who map also use the wiki regularly.  Your "possible 1000
participants" is a very high estimate, I would say. Regardless...

> The current system is flawed when it comes to making decisions on complex 
> issues, this is why democracies aren't democracies, nothing would ever be 
> decided if everyone had a vote on everything. Instead we have republics where 
> a few are elected or nominated to make the decisions.

No arguments with this, but would would you have had us do?  I'm pretty
sure there'd be even more screaming if we'd just unilaterally changed
the wiki.  Do nothing?  Despite some peoples' objections, it certainly
does fill a need.  If you have a proposal for a better system (and I'm
pretty sure that doesn't include any kind of wiki masters who get to
decide what's useful and what's not), I'm sure we'd be happy to hear it.

-Alex Mauer "hawke"



signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[John Smith]

--- On Mon, 10/8/09, Alex L. Mauer  wrote:
> OK, but how does that mean it was "forced"?  No one
> was (or is) held at
> gunpoint and ordered to use highway=path.  We followed
> the standard,
> documented procedure for adding a tag to the wiki.  We
> did nothing
> nefarious to stuff the votes (at least I didn't, and I am
> not aware of
> any sock-puppets or anything like that)

Forced is probably the wrong word, gamed the system is what I would have said.

If there is over 100,000 accounts and at least 1% of them actively map and have 
actively mapped for over 1 year 30 or 40 votes compared to a possible 1000 
participants isn't a very indicative outcome.

The current system is flawed when it comes to making decisions on complex 
issues, this is why democracies aren't democracies, nothing would ever be 
decided if everyone had a vote on everything. Instead we have republics where a 
few are elected or nominated to make the decisions.


  

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Alex L. Mauer]

Liz wrote:
> On Tue, 11 Aug 2009, Alex Mauer wrote:
>> Not sure how you think path was "forced" though.  It had 34 votes, 22
>> for and 9 against (3 abstain).  Nobody forced anything, we just used the
>> standard procedure.
> while this was the sort of number of votes that appear on the wiki, for a 
> project with tens of thousands of contributors, this doesn't make a mandate
> (not even for the most determined politician)

OK, but how does that mean it was "forced"?  No one was (or is) held at
gunpoint and ordered to use highway=path.  We followed the standard,
documented procedure for adding a tag to the wiki.  We did nothing
nefarious to stuff the votes (at least I didn't, and I am not aware of
any sock-puppets or anything like that)

I don't even know where the idea of needing a mandate[1] comes in.  No
one's being elected to represent someone else.  There are no policies
that some hypothetical person who would have been elected could have
made public.  And no goverment(!?) is trying to implement a policy here.
 So, uh... what?

-Alex Mauer "hawke"

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandate_(politics)



signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] A process for rethinking map features

[Roy Wallace]

On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 10:22 AM, Pieren wrote:
> If you see different interpretations
> of the current footway/path description, then try to improve the
> description on the wiki, first.

+1

I'd also recommend that if there are several different definitions of
a tag currently in use, they should *all* be described as plainly as
possible on the wiki.

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Liz]

On Tue, 11 Aug 2009, Alex Mauer wrote:
> Not sure how you think path was "forced" though.  It had 34 votes, 22
> for and 9 against (3 abstain).  Nobody forced anything, we just used the
> standard procedure.
while this was the sort of number of votes that appear on the wiki, for a 
project with tens of thousands of contributors, this doesn't make a mandate
(not even for the most determined politician)


___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] GPS Accuracy under Forest Canopy

[Apollinaris Schoell]

On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 4:20 PM, Liz  wrote:

> On Tue, 11 Aug 2009, Apollinaris Schoell wrote:
> > compared to a SiRF III powered the eTrex is pretty lame in accuracy.
> > but it uses less power and runs twice as long on a set of batteries
> ok, so I'm in the rich guys list.


not yet, only if you have the professional devices with < 10cm accuracy
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Alex Mauer]

On 08/10/2009 05:27 AM, Frank Sautter wrote:
> Tom Chance wrote:
>> I'm 100% unclear about the distinction between highway=path and
>> highway=footway.
> 
> the whole "highway=path"-thingy was victim of a "hostile takeover" ;-)

It was?  when did that happen?  can you point to it in the wiki?

> at the beginning highway=path was proposed as a something like a NARROW 
> highway=track for use by bike, foot, horse, hiking, deer (mainly in 
> non-urban areas).

No it wasn't.  Read the history at
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php?title=Approved_features/Path&dir=prev&action=history

Prior to that, I created the proposal "Trail" which was also not like
you describe. http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/Trail

From the very beginning, it did not mean what you say it did.  Maybe
you're thinking of something else?

-Alex Mauer "hawke"



signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Alex Mauer]

On 08/10/2009 05:31 PM, Liz wrote:
> On Mon, 10 Aug 2009, Dave Stubbs wrote:
>> Anarchy in tagging died a bit back when some guys on the wiki decided
>> ochlocracy was the way to go.
>> Tagging used to be occasionally a confused mess.
>> Now it's an organised, and "approved" confused mess where anyone with
>> a clue automatically withdraws from discussions to keep their sanity
>> intact (and to give them some more time to go and actually map
>> something), knowing full well that not being there won't make much
>> difference to the eventual stupid decision.
>>
>> Gah... must... be... more... positive...
> 
> I would consider that if we have thousands of mappers, that we should set a 
> quorum for a vote
> so that unless at least x hundred people vote the vote is not valid

From
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features#Proposal_Status_Process:
"8 unanimous approval votes or 15 total votes with a majority approval"

It seems to me that we have one.
-Alex Mauer "hawke"



signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Alex Mauer]

On 08/10/2009 07:28 AM, Martin Koppenhoefer wrote:
> highway=cycleway
> foot=official
> 
> that latter was introduced (probably by the same people that already
> forced path)

Nope.  Cbm and I were the ones behind highway=path, as you can see from
the wiki.  Access=official has nothing to do with me.  I agree that it's
redundant -- it seems like it's just a combination of
travelmode=designated and access=no.

Not sure how you think path was "forced" though.  It had 34 votes, 22
for and 9 against (3 abstain).  Nobody forced anything, we just used the
standard procedure.

-Alex Mauer "hawke"



signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] A process for rethinking map features

[Pieren]

On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 1:46 AM, Eugene Alvin Villar wrote:

OSMF is not the right place to decide tagging rules:
"Members of the Foundation are entitled to vote in the affairs of the
Foundation. They have no special say in how the OpenStreetMap project
is run, just the running of the Foundation."
"It is important to understand that the OpenStreetMap Foundation is
not the same thing as the OpenStreetMap project. The Foundation does
not own the OpenStreetMap data, is not the copyright holder and has no
desire to own the data."

And the current process is not so bad, see the current map features.
As you said, it is more complicated if you try to deprecate old and
widely used tags like footway vs path. It was not popular last year,
it will not be easier this year. If you see different interpretations
of the current footway/path description, then try to improve the
description on the wiki, first.

Pieren

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] A process for rethinking map features

[Martin Koppenhoefer]

2009/8/11 Eugene Alvin Villar :

> If there is any going to be decision-making on the project as a whole
> especially on the OSM data, please don't require OSMF membership and SOTM
> appearance. Many people can't afford to join OSMF (think of people in
> developing countries who can't afford the £15 annual membership fee) and
> can't afford to fly to wherever SOTM will be.

+1 good point. Membership in the OSMF should not be compulsory for
participation in the decisions of the community project.

cheers,
Martin

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Martin Koppenhoefer]

2009/8/10 Stéphane Brunner :
> Martin Koppenhoefer a écrit :
>> 2009/8/10 Lester Caine :
 This must be discussed, completed and accepted asap so more people
 could start using it without fear that it would change..
 http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/Footway
>>> This is missing the point completely :(
>>> Micro mapping needs to have a SEPARATE way for this.
>>
>> +1
>
> I disagree for 2 raison :
> - - Separate way mean physical separation, not only a sidewalk

in the example he gave they were separated. Also there is at least the
kerb that is separating them (sometimes also grass, parking cars,
metal-barriers, ...). It depends on the kind of vehicle you use what
you consider a separation (think of wheelchairs). If the pavement is
not physically separated at all, but just by a line on the surface I
agree with you though. In these cases it is better to map just one way
and add tags.

> - - There is th tame kind of feature for cycle
> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:cycleway

I map cycleways separately if they are not just lanes on the street
but own ways.

cheers,
Martin

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] radioactivity

[Cartinus]

On Sunday 09 August 2009 23:05:36 Liz wrote:
> surface_mining? that's an assumption
> and how does one tag an underground mine - I found myself caught trying to
> map these in one mining town

With some tag somewhere inside an area with a barrier=fence

Still the same reasoning about the hazard.

-- 
m.v.g.,
Cartinus

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] A process for rethinking map features

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 2:05 AM, Tom Chance  wrote:

> Membership
> of the Foundation should be the basis for participating in these decisions.
> Each vote would need at least 60% of members to vote, and proposals would
> need
> a majority of say 60% in favour to pass. Perhaps to speed things up these
> votes could be done online, with particularly contentious issues going to
> SOTM
> where face to face discussions are easier to facilitate.
>

-1

If there is any going to be decision-making on the project as a whole
especially on the OSM data, please don't require OSMF membership and SOTM
appearance. Many people can't afford to join OSMF (think of people in
developing countries who can't afford the £15 annual membership fee) and
can't afford to fly to wherever SOTM will be.
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] GPS Accuracy under Forest Canopy

[Liz]

On Tue, 11 Aug 2009, Apollinaris Schoell wrote:
> compared to a SiRF III powered the eTrex is pretty lame in accuracy.  
> but it uses less power and runs twice as long on a set of batteries
ok, so I'm in the rich guys list.
I have an older etrex, the MSO has the newer etrex with the more accurate chip 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SiRFstar_III
i also have a Neo Freerunner, which is more accurate with the Antaris 4 chip
and we have been obtaining dataloggers with much newer chips and greater 
accuracy than any of those chips, where I have been able to see my trace down 
each side of the road distinctly on an outward and return journey
These have been based on Mediatek MTK chips

I have tried the photoMate i-887 inside a shopping cnetre building and think i 
can get enough traces to map inside that building, but not the carpark below. 
http://www.gpspassion.com/forumsen/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=67511
http://www.gpspassion.com/fr/articles.asp?id=175&page=5

motto
try to get the newest sort of chip to track places with very poor signal



___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Roy Wallace]

On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 12:06 AM, Nop wrote:
> - Can we agree on a common interpretation of what foot/cycleway are
> supposed to mean?

I highly doubt it, because highway=footway and highway=cycleway are
quite vague, and infer different things to different people. And while
a clear definition on the wiki is all that would theoretically be
required to make them work, it seems this won't be easy to agree on.

I therefore prefer deprecation of these tags in favour of highway=path
with tags to *explicitly* state what the situation is for that
particular way - "tag as simply as possible, but no simpler".

> - Do we want a general meaning for every country, delegating local
> specifics to other tags, or a local meaning dependent on a countries
> specific conditions?

If you *explicitly* state the situation on the ground, worldwide
consensus is possible.

> - Do we tag generic trails as highway=path or does this tag have a more
> complex meaning?

I don't think there is any such thing as a "generic trail". I think
highway=path should simply imply that the way is a physical route used
for travel but not suitable for cars. Additional tags seem to be
necessary to describe details, if available.

> - how can we get a coherent tagging model for OSM?

I think some more guidelines as to "what makes a good tag/tagging
scheme" could be helpful to guide us. There seems to be no shortage of
ideas but rather the problem is when we try to judge one idea against
another. I'm constantly referring to "verifiability", but I'm sure
there are other important criteria.

I'm also looking forward to Google Wave as a means of collaboration.
The current approach of wiki and email lists clearly isn't optimal for
nutting out these issues.

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Liz]

On Mon, 10 Aug 2009, Dave Stubbs wrote:
> Anarchy in tagging died a bit back when some guys on the wiki decided
> ochlocracy was the way to go.
> Tagging used to be occasionally a confused mess.
> Now it's an organised, and "approved" confused mess where anyone with
> a clue automatically withdraws from discussions to keep their sanity
> intact (and to give them some more time to go and actually map
> something), knowing full well that not being there won't make much
> difference to the eventual stupid decision.
>
> Gah... must... be... more... positive...

I would consider that if we have thousands of mappers, that we should set a 
quorum for a vote
so that unless at least x hundred people vote the vote is not valid


___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Roy Wallace]

On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 8:56 PM, John Smith wrote:
> In other areas there are cycle paths and pedestrians are allowed but they 
> aren't the primary users intended to use the way and cyclists mostly use 
> them. So yes there would be information lost by simplifying things in the way 
> you describe.

Is tagging the "primary users intended to use the way" verifiable? If
not, it shouldn't be tagged. If it is, then is footway/cycleway
necessarily the best way to tag it? (I'm unsure). How about a
compromise, e.g. for a "cyclists mostly use" path:

highway=path
bicycle=designated (or yes, if not signed)
foot=yes (or designated, if signed)
primary_use=bicycle

Just a suggestion. It does seem to be more explicit than inferring a
"primary use" from the highway=* value.

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Roy Wallace]

On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 8:52 PM, Martin Simon wrote:
> So you could tag a footway which also allows bicycles as
> highway=footway,bicycle=yes(assuming "footway" implies
> foot=designated) or as highway=path,foot=designated,bicycle=yes. No
> Information loss, no difference, no problem. :-)

Agreed.

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] PDOP, HDOP, VDOP

[Aun Johnsen (via Webmail)]

HDOP is of most interest for you, that is the horizontal delution of your
position, that means how far from the logged position on the ground you can
be. VDOP is the same value vertical, in other words, the error in the
height, and if I am not entirely wrong, PDOP is the entire sphere (make a
ball with your possition in center, and you are somewhere inside that ball.
DAGE and DSTA I am not too certain about, but think that has to do with age
of signal and satellites in view. My advice is to keep HDOP and leave the
others. On my checklists at work we note HDOP and EPE (EPE is error eclips,
based upon a complicated formula on HDOP, satellite constillation (how they
are spread on the sky) and the results of any augmentations). It is not
likely that any handheld units can calculate EPE.

-

On Mon, 10 Aug 2009 09:26:08 +0200, Konrad Skeri  wrote:
> My GPS logger can save PDOP, HDOP, VDOP, DAGE and DSTA precision data.
When
> 
> converting to GPX-track I can exclude points based on *DOP values.
> 1. Are there any use for DAGE and DSTA? (I have them disabled - enableing
> them 
> decreases the estimated trackpoints in memory by 16%)
> 2. Which of the *DOPs are useful for this kind of filtering.
> 3. Do you happen to have some suggested values of *DOP when not to
include
> the 
> trackpoint?
> 
> regards
> Konrad Skeri
> 
> ___
> talk mailing list
> talk@openstreetmap.org
> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

-- 
Brgds
Aun Johnsen
via Webmail

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] GPS Accuracy under Forest Canopy

[Karl Newman]

On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 12:40 PM, Apollinaris Schoell wrote:

> Garmin calls it high sensitivity but thats marketing  Maybe better
> than very old Garmin devices but much worse compared to a SiRF III
> I have a new Hcx and compared multiple times.
> Only 60, Oregon, Colorado use a SiRF III  and they are much better in
> accuracy but drain batteries like crazy.
> Still like the Hcx because it's smaller and battery life is very important
> on long hikes.
>
>
No, the 60Cx/60CSx are the only handheld Garmin models that have a Sirf Star
III (well, maybe some niche units like the Astro or Rino have it). The
Colorado has a MediaTek just like the Vista HCx. The Oregon has a STM
Cartesio chipset, same as the Delorme PN-40. I haven't used a 60Cx or 60CSx
model, but I had a Vista HCx and it performed quite well. There was a rough
series of chipset firmware for the Vista HCx that had a problem with
drifting from the true position under difficult conditions, but recent
firmwares have fixed that (or you could use the old version...). It was
definitely able to hold a signal under difficult conditions better than the
PN-40 I have now.

Karl
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] GPS Accuracy under Forest Canopy

[Apollinaris Schoell]

Garmin calls it high sensitivity but thats marketing  Maybe better than
very old Garmin devices but much worse compared to a SiRF III
I have a new Hcx and compared multiple times.
Only 60, Oregon, Colorado use a SiRF III  and they are much better in
accuracy but drain batteries like crazy.
Still like the Hcx because it's smaller and battery life is very important
on long hikes.



On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 12:01 PM, Robert Scott wrote:

> On Monday 10 August 2009, Apollinaris Schoell wrote:
> > compared to a SiRF III powered the eTrex is pretty lame in accuracy.
> > but it uses less power and runs twice as long on a set of batteries
>
> You're thinking of an old eTrex. The new eTrexes (ones with an H in the
> name)
> have high sensitivity receivers, a sirfstar III or (usually) better.
>
>
> robert.
>
> ___
> talk mailing list
> talk@openstreetmap.org
> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
>
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Toll ways

[Peter Herison]

Mike N. schrieb:
> I was reviewing the toll tagging and things in the Wiki don't quite
> connect -
> 
> 1. barrier = toll_booth   - applies to node.   This seems good.
> 2. toll = yes - applies to way. So far so good, but then it refers to
>  highway = toll_booth instead of barrier =

Yes this is a bug. toll_booth once was a value of the highway-tag but
has been shifted to barrier-tag. Please correct this in the wiki.





___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Toll ways

[Ulf Möller]

Mike N. schrieb:

> 2. toll = yes  - applies to way.   So far so good, but then it refers to
> highway = toll_booth instead of barrier =

Apparently that was written before the barrier tag was introduced.


___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

[OSM-talk] Toll ways

[Mike N.]

I was reviewing the toll tagging and things in the Wiki don't quite
connect -

1. barrier = toll_booth   - applies to node.   This seems good.
2. toll = yes  - applies to way.   So far so good, but then it refers to
highway = toll_booth instead of barrier =
 3. charge = {amount}  - applies to way.Shouldn't this apply to the same
node as the toll_booth instead of the way?

  #3 is an entire can of worms in itself as the charge can vary depending on 
vehicle, payment method, and the time of travel.

  Thanks,
 


___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] GPS Accuracy under Forest Canopy

[Robert Scott]

On Monday 10 August 2009, Apollinaris Schoell wrote:
> compared to a SiRF III powered the eTrex is pretty lame in accuracy.
> but it uses less power and runs twice as long on a set of batteries

You're thinking of an old eTrex. The new eTrexes (ones with an H in the name) 
have high sensitivity receivers, a sirfstar III or (usually) better.


robert.

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] radioactivity

[Gustav Foseid]

On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 7:21 PM, OJ W  wrote:

> isn't the issue here that radioactivity is like height, i.e. a
> smoothly-varying value that exists everywhere and is typically
> represented as gridded data (which gets converted to contours for
> display).


Average yearly rainfall, air pollution, demographics,... The list goes on.


> with height, people said that the grid data was unsuitable for going
> into OSM because OSM is point/line/area, and that it would be
> confusing if you had huge grids of nodes for each sample of
> height/noise/radioactivity/ground colour.


I agree. There is (currently) no usable way to store such information in the
OSM database.

 - Gustav
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] A process for rethinking map features

[Tom Chance]

All good questions. As you say, the current situation is really far from 
optimal, it's just a matter of finding the right process for occasions where we 
need to make a big change like scrapping a bunch of existing tags in favour of 
a more logical alternative.

On Monday 10 Aug 2009 17:29:50 Ben Laenen wrote:
> How do you select the people in the working group? You might have dozens of
> people interested to do some work, so who would choose the "lucky ones",
> and how would it be done without dropping into some popularity contest? Or
> would you allow competing working groups working on the same problem? Would
> the community be able to participate in the discussion, or would it just be
> presented the solution, on which it then has to vote?
>
> Wouldn't that vote still be carried out by some random people who for the
> most part wouldn't be knowledgeable on the subject, so if the solution is a
> bad one, doesn't it risk approval by people who think "it looks nice to
> have" because they don't know better?

I personally think that OSM has to follow other open data/source/etc. projects 
and bed down with some structures to keep the community together. Membership 
of the Foundation should be the basis for participating in these decisions. 
Each vote would need at least 60% of members to vote, and proposals would need 
a majority of say 60% in favour to pass. Perhaps to speed things up these 
votes could be done online, with particularly contentious issues going to SOTM 
where face to face discussions are easier to facilitate.

In the event that a proposal fails on the wiki, it would be normal for one or 
two people to volunteer to work up a new proposal in much more detail, to be 
discussed by a slightly wider group comprised of anyone interested in the 
topic. These wouldn't happen often - they're only for quite disruptive changes 
to existing tagging - so it's unlikely that seasoned mappers and relevant 
experts would miss the process.

If there are competing proposals, the best thing is to have them all properly 
developed so they can then be discussed, rather than the current situation of 
100s of emails that address small parts of the picture


> Would the working group work openly so we can track the work and could
> bring their attention to obvious flaws of their solution in the process?

Yes, I should think so.

Regards,
Tom

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] radioactivity

[Nic Roets]

On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 6:48 PM, Martin Koppenhoefer  wrote:

>
> and by lung cancer (I'm a smoker) and other stuff as well. Hundreds of
> thousands seem little bit overestimated to me though. E.g. in Germany
> (80 million people) there were killed 4 477 people in 2 294 000
> registrated traffic accidents in 2008 (and they don't even have a
> speedlimit on motorways). If you consider that in the parts of the
> world with the highest population (africa and asia) there are far less
> cars then it is probably less people dying in accidents.
>

I had exactly this conversation with my neighbor today. When he lived in
France for a year he saw many badly designed roads (no center line, rows of
trees right next to the trees etc) but he saw only 3 accidents (all
non-lethal). During his first year back in South Africa, he saw more than 3
head on collisions each with multiple fatalities. Some parts of South Africa
is really like the Wild West and it may takes a century or two before the
population places the same value on human life.


>
> actually it is possible to use filters to eliminate the sulfur in the
> fallout of coal plants. But they cost money.
>

Yes, many forms of progress is expensive. They either cost of a lot of money
or they have a large environmental cost.

And then there are other forms of progress that either costs very little, or
may in fact be profitable. Like eliminating agricultural subsidies, some
open source projects or a long list of traditional (industrial) investments.
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] GPX on OSM slippymap?

[Rejo Zenger]

++ 10/08/09 18:39 +0200 - Igor Brejc:
>Great, this is something I was hoping for. Although I couldn't find the 
>way to show GPX traces uploaded to OSM, so I guess I would have to put 
>them on my own web server like you did?

The GPX file itself of such a trace is available at, for example:

  http://www.openstreetmap.org/trace/475566/data

However, for security reasons I am fairly strict in the filenames and 
file contents before processing the file. Because of this, using this 
URL doesn't work.

For the moment, upload the GPX file to some place else. When I have time 
I will see if I can change the behaviour of the script safely.


-- 
Rejo Zenger .  . 0x21DBEFD4 . 
GPG encrypted e-mail prefered. 


signature.asc
Description: Digital signature
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] radioactivity

[Martin Koppenhoefer]

2009/8/10 John Smith :

> As for wind farms being able to provide base loads, the facts aren't with you.
>
> http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/25/renewable-energy-%E2%80%93-our-downfall/

don't know who is behind them, what are their interests, who is
funding them, ...

If you talk about statistics on CO2 someone might present you this:
http://www.climate-movie.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/the_global_temperature_chart-545x409-500x375.jpg
while more interesting could be this:
http://www.climate-movie.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/zfacts-co2-temp-500x358.gif

For DC-Grids have a look here (OK, it is not 100% sure that this will
ever come):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current

Furthermore, this a also a debate on how energy should be produced
(big industrial-scale plants with needs for transportation over 100s
of kilometres or decentralized local production).

Surely you won't find a comparable graph (raising the same) for nuclear power:
http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Datei:WorldWindPower.png&filetimestamp=20090204034547

here's the development of installed windpower in different countries:
http://earthpolicy.org/Indicators/Wind/2008_Capacity%20by%20Country.GIF
as you can clearly see what will happen in the future (on which energy
source we'll rely) depends heavily no politics and not just on science
and economy.

cheers,
Martin

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] radioactivity

[Martin Koppenhoefer]

2009/8/10 Paul Houle :
>    Radioactivity is just one of many man-made hazards,  and,  overall,
> people overestimate it's danger compared to other hazards and often
> don't understand the real hazards.  If you're going to tag radioactive
> hazards,  you ought to be tagging other hazards as well.

surely, if you about them, go and tag other as well :)

> In Upstate NY
> there are a large number of industrial "brownfield sites" affecting an 
> elementary school,  nursing home and
> the entire South Hill neighborhood.

>    Note that these hazards are both pointwise and diffuse.  For
> instance,  you could be quickly killed by a lethal radiation field if
> you were to go for a swim in a spent fuel storage pond at a nuclear
> reactor.  On the other hand,  there are good procedures in place to
> protect the public and the workers at nuclear plants;  for one thing
> you'd need to get past the fence and armed guards.

in case of big damage it won't save you to stay out of the fence
though ;-). There is so many scandals worldwide about not using the
obligatory security measures in nuclear power plants, that I don't
have lots of confidence in the industry to solve these issues. Besides
that no solution is available how to store the fission products in a
save way until the don't radiate more than natural background
radiation (at least thousands but probably hundreds of thousands or
millions of years).

> There's a
> hypothetical danger there (the glaciers could come and spread the
> contents of a temporary nuclear waste repository across a wide area) but
> no "clear and present" immediate danger.  You might as well tag all the
> roads as dangerous since hundreds of thousands of people get killed in
> automobile accidents every year.

and by lung cancer (I'm a smoker) and other stuff as well. Hundreds of
thousands seem little bit overestimated to me though. E.g. in Germany
(80 million people) there were killed 4 477 people in 2 294 000
registrated traffic accidents in 2008 (and they don't even have a
speedlimit on motorways). If you consider that in the parts of the
world with the highest population (africa and asia) there are far less
cars then it is probably less people dying in accidents.

>    Now,  coal burning power plants release about 300 times as much
> radiation into the environment during normal operation as a nuclear
> power plant.  The issue is that there are trace quantities of uranium
> and it's decay products such as radium and polonium in coal:  the coal
> burning plant in my county consumes about 120 freight cars of coal every
> day,  to produce only 1/3 the power of a typical nuclear plant,  which
> consumes 1 kg of U235 and produces about 1 kg of fission products every
> day.  It deposits a fallout plume for hundreds of miles,  which includes
> radioactive elements,  sulfur compounds and which contributes to lung
> and heart diseases.  It emits more carbon dioxide,  as a point source,
> than all of the other activities in the county put together,  but yet,
> by some Jedi Mind Trick,  it was left out of a report on "Global Warming
> In Tompkins County" since they charged CO^2 emissions to the places
> where electricity is used,  not where it is produced.

actually it is possible to use filters to eliminate the sulfur in the
fallout of coal plants. But they cost money.

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] radioactivity

[John Smith]

--- On Mon, 10/8/09, Martin Koppenhoefer  wrote:
> what about wind and solar energy? With a large-scale
> (DC-)grid you can
> also achieve the coverage of base loads with wind-energy,
> as there is
> always some wind somewhere. What about reducing useless
> energy
> consumption and augmenting efficiency (also in the
> transportation of
> it)? Sorry for this offtopic, but there IS solutions beyond
> nuclear
> power stations. Don't know Australia well, but worldwide
> there could
> be a huge reduction in consumption by better housing
> insulation.
> Architecture is one of the key fields where consumption
> could be
> reduced by intelligent design, though it is generally not
> considered a
> main target by investors because energy is so cheap.

The problem with wind and other alternative sources they usually require either 
vast amounts of land, are hugely inefficient, don't produce peaks amounts of 
energy at peak demand times, there is no viable solution for storing energy in 
enough quatity for peak times, and very long transmission lines waste vast 
amounts of energy.

Toshiba probably has the best option around, they make a mini nuke plant that 
can operate close to where the power is needed with minimum personnel for about 
30 years. Although hopefully someone will perfect a boron reactor in the next 
decade or so.

As for wind farms being able to provide base loads, the facts aren't with you.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/25/renewable-energy-%E2%80%93-our-downfall/


  

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] GPX on OSM slippymap?

[Igor Brejc]

Great, this is something I was hoping for. Although I couldn't find the 
way to show GPX traces uploaded to OSM, so I guess I would have to put 
them on my own web server like you did?

Regards,
Igor

Rejo Zenger wrote:
> ++ 10/08/09 13:02 +0200 - Igor Brejc:
>   
>> Is there a way to display an uploaded GPX on the OSM slippymap?  
>> Something similar to how you can highlight an OSM way, node or 
>> relation: http://
>> www.openstreetmap.org/?way=31904301
>>
>> I took some friends on a hiking tour and I wanted to send them a simple URL
>> with the indicated track, since I've already uploaded the GPX for mapping
>> purposes.
>> 
>
> I have made a small script (based on the documentation on the wiki) that 
> allows you to quickly render a GPX file on an OSM slippy map. 
>
> To use this, append the URL to the GPX file at:
>
>   https://rejo.zenger.nl/topo/osm/?fn=[url-to-gpx-file]
>
> That's it. 
>
> For example:
>
>   
> 
>
> If that works and you want to include it into some webpage, use:
>
>   https://rejo.zenger.nl/topo/osm/?fn=[url-of-track]"; 
>   width="[width-of-embedded-image]" height="[height-of-embedded-image]" 
>   frameborder="0">
>
> You may add some variables to the URL which adjust the rendering of the 
> GPX track on the Openstreetmap. By adding "&sc=black&sw=10&so=0.4" you 
> would set the track to appear as a thick black and highly transparant, 
> where the default is a medium thick, red and half-transparant line.
>
> There is some more information at:
>
>   
>
> And there is some background information at:
>
>   
>
>
>   
> 
>
> ___
> talk mailing list
> talk@openstreetmap.org
> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
>   


-- 
http://igorbrejc.net


___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] radioactivity

[Martin Koppenhoefer]

2009/8/10 John Smith :
>
> --- On Mon, 10/8/09, Paul Houle  wrote:
>>      The nuke industry isn't perfect
>> either.  The operation of "once
>
> No but they've had a lot more practice in the mean time of what not to do :)
>
> I really love how everyone is so hell bent on making everyone so poor they 
> can't afford to heat their homes, but they won't touch nuclear, and there is 
> only 2 types of power plants that can produce base loads, especially in 
> Australia where water isn't as abundant to do hydro on a big enough scale.

what about wind and solar energy? With a large-scale (DC-)grid you can
also achieve the coverage of base loads with wind-energy, as there is
always some wind somewhere. What about reducing useless energy
consumption and augmenting efficiency (also in the transportation of
it)? Sorry for this offtopic, but there IS solutions beyond nuclear
power stations. Don't know Australia well, but worldwide there could
be a huge reduction in consumption by better housing insulation.
Architecture is one of the key fields where consumption could be
reduced by intelligent design, though it is generally not considered a
main target by investors because energy is so cheap.

cheers,
Martin

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] A process for rethinking map features

[Ben Laenen]

How do you select the people in the working group? You might have dozens of 
people interested to do some work, so who would choose the "lucky ones", and 
how would it be done without dropping into some popularity contest? Or would 
you allow competing working groups working on the same problem? Would the 
community be able to participate in the discussion, or would it just be 
presented the solution, on which it then has to vote?

Wouldn't that vote still be carried out by some random people who for the most 
part wouldn't be knowledgeable on the subject, so if the solution is a bad 
one, doesn't it risk approval by people who think "it looks nice to have" 
because they don't know better?

Why would just two people in a working group be any better than the current 
method where just one person writes down a proposal, and manages the proposal 
by himself, influenced by comments on the discussion page? Can you be certain 
that those people in the working group are able to study the wider questions? 
Can you be certain they're knowledgeable enough?

Would the working group work openly so we can track the work and could bring 
their attention to obvious flaws of their solution in the process?

Ben


Tom Chance wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> If the wood/forest and path/footway arguments have taught us one thing,
> it's that the current model doesn't work all the time (100s of emails,
> disorganised wiki discussions, votes with 20 or so random people). We
> develop, over years, one set of tags like
> highway=footway/cycleway/bridleway/etc. and then over time we realise the
> schema isn't quite right. But we're incapable of discussing it in a
> structured manner, and we rarely get a useful consensus.
>
> For simple matters like proposing a completely new, minor tag it's fine.
> Where competing proposals for new features, like house numbers, live side
> by side we generally find a superior solution gaining traction.
>
> Where proposals throw up bigger or more complicated questions about
> existing tags, used on thousands or even millions of nodes and ways, the
> whole thing is falling apart.
>
> So...
>
> I propose that we grow up a little and use something like this process:
>
> - Tags are proposed on the wiki, no change to current practice
> - If the proposal throws into question existing, accepted tags, defer the
> proposal to small working groups
> - These working groups study the wider questions and formulate a complete
> proposal for new tags, deprecation, etc.
> - At SOTM present and discuss their proposals and vote
> - If proposals are accepted, a combination of carrot (rendering
> stylesheets, Potlatch presets, etc.) and sticks (error checking,
> auto-correcting bots) to implement the accepted proposals
>
> So for example Nick Whitelegg and Martin Simon might lead a group to work
> out how best to tag paths of all kinds. If their proposal was accepted at
> SOTM 2010, somebody would create a map highlighting all the ways that
> probably need to be corrected and a massive effort to bring things in line
> with the new schema would kick off.
>
> Does this sound workable?
>
> Regards,
> Tom
>
> ___
> talk mailing list
> talk@openstreetmap.org
> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

[OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Lauri Kytömaa]

Nop wrote:
>I think we should step back one step.
>The discussion here seems about to fall victim to the same mechanisms


Trying to keep my comment general at first to find what are the needs:
what should be in the highway tag and what are "local factors". This
turned into a stream of thoughts but hopefully coherent enough to
breed some more refined thoughts.


Things that all agree on:

highway=footway:
Something, where walking is allowed and possible for someone.
(walking might be and is allowed and possible elsewhere, too)

highway=cycleway:
something, where cycling is allowed and possible
(even a German dedicated/signposted cycleway fits that description,
i.e. it's not a oneway dependency - not all things tagged
highway=cycleway are german signposted cycleways). Pedestrian access
undefined - might be country dependent but not supported (yet), so
there has about always been a suggestion in the wiki to always tag it
with foot=no/yes/designated.

highway=path:
something not wide enough for four wheeled vehicles OR where
motorvehicles are forbidden (unless otherwise indicated by
snowmobile/agricultural=designated or similar).

Anything with
wheelchair=no: unsuitable for wheelchair users or other mobility
impaired

Anything with
highway=footway + foot=no (+ snowmobile=yes) would be silly

highway=track
implies that it's wide enough for a small motorcar to drive on,
even if it's illegal.



Things that people don't agree on:

1) Is a highway=cycleway + foot=yes any different from a
highway=footway + bicycle=yes
2) Is it significant if there signs read "footway + bicycle allowed"
or "combined foot and cycleway" (presumably a difference in the legal
"maxspeed" at least in Germany)
3a) is a forest trail any different from a paved sidewalk
3b) is a forest trail any different from an unpaved but built footpath
4) is a constructed way with the traffic sign "no motorvehicles" any
different from a constructed way with the traffic sign "combined foot
and cycleway" (or with a cycleway-signpost in the UK)



User needs:
Pedestrian / Cyclist / Horse rider / Urban planner / Statistician /
Safety engineer / Accessibility analyst / Crime investigator ...

A pedestrian considers mostly the surface and the build quality of the
ways _allowed_ to him. A trail in an urban forest (picture 1), formed
by repeated use only, is not usable for an average pedestrian, even if
a normally fit person in sneakers would go for a walk there sometimes,
even if only to walk the dog. A mountain trail is effectively the same,
even if more difficult to use. Just about every person, even in (very)
high heels would walk down (picture 2) if the way hasn't turned into a
puddle of mud. And a western world way constructed for walking usually
doesn't deteriorate that much. Then there's the third variant
in-between (3), which some would use and other's wouldn't.

1) http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Image:06072009(045).jpg
2) http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Image:Path-motorcarnohorseno.jpg
3) http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Image:Path-footyes.jpg

Some cyclist disregard access rights and consider the surface and hills
only, while others would want to drive on dedicated cycleways only; on
those where only cyclists are allowed. Most common cyclist probably
don't care if there are pedestrians involved, they just wan't to use
legal and properly built ways and avoid driving amongst the cars.


Horse riding is something to think about, too.

For signposted bridleways it's quite unambiguous, even if a British
bridleway allows pedestrians and cyclists, too, whereas the German
(and Finnish) legally signposted bridleways allow neither.

But on a built way signposted as "no motor vehicles" horse riding might
be legal, but if it's signposted as a footway, cycleway or the
"combined foot and cycleway" (picture 4), horse riding is not allowed.
4) http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Image:Path-lighttraffic.jpg

On the forest trails (picture 1 again) horse riding might again be
legal or private/permissive. If the picture 2 didn't have the "no
horses" sign, I'd think around here that it's legal to ride a horse
there.

City planners possibly need to consider if the way is signposted for
combined use or with a "no motor vehicles" - first ones the city might
have to keep in good walking condition to avoid expenses when someone
breaks his bike because of the unfixed potholes but the latter ways
don't possibly carry such limitations. On the other hand that doesn't
usually interest the cyclists at all even if it is so.

This can and does have implications when dedicing where to build the 
light traffic ways in the next suburb to be built - or where to add new 
cycleways to improve the percentage of cycling commuters.

Statisticians and safety engineers could want to know whether
(un)segregated shared use paths have more fatalities or broken legs
(or wild angry goose or ice cream eaters) than some other ways allowed
to cyclists and/or pedestrians. They're interested in al

Re: [OSM-talk] A process for rethinking map features

[John Smith]

--- On Mon, 10/8/09, Tom Chance  wrote:

> Does this sound workable?

I agree in principal, however if a vote is only conducted in person at the SOTM 
events it penalises everyone unable to attend.

If you are going to the trouble to create a working group to nut out complex 
issues they should more or less have the ability to enact a solution.


  

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Lauris Bukšis-Haberkorns]

2009/8/10 Lester Caine :
> Lauris Bukšis-Haberkorns wrote:
>
> This is missing the point completely :(
> Micro mapping needs to have a SEPARATE way for this. Just the short distance
> between my own road and the next village has several changes of side and
> position for the footpath, which simply adding tags to the existing ways does
> not properly address!
>
> This is a case of the distinct difference between 'highway' defines
> everything, and mapping the actual features rather than guessing where they
> are relative to some vaguely connected highway. If we are never going to
> provide high resolution maps, then the guestimate method works, at some point,
> actual road widths become important, as does additional features either side
> of those roads?
>
> Once you start adding this sort of fine detail it has to be done as a separate
>  object. Breaking up a simply way every time the footpath detail changes, and
> then trying to combine that with additional ways where they fall a bit further
> way from the road is what needs to be avoided?

I think that both ways should coexist. In city most of the roads have
footway just next to it and in these cases just adding footway=both
and footway.width=x (or what ever syntax is decided) will make things
a lot easier. In this case if adding separate ways for footway there
will be three times more ways and it will be really hard to maintain
such map if something changes. Also it will be easier to specify rules
to renderer as I think that not everyone will need to render footways
near ways while footways in parks are still important.
Of course footway proposal is not complete enough as I would like it
to see but that could be discussed.
I completely agree with you that it wont work in all situations so
both schemes should coexist. If we want later to move to one scheme
footway tag could be easily converted from footway=both + width (or
default width if not specified) to separate way.

Lauris

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] radioactivity

[John Smith]

--- On Mon, 10/8/09, Paul Houle  wrote:
>      The nuke industry isn't perfect
> either.  The operation of "once 

No but they've had a lot more practice in the mean time of what not to do :)

I really love how everyone is so hell bent on making everyone so poor they 
can't afford to heat their homes, but they won't touch nuclear, and there is 
only 2 types of power plants that can produce base loads, especially in 
Australia where water isn't as abundant to do hydro on a big enough scale.




  

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] A process for rethinking map features

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

I hope it were faster than annually at SOTM and that the voting be more
participatory since not everyone involved can be at SOTM.

But anyway, I like the idea of working groups to handle individual schema
upgrades.

On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 10:49 PM, Tom Chance  wrote:

>
> Dear all,
>
> If the wood/forest and path/footway arguments have taught us one thing,
> it's that the current model doesn't work all the time (100s of emails,
> disorganised wiki discussions, votes with 20 or so random people). We
> develop, over years, one set of tags like
> highway=footway/cycleway/bridleway/etc. and then over time we realise the
> schema isn't quite right. But we're incapable of discussing it in a
> structured manner, and we rarely get a useful consensus.
>
> For simple matters like proposing a completely new, minor tag it's fine.
> Where competing proposals for new features, like house numbers, live side
> by side we generally find a superior solution gaining traction.
>
> Where proposals throw up bigger or more complicated questions about
> existing tags, used on thousands or even millions of nodes and ways, the
> whole thing is falling apart.
>
> So...
>
> I propose that we grow up a little and use something like this process:
>
> - Tags are proposed on the wiki, no change to current practice
> - If the proposal throws into question existing, accepted tags, defer the
> proposal to small working groups
> - These working groups study the wider questions and formulate a complete
> proposal for new tags, deprecation, etc.
> - At SOTM present and discuss their proposals and vote
> - If proposals are accepted, a combination of carrot (rendering
> stylesheets, Potlatch presets, etc.) and sticks (error checking,
> auto-correcting bots) to implement the accepted proposals
>
> So for example Nick Whitelegg and Martin Simon might lead a group to work
> out how best to tag paths of all kinds. If their proposal was accepted at
> SOTM 2010, somebody would create a map highlighting all the ways that
> probably need to be corrected and a massive effort to bring things in line
> with the new schema would kick off.
>
> Does this sound workable?
>
> Regards,
> Tom
>
> ___
> talk mailing list
> talk@openstreetmap.org
> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
>



-- 
http://vaes9.codedgraphic.com
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Pieren]

On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 5:11 PM, Martin
Koppenhoefer wrote:

I can give the French interpretation of this, and it is quite closed
to the Italian and German's.
We use highway=footway when it is clearly designated for pedestrians
(indicated with
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Image:Fr-B22b-Obligatoire_pour_les_pietons.gif)
or when bikes are not allowed like in parks or around buildings. Most
of them are in urban zones. Same for cycleway which are designated for
bikers (pedestrians are just tolerated but there is a traffic sign
saying it is a cycleway).
We use highway=path when it is not designated for a particular type of
user and is narrower than a track (one vs two parallel dips). And most
of the time, we find them in rural zones.

Pieren

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

[OSM-talk] Fixed version of srtm2osm

[Nop]

Hi!


The contour tool srtm2osm used to be broken due to two server changes by
NASA and a change from FTP to HTML download.

A fix was provided by Bodo Meisner and the new and working version
srtm2osm 1.7 can be downloaded via the wiki page.
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Srtm2osm

bye
Nop



___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] GPS Accuracy under Forest Canopy

[Apollinaris Schoell]

>My Garmin eTrex HCx makes reasonable tracks under forest cover,
> although the tracks are certainly worse under forest than under a  
> clear
> sky.  It's not the cheapest GPS unit you can get,  but it's reasonably
> priced and it's a great navigator to enjoy both OSM and commercial  
> maps
> on foot or sitting in the passenger seat of a car.  The ability to see
> my own track has gotten me "unlost" more than once;  it seems that  
> once
> I've gotten into GPS mapping I've been more aggressive about going  
> into
> unfamilliar and confusing terrain,  so I've been getting lost more!
>

compared to a SiRF III powered the eTrex is pretty lame in accuracy.  
but it uses less power and runs twice as long on a set of batteries

>I think of track accuracy from a practical viewpoint.  Having a
> trail off by 20 meters isn't so important so long as I get the  
> topology
> right.
>

+1, and only the rich guys with expensive tools will ever figure out  
how bad your track was.

>  I walked a segment of trail that followed a creek and always stayed  
> by
> one side:  when I looked at the tracks overlaid with Garmin's Topo
> 2008,  I saw the track crossing the creek.  I was often within 10  
> meters
> of the creek,  so this isn't 'crazy'  If I'm loading this into OSM and
> if the creek is there,  I certainly feel pressured to manually push  
> the
> trail across the creek so that the trail doesn't show false creek
> crossings:  that's an error that people when they're using the map and
> could even cause confusion.
>

this is very important. consistency and relative positions wins over  
accuracy of a single point.
traditional maps are always consistent but rarely accuract.

>As for speed,  it's an issue that GPS errors have a "brown noise"
> characteristic:  they look worse on longer timescales.  If you're
> standing at one place and your GPS seems to be swirling around in lazy
> nested circles,  it looks real bad.  It's hard to average the
> coordinates to get a betting point position.  If you take a track or  
> go
> walking for 4 miles or drive 40 miles in your car,  that craziness is
> still there,  but it's made invisible by the scale of the map.
>
>
> ___
> talk mailing list
> talk@openstreetmap.org
> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] A process for rethinking map features

[Nop]

Hi!

Martin Koppenhoefer schrieb:
> 2009/8/10 Tom Chance :
>> out how best to tag paths of all kinds. If their proposal was accepted at
>> SOTM 2010, ...
>>
>> Does this sound workable?
> 
> it surely doesn't speed up things ;-)

It does. Any speed is faster than going in circles. :-)


bye
Nop


___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] radioactivity

[Paul Houle]

Nic Roets wrote:
>
> Many scientific labs and hospitals work with radio active materials 
> within an appropriate legal and enforcement framework. That may 
> include placing of signs at the perimeter of the premises. In those 
> cases we should tag it.
>
> But people have an irrational fear of radioactivity. We certainly 
> don't want mappers to draw they own conclusions. For example, if a 
> site is storing depleted uranium, that does not mean that the public 
> should be worried. The level of radiation may be so low that it is not 
> harmful to humans.
>
+1

Radioactivity is just one of many man-made hazards,  and,  overall,  
people overestimate it's danger compared to other hazards and often 
don't understand the real hazards.  If you're going to tag radioactive 
hazards,  you ought to be tagging other hazards as well.  In Upstate NY 
there are a large number of industrial "brownfield sites" that are still 
contaminated with heavy metals,  hazardous organic solvents,  and other 
hazards.  Yes,  in upstate we had the only commercial nuclear 
reprocessing plant in the US (with a sordid story that makes Sellafield 
look golden) but there was also a 40-building complex that manufactured 
film that contaminated a heavily populated area in Binghamton  NY with 
Cadmium and Silver.  Two industrial plants near Ithaca have leaked TCE 
and other solvents,  affecting an elementary school,  nursing home and 
the entire South Hill neighborhood.

Note that these hazards are both pointwise and diffuse.  For 
instance,  you could be quickly killed by a lethal radiation field if 
you were to go for a swim in a spent fuel storage pond at a nuclear 
reactor.  On the other hand,  there are good procedures in place to 
protect the public and the workers at nuclear plants;  for one thing 
you'd need to get past the fence and armed guards.  There's a 
hypothetical danger there (the glaciers could come and spread the 
contents of a temporary nuclear waste repository across a wide area) but 
no "clear and present" immediate danger.  You might as well tag all the 
roads as dangerous since hundreds of thousands of people get killed in 
automobile accidents every year.

Now,  coal burning power plants release about 300 times as much 
radiation into the environment during normal operation as a nuclear 
power plant.  The issue is that there are trace quantities of uranium 
and it's decay products such as radium and polonium in coal:  the coal 
burning plant in my county consumes about 120 freight cars of coal every 
day,  to produce only 1/3 the power of a typical nuclear plant,  which 
consumes 1 kg of U235 and produces about 1 kg of fission products every 
day.  It deposits a fallout plume for hundreds of miles,  which includes 
radioactive elements,  sulfur compounds and which contributes to lung 
and heart diseases.  It emits more carbon dioxide,  as a point source,  
than all of the other activities in the county put together,  but yet,  
by some Jedi Mind Trick,  it was left out of a report on "Global Warming 
In Tompkins County" since they charged CO^2 emissions to the places 
where electricity is used,  not where it is produced.

 The nuke industry isn't perfect either.  The operation of "once 
through" plutonium production reactors at Hanford has deposited 
radioactive contamination into sediments downstream in the Colombia 
river.  Early tank storage systems at Hanford were criminally 
inadequate,  and have leaked plumes of FP and TRU contamination that are 
migrating to the Colombia.  Yet,  Hanford didn't drive Salmon and Trout 
to the verge of extinction:  that was done by hydroelectric dams and 
overfishing.  SRS did a much better (but not perfect) job of tank 
storage,  and future commercial reprocessing operations at SRS won't 
need tank storage at all.

On top of all that,  the hazard of environmental contamination is 
distributed oddly in space.  If you put a dab of a strong essential oil 
on your skin and spend a few hours in your house,  it's quite 
entertaining to sniff around the next day and try to explain the spatial 
distribution of the odor.  You might find that somebody else sits down,  
picks up the odor and their clothes,  and distributes it to a room that 
you didn't go in.  Similarly,  you'd think that DDT and PCB 
contamination would be worst in places close to where these substances 
were used.  However,  if you look at tissue concentrations in wild 
animals,  you'll find shockingly high levels of contamination in arctic 
animal populations in places that are basically uninhabited -- food webs 
work like that.


   

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] to all potlatch and JOSM users - automatic simplification of geometry

[Apollinaris Schoell]

On Aug 10, 2009, at 7:45 AM, Nop wrote:

>
> Hi!
>
> Apollinaris Schoell schrieb:
>>> To prevent accidential damage, there could be a warning when you are
>>> using it in a dangerous or most likely harmful way. E.g. more than  
>>> 10
>>> ways are selected or using it on ways that already have less than 10
>>> nodes.
>>>
>> use the plugin and if you miss features file a trac ticket.
>> but you will see it's all builtin already 
>
> How many users do you think are using JOSM?
>
> How many of those have any idea what trac is?
>
> I am not missing those features, I already did some damage simplyfying
> ways and learned from it. This is about future users.
>

the warnings are builtin, don't understand how you can do big damage.
the default for simplify is aggressive but everyone able to download a  
plugin will also watch the change when done the first time.  I  
considered to file a ticket for the default value but didn't see a  
need. I don't think newbies use this function a lot but I might be  
completely wrong.


>
> bye
>   Nop
>
> ___
> talk mailing list
> talk@openstreetmap.org
> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Martin Koppenhoefer]

2009/8/10 Lester Caine :
>> This must be discussed, completed and accepted asap so more people
>> could start using it without fear that it would change..
>> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/Footway
>
> This is missing the point completely :(
> Micro mapping needs to have a SEPARATE way for this.

+1

cheers,
Martin

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Martin Simon]

2009/8/10 Tom Chance :

> It's important for OpenStreetMap to have some coherence.
>
> It's quite important that you and I both agree that "chair" refers to a
> piece of furniture on which we sit. Imagine if you used the word "chair" to
> refer to a small furry pet that meows and likes fish! We can't have a
> situation where - as others have pointed out - we have people using a
> particular tag in many different ways.

Agreed. The problem with path (the one I call a problem, too) is IMHO
that there are people who don't like this tagging scheme or think it's
unneccessary (which is not a problem for me), but instead of just not
using it and staying with footway/cycleway/bridleway, they think
"well, but its there and gets rendered, lets use it for something else
(e.g. "very narrow way in the forest") and change the wiki page".
*zap* - a small furry pet that meows and likes fish. ;-)

> It also helps if we stick to one way of describing any particular thing.
> It's lovely that in England we have "cow shed" and "byre" and many other
> phrases for the same object. But when you're writing a stylesheet for
> Mapnik, or trying to download an extract, or writing a routing algorithm,
> your task is made ten times more difficult if you have to keep adding lots
> of alternative ways of describing the same thing.

Yes, it helps, but it's IMHO better to come up with a new way to
describe something rather than changing the meaning of long-existing,
widely used and important tags...

> We don't need to force anybody to do anything, but here are some basic ways
> in we can encourage a more coherent approach:
>
> - discussions at SOTM or regional meetings
> - a well managed wiki (hah!)
> - stylesheets for Mapnik and ti...@home (both a bit out of hand, as Andy
> Allan says)
> - presets in Potlatch and JOSM
> - error checking tools
> - even bots that try to correct very minor errors like s/cahtolic/catholic/

Okay, no problem with that, as long as alternative ways of tagging
like highway=path are not treated as errors.

> I would support removing highway=path from Potlatch and JOSM and the Mapnik
> stylesheet until a wiki page is drawn up which unambiguously describes how
> it should be used. If it duplicates or replaces existing tags, that should
> be properly resolved.

That would be at least one step too far in my eyes. But a better wiki
page would be great.

> There's a big difference, Simon. Nobody had yet accepted any addressing
> schema, none of the community mechanisms I listed above properly supported
> any one approach, until the breakthrough. Now that approach is gradually
> being properly supported. It's a case of the anarchic approach working
> quite well, partly by luck.
>
> In this case, you have a tag which duplicates and possibly replaces
> existing tags; which nobody can agree on the definition for; and which is
> interpreted by different tools in different ways. That's a big step
> backwards.

Simon is actually the last name ;)
Yes, this is a bigger move than the breaktrough of the Karlsruhe
Schema, but for example post_code=12345 was already quite popular, so
the Karlsruhe guys used addr:post_code=12345. In my opinion a good
decision, because it clearly showed that objects tagged this way refer
to the Karlsruhe Schema, which is well documented in the wiki.

We had a similar situation when highway=path started, before different
groups made up thier own definitions, differing from the original
proposal...

-Martin

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] GPS Accuracy under Forest Canopy

[Paul Houle]

Stephen Hope wrote:
> I've done some rain-forest hiking, and I've noticed similar results.
> If you really want to see some wandering tracks, try hiking along the
> base of some cliffs, in dense forest.
>
> I have noticed that the errors do seems to be less the faster I'm
> moving.  If I stand in one place for a while, the path can wander over
> quite an area if there is dense cover.  If I walk fairly quickly, then
> it still has errors, but not as large.  I think it must be finding
> more open patches and correcting itself more often.
>
>   
My Garmin eTrex HCx makes reasonable tracks under forest cover,  
although the tracks are certainly worse under forest than under a clear 
sky.  It's not the cheapest GPS unit you can get,  but it's reasonably 
priced and it's a great navigator to enjoy both OSM and commercial maps 
on foot or sitting in the passenger seat of a car.  The ability to see 
my own track has gotten me "unlost" more than once;  it seems that once 
I've gotten into GPS mapping I've been more aggressive about going into 
unfamilliar and confusing terrain,  so I've been getting lost more!

I think of track accuracy from a practical viewpoint.  Having a 
trail off by 20 meters isn't so important so long as I get the topology 
right.

  I walked a segment of trail that followed a creek and always stayed by 
one side:  when I looked at the tracks overlaid with Garmin's Topo 
2008,  I saw the track crossing the creek.  I was often within 10 meters 
of the creek,  so this isn't 'crazy'  If I'm loading this into OSM and 
if the creek is there,  I certainly feel pressured to manually push the 
trail across the creek so that the trail doesn't show false creek 
crossings:  that's an error that people when they're using the map and 
could even cause confusion.

As for speed,  it's an issue that GPS errors have a "brown noise" 
characteristic:  they look worse on longer timescales.  If you're 
standing at one place and your GPS seems to be swirling around in lazy 
nested circles,  it looks real bad.  It's hard to average the 
coordinates to get a betting point position.  If you take a track or go 
walking for 4 miles or drive 40 miles in your car,  that craziness is 
still there,  but it's made invisible by the scale of the map.


___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Apollinaris Schoell]

+1

On Aug 10, 2009, at 6:51 AM, Nick Whitelegg wrote:

> I'll say what I always say these days whenever this subject comes  
> up :-)
>
> That is, I believe the "highway" tag should represent the physical
> surface, not the rights. My current views on this are:
>
> highway=track - a dirt/stone track, theoretically usable for off road
> vehicles (though not necessarily any legal right)
> highway=path - a narrow path, typically with mud/stone surface
> highway=path; surface=paved - a concrete path typically used in urban
> areas, what most people are using "footway" for
>
> Then, the actual rights should be defines using foot, horse, etc.  
> foot=yes
> has more or less become unusable, as different people mean different
> things, so therefore foot should be no, private, permissive (use  
> granted
> by landowner) or designated (a legal right, such as a UK public  
> footpath,
> or - though my knowledge of German or Swiss law on rights of way is  
> not
> good - waymarked paths in Germany or Switzerland such as the "yellow
> diamond" routes in the Schwarzwald or the red/white waymarked mountain
> paths in Switzerland).
>
> As an alternative to foot/horse etc one could use the "designation"  
> tag
> such as designation=public_footpath or public_bridleway,
> designation=cycleway for an official cycleway, or (at a guess for
> Switzerland, I may be wrong)  "gelb", "rot/weiss" and "blau/weiss"  
> for the
> different types of path with different difficulties.
>
> Things like highway=bridleway or cycleway I would prefer to see
> deprecated, and replaced by path/track with surface/bicycle/horse  
> tags,
> though I still tag with them as that is the generally-accepted way of
> tagging bridleways and cycleways.
>
> Nick
>
> ___
> talk mailing list
> talk@openstreetmap.org
> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] A process for rethinking map features

[Martin Koppenhoefer]

2009/8/10 Tom Chance :
> out how best to tag paths of all kinds. If their proposal was accepted at
> SOTM 2010, ...
>
> Does this sound workable?

it surely doesn't speed up things ;-)

cheers,
Martin

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] to all potlatch and JOSM users - automatic simplification of geometry

[Martin Koppenhoefer]

2009/8/10 Nop :
>
> Hi!
>
> Apollinaris Schoell schrieb:
>>> To prevent accidential damage, there could be a warning when you are
>>> using it in a dangerous or most likely harmful way. E.g. more than 10
>>> ways are selected or using it on ways that already have less than 10
>>> nodes.

IMHO let not apply it to more than 1 way at a time will be an
approach. If we agree that it is in every case necessary to manually
control the effect of this function, why should you apply it to more
than 1 way?

> I am not missing those features, I already did some damage simplyfying
> ways and learned from it. This is about future users.
+1
and NOP is a poweruser. Imagine hundreds or thousands of users that
don't want to follow the mailing-list and read the wiki twice a month
but just do some occasional mapping.

cheers,
Martin

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

[OSM-talk] A process for rethinking map features

[Tom Chance]

Dear all,

If the wood/forest and path/footway arguments have taught us one thing,
it's that the current model doesn't work all the time (100s of emails,
disorganised wiki discussions, votes with 20 or so random people). We
develop, over years, one set of tags like
highway=footway/cycleway/bridleway/etc. and then over time we realise the
schema isn't quite right. But we're incapable of discussing it in a
structured manner, and we rarely get a useful consensus.

For simple matters like proposing a completely new, minor tag it's fine.
Where competing proposals for new features, like house numbers, live side
by side we generally find a superior solution gaining traction.

Where proposals throw up bigger or more complicated questions about
existing tags, used on thousands or even millions of nodes and ways, the
whole thing is falling apart.

So...

I propose that we grow up a little and use something like this process:

- Tags are proposed on the wiki, no change to current practice
- If the proposal throws into question existing, accepted tags, defer the
proposal to small working groups
- These working groups study the wider questions and formulate a complete
proposal for new tags, deprecation, etc.
- At SOTM present and discuss their proposals and vote
- If proposals are accepted, a combination of carrot (rendering
stylesheets, Potlatch presets, etc.) and sticks (error checking,
auto-correcting bots) to implement the accepted proposals

So for example Nick Whitelegg and Martin Simon might lead a group to work
out how best to tag paths of all kinds. If their proposal was accepted at
SOTM 2010, somebody would create a map highlighting all the ways that
probably need to be corrected and a massive effort to bring things in line
with the new schema would kick off.

Does this sound workable?

Regards,
Tom

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] to all potlatch and JOSM users - automatic simplification of geometry

[Nop]

Hi!

Apollinaris Schoell schrieb:
>> To prevent accidential damage, there could be a warning when you are
>> using it in a dangerous or most likely harmful way. E.g. more than 10
>> ways are selected or using it on ways that already have less than 10 
>> nodes.
>>
> use the plugin and if you miss features file a trac ticket.
> but you will see it's all builtin already 

How many users do you think are using JOSM?

How many of those have any idea what trac is?

I am not missing those features, I already did some damage simplyfying 
ways and learned from it. This is about future users.


bye
Nop

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Tom Chance]

On Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:06:12 +0200, Nop  wrote:
> I think the main questions are:
> 
> - Can we agree on a common interpretation of what foot/cycleway are
> supposed to mean?
> - Do we want a general meaning for every country, delegating local
> specifics to other tags, or a local meaning dependent on a countries
> specific conditions?
> 
> - Can we use the existing access-Tags to describe the exact rules of
> traffic e.g. in Germany (which seems to have the highest requirements so
> far) and agree on the meaning there, too, or do we need to invent a
> whole new scheme for local specifics?
> 
> - Do we tag generic trails as highway=path or does this tag have a more
> complex meaning?
> 
> Can we try to discuss the problem at this level before proposing
> detailed tagging schemes?
> 
> 
> There is also the questions which is important but should not be mixed
in:
> 
> - how can we get a coherent tagging model for OSM?

+1 to the above.

Incidentally, I personally think that Nick Whitelegg's reasoning is sound,
and that ideally something like the path proposal *should* replace and
deprecate footway, cycleway, etc.

But we really need to change the way we develop our tags, so that a more
sensible procedure along the lines Nop proposed can actually be
implemented. I'm going to start a new thread with a thought on that.

Regards,
Tom

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Apollinaris Schoell]

On Aug 10, 2009, at 4:32 AM, Tom Chance wrote:

> Which do we go for? We can't have this stupid, unclear fudge.
>

Yes we can it's OSM it's anarchy :)

> Regards,
> Tom


___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] GPS Accuracy under Forest Canopy

[Mike N.]

--
From: "Stephen Hope" 

> I've done some rain-forest hiking, and I've noticed similar results.
> If you really want to see some wandering tracks, try hiking along the
> base of some cliffs, in dense forest.

   The area I was in was in a steep valley, and some areas are really wild. 
In the example

http://home.att.net/~niceman/GPXTrace.jpg

 The upper left trace is mostly correct with the direction of travel shown. 
Point #1  I believe to be very accurate because it emerges in the correct 
corner of the parking lot.   After I spent time in the parking lot and 
retraced, the error level jumps to the 100 meter range and stays there.

  It will be interesting to compare when the leaves fall.
 


___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] GPX on OSM slippymap?

[Rejo Zenger]

++ 10/08/09 13:02 +0200 - Igor Brejc:
>Is there a way to display an uploaded GPX on the OSM slippymap?  
>Something similar to how you can highlight an OSM way, node or 
>relation: http://
>www.openstreetmap.org/?way=31904301
>
>I took some friends on a hiking tour and I wanted to send them a simple URL
>with the indicated track, since I've already uploaded the GPX for mapping
>purposes.

I have made a small script (based on the documentation on the wiki) that 
allows you to quickly render a GPX file on an OSM slippy map. 

To use this, append the URL to the GPX file at:

  https://rejo.zenger.nl/topo/osm/?fn=[url-to-gpx-file]

That's it. 

For example:

  


If that works and you want to include it into some webpage, use:

  https://rejo.zenger.nl/topo/osm/?fn=[url-of-track]"; 
  width="[width-of-embedded-image]" height="[height-of-embedded-image]" 
  frameborder="0">

You may add some variables to the URL which adjust the rendering of the 
GPX track on the Openstreetmap. By adding "&sc=black&sw=10&so=0.4" you 
would set the track to appear as a thick black and highly transparant, 
where the default is a medium thick, red and half-transparant line.

There is some more information at:

  

And there is some background information at:

  


-- 
Rejo Zenger .  . 0x21DBEFD4 . 
GPG encrypted e-mail prefered. 


signature.asc
Description: Digital signature
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] to all potlatch and JOSM users - automatic simplification of geometry

[Apollinaris Schoell]

>
> To prevent accidential damage, there could be a warning when you are
> using it in a dangerous or most likely harmful way. E.g. more than 10
> ways are selected or using it on ways that already have less than 10  
> nodes.
>

use the plugin and if you miss features file a trac ticket.
but you will see it's all builtin already 


> bye
>   Nop
>
>
> ___
> talk mailing list
> talk@openstreetmap.org
> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk


___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Lester Caine]

Lauris Bukšis-Haberkorns wrote:
>> Add separate tracks for the footpaths associated with a highway
>> footway=side
>> footway=in_verge
> 
> but this something that would be really great as most, but not all of
> the roads have footways in one or both sides and that would make
> tagging such thing easily.
> 
> This must be discussed, completed and accepted asap so more people
> could start using it without fear that it would change..
> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/Footway

This is missing the point completely :(
Micro mapping needs to have a SEPARATE way for this. Just the short distance 
between my own road and the next village has several changes of side and 
position for the footpath, which simply adding tags to the existing ways does 
not properly address!

This is a case of the distinct difference between 'highway' defines 
everything, and mapping the actual features rather than guessing where they 
are relative to some vaguely connected highway. If we are never going to 
provide high resolution maps, then the guestimate method works, at some point, 
actual road widths become important, as does additional features either side 
of those roads?

Once you start adding this sort of fine detail it has to be done as a separate 
  object. Breaking up a simply way every time the footpath detail changes, and 
then trying to combine that with additional ways where they fall a bit further 
way from the road is what needs to be avoided?

-- 
Lester Caine - G8HFL
-
Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=contact
L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk
EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/
Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk//
Firebird - http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Emilie Laffray]

2009/8/10 Nop 

>
>
> Hi!
>
> Liz schrieb:
> > would a suggestion made on the talk-au list in which highway=footway and
> > highway=cycleway be deprecated and be replaced by
>
> I think we should step back one step.
>
> The discussion here seems about to fall victim to the same mechanisms
> that produced the present chaos. Different people/groups think they have
> solved the problem for their (local) use cases and are arguing in favor
> of their solution, which usually involves interpreting existing tags in
> a specific way. I am glad that this topic has come up - and of course I
> have my own ready-made suggestion for a solution - but I suggest we look
> at the problems and goals again before we go for a specific solution
> attempt.
>
>
> I think the main questions are:
>
> - Can we agree on a common interpretation of what foot/cycleway are
> supposed to mean?
> - Do we want a general meaning for every country, delegating local
> specifics to other tags, or a local meaning dependent on a countries
> specific conditions?
>
> - Can we use the existing access-Tags to describe the exact rules of
> traffic e.g. in Germany (which seems to have the highest requirements so
> far) and agree on the meaning there, too, or do we need to invent a
> whole new scheme for local specifics?
>
> - Do we tag generic trails as highway=path or does this tag have a more
> complex meaning?
>
> Can we try to discuss the problem at this level before proposing
> detailed tagging schemes?
>
>
> There is also the questions which is important but should not be mixed in:
>
> - how can we get a coherent tagging model for OSM?
>
> +1 For the general email.
Agreeing on the definition first is always a good first step to construct
something.

Emilie Laffray
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Nop]

Hi!

Liz schrieb:
> would a suggestion made on the talk-au list in which highway=footway and 
> highway=cycleway be deprecated and be replaced by 

I think we should step back one step.

The discussion here seems about to fall victim to the same mechanisms
that produced the present chaos. Different people/groups think they have
solved the problem for their (local) use cases and are arguing in favor
of their solution, which usually involves interpreting existing tags in
a specific way. I am glad that this topic has come up - and of course I
have my own ready-made suggestion for a solution - but I suggest we look
at the problems and goals again before we go for a specific solution
attempt.


I think the main questions are:

- Can we agree on a common interpretation of what foot/cycleway are
supposed to mean?
- Do we want a general meaning for every country, delegating local
specifics to other tags, or a local meaning dependent on a countries
specific conditions?

- Can we use the existing access-Tags to describe the exact rules of
traffic e.g. in Germany (which seems to have the highest requirements so
far) and agree on the meaning there, too, or do we need to invent a
whole new scheme for local specifics?

- Do we tag generic trails as highway=path or does this tag have a more
complex meaning?

Can we try to discuss the problem at this level before proposing
detailed tagging schemes?


There is also the questions which is important but should not be mixed in:

- how can we get a coherent tagging model for OSM?


bye
Nop


___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Do we care if its forest or wood? Natural worldmapping ...

[Gustav Foseid]

On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 12:17 AM, Jason Cunningham
wrote:

> Looking at the discussion Mike Harris has already suggested the tags I
> would suggest, but I may as well repeat them
> natural=woodland  land covered with trees (Minimum Crown Cover = 20%)


Sounds like a good idea to me.


> landuse=forestry
>

I am not so sure about this. Combining landuse and natural is not normally
done (?) and I think forestry can be assumed outside of conservation areas.

 - Gusatv
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Nick Whitelegg]

I'll say what I always say these days whenever this subject comes up :-) 

That is, I believe the "highway" tag should represent the physical 
surface, not the rights. My current views on this are:

highway=track - a dirt/stone track, theoretically usable for off road 
vehicles (though not necessarily any legal right)
highway=path - a narrow path, typically with mud/stone surface
highway=path; surface=paved - a concrete path typically used in urban 
areas, what most people are using "footway" for

Then, the actual rights should be defines using foot, horse, etc. foot=yes 
has more or less become unusable, as different people mean different 
things, so therefore foot should be no, private, permissive (use granted 
by landowner) or designated (a legal right, such as a UK public footpath, 
or - though my knowledge of German or Swiss law on rights of way is not 
good - waymarked paths in Germany or Switzerland such as the "yellow 
diamond" routes in the Schwarzwald or the red/white waymarked mountain 
paths in Switzerland).

As an alternative to foot/horse etc one could use the "designation" tag 
such as designation=public_footpath or public_bridleway, 
designation=cycleway for an official cycleway, or (at a guess for 
Switzerland, I may be wrong)  "gelb", "rot/weiss" and "blau/weiss" for the 
different types of path with different difficulties.

Things like highway=bridleway or cycleway I would prefer to see 
deprecated, and replaced by path/track with surface/bicycle/horse tags, 
though I still tag with them as that is the generally-accepted way of 
tagging bridleways and cycleways.

Nick

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Lauris Bukšis-Haberkorns]

2009/8/10 Lester Caine :
> Liz wrote:
>
> Following on from the 'discussion' on this list ...
> drop highway=cycleway and highway=foot?

That would be bad idea

>
> Add separate tracks for the footpaths associated with a highway
> footway=side
> footway=in_verge

but this something that would be really great as most, but not all of
the roads have footways in one or both sides and that would make
tagging such thing easily.

This must be discussed, completed and accepted asap so more people
could start using it without fear that it would change..
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/Footway

>
> I currently HAVE a highway=secondary, and now I need to add the detail such as
> which side there is a 'sidewalk' or path isolated from the main way by a grass
> verge. We ONLY need the one highway= as that provides the vehicle routing, but
> that is not suitable for pedestrian use ( although it can be ). There are
> sections of footpath running alongside the road, or in the verge, and the
> pedestrian has to cross the road at some points to follow the safe footway ...
> along with footpaths isolated from the main road, but which are the pedestrian
> route associated with the 'highway'.
>
> Separate cycleways get their own tags as well, which may also be the prefered
> foot route, but I think that what is now adding to the confusion is creating
> additional 'highway' routes, which are not really part of the 'highway' grid?
> We separate waterway and indicate their tow-paths, but these really form part
> of the footpath grid rather than the canal network.
>
> --
> Lester Caine - G8HFL
> -
> Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=contact
> L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk
> EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/
> Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk//
> Firebird - http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php
>
> ___
> talk mailing list
> talk@openstreetmap.org
> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
>

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Nop]

Hi!

Martin Koppenhoefer schrieb:
> the same thing that people wanted to achieve with path (expressing the
> official designation) can be achieved with those
> foot-/cycle-/bridleway by adding supplementory tags like
> xy=designated, xy=official. Therefore I would consider the introdution
> of path a bad decision.

Then you are still missing a tag for the general purpose path where you 
don't know any more details except it is not a road.

bye
Nop


___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Tom Chance]

On Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:00:06 +0200, Martin Simon wrote:
>> You've just explained that there are two different ways of tagging the
>> same thing, and suggested that both are equally valid. That's pointless
and
>> confusing.
> 
> What would you like to do? Force Mappers to use path? Automated
> mass-retagging of existing footways/cycleways/bridleways?
> Or just keep the "old" system because  "there must not be another way
> to do it, even if its more flexible"?

It's important for OpenStreetMap to have some coherence.

It's quite important that you and I both agree that "chair" refers to a
piece of furniture on which we sit. Imagine if you used the word "chair" to
refer to a small furry pet that meows and likes fish! We can't have a
situation where - as others have pointed out - we have people using a
particular tag in many different ways.

It also helps if we stick to one way of describing any particular thing.
It's lovely that in England we have "cow shed" and "byre" and many other
phrases for the same object. But when you're writing a stylesheet for
Mapnik, or trying to download an extract, or writing a routing algorithm,
your task is made ten times more difficult if you have to keep adding lots
of alternative ways of describing the same thing.

We don't need to force anybody to do anything, but here are some basic ways
in we can encourage a more coherent approach: 

- discussions at SOTM or regional meetings
- a well managed wiki (hah!)
- stylesheets for Mapnik and ti...@home (both a bit out of hand, as Andy
Allan says)
- presets in Potlatch and JOSM
- error checking tools
- even bots that try to correct very minor errors like s/cahtolic/catholic/

I would support removing highway=path from Potlatch and JOSM and the Mapnik
stylesheet until a wiki page is drawn up which unambiguously describes how
it should be used. If it duplicates or replaces existing tags, that should
be properly resolved.


>> Which do we go for? We can't have this stupid, unclear fudge.
> 
> We can. We had this multiple times before. Think of address tagging
> before the Karlsruhe Workshop breaktrough 

There's a big difference, Simon. Nobody had yet accepted any addressing
schema, none of the community mechanisms I listed above properly supported
any one approach, until the breakthrough. Now that approach is gradually
being properly supported. It's a case of the anarchic approach working
quite well, partly by luck.

In this case, you have a tag which duplicates and possibly replaces
existing tags; which nobody can agree on the definition for; and which is
interpreted by different tools in different ways. That's a big step
backwards.

Cheers,
Tom

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Lester Caine]

Liz wrote:
> On Mon, 10 Aug 2009, Nop wrote:
>> - Some mappers are applying footway and cycleway rather indiscriminately
>> to all sorts of ways so it basically only means "not for cars" in some
>> areas
>>
>> In short: It's a mess. :-)
> would a suggestion made on the talk-au list in which highway=footway and 
> highway=cycleway be deprecated and be replaced by 
> path=cycleway
> path=footway
> path=shared
> be logically consistent with the German legal status of cycleways and 
> footways?

Following on from the 'discussion' on this list ...
drop highway=cycleway and highway=foot?

Add separate tracks for the footpaths associated with a highway
footway=side
footway=in_verge

I currently HAVE a highway=secondary, and now I need to add the detail such as 
which side there is a 'sidewalk' or path isolated from the main way by a grass 
verge. We ONLY need the one highway= as that provides the vehicle routing, but 
that is not suitable for pedestrian use ( although it can be ). There are 
sections of footpath running alongside the road, or in the verge, and the 
pedestrian has to cross the road at some points to follow the safe footway ... 
along with footpaths isolated from the main road, but which are the pedestrian 
route associated with the 'highway'.

Separate cycleways get their own tags as well, which may also be the prefered 
foot route, but I think that what is now adding to the confusion is creating 
additional 'highway' routes, which are not really part of the 'highway' grid? 
We separate waterway and indicate their tow-paths, but these really form part 
of the footpath grid rather than the canal network.

-- 
Lester Caine - G8HFL
-
Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=contact
L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk
EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/
Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk//
Firebird - http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] GPX on OSM slippymap?

[Igor Brejc]

Thanks Nic!

Regards,
Igor

On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 1:32 PM, Nic Roets  wrote:

> Hello Igor,
>
> You can go to gpsies.com and give it the URL for the GPX file e.g.
> http://www.openstreetmap.org/trace/475187/data
> After it renders you can choose the OSM slippy map.
>
> Regards,
> Nic
>
> On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 1:02 PM, Igor Brejc  wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> This has probably been asked before, but I couldn't find anything on
>> google.
>>
>> Is there a way to display an uploaded GPX on the OSM slippymap? Something
>> similar to how you can highlight an OSM way, node or relation:
>> http://www.openstreetmap.org/?way=31904301
>>
>> I took some friends on a hiking tour and I wanted to send them a simple
>> URL with the indicated track, since I've already uploaded the GPX for
>> mapping purposes.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Igor
>>
>> ___
>> talk mailing list
>> talk@openstreetmap.org
>> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
>>
>>
>
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Martin Koppenhoefer]

2009/8/10 Tobias Knerr :
> Dave Stubbs wrote:
>> Now it's an organised, and "approved" confused mess where anyone with
>> a clue automatically withdraws from discussions to keep their sanity
>> intact [...] knowing full well that not being there won't make much
>> difference to the eventual stupid decision.
>
> Do you have some examples for bad decisions that were produced by wiki
> voting?
>
> "path" isn't a good example because most of the chaos actually stems
> from people using the pre-ochlocracy foot-/cycle-/bridleway without
> having a common definition for what they actually mean.

the same thing that people wanted to achieve with path (expressing the
official designation) can be achieved with those
foot-/cycle-/bridleway by adding supplementory tags like
xy=designated, xy=official. Therefore I would consider the introdution
of path a bad decision.

cheers,
Martin

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Tobias Knerr]

Dave Stubbs wrote:
> Now it's an organised, and "approved" confused mess where anyone with
> a clue automatically withdraws from discussions to keep their sanity
> intact [...] knowing full well that not being there won't make much
> difference to the eventual stupid decision.

Do you have some examples for bad decisions that were produced by wiki
voting?

"path" isn't a good example because most of the chaos actually stems
from people using the pre-ochlocracy foot-/cycle-/bridleway without
having a common definition for what they actually mean.

Tobias Knerr

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Crazy routing in OpenRouteService

[marcus.wolschon]

On Sun, 9 Aug 2009 19:56:29 +1000, Liz  wrote:
> On Sun, 9 Aug 2009, Steve Hill wrote:
>> Moving the destination slightly closer to another road
>> causes sanity to be resumed.
> I misread sanity as salinity
> and wondered which ocean he was visiting next

Interesting metric.
Routing optimized for maximum buoyancy.

Marcus

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] GPS Accuracy under Forest Canopy

[Stephen Hope]

I've done some rain-forest hiking, and I've noticed similar results.
If you really want to see some wandering tracks, try hiking along the
base of some cliffs, in dense forest.

I have noticed that the errors do seems to be less the faster I'm
moving.  If I stand in one place for a while, the path can wander over
quite an area if there is dense cover.  If I walk fairly quickly, then
it still has errors, but not as large.  I think it must be finding
more open patches and correcting itself more often.

Stephen

2009/8/10 Mike N. :
> I'm using netbook with  just your average $30 GPS dongle to collect data.
> Today I took a 5 mile out-and back hike under dense forest canopy.   The GPX
> traces for the same trail out and back are separated by as much as 100
> meters.
>
>   I didn't record PDOP information and such, but are there any solutions to
> record decent GPS traces on trails under forest canopy data collection other
> than a high end professional GPS datalogger?
>
>
> ___
> talk mailing list
> talk@openstreetmap.org
> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
>

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Martin Koppenhoefer]

2009/8/10 Dave Stubbs :
> Anarchy in tagging died a bit back when some guys on the wiki decided
> ochlocracy was the way to go.
> Tagging used to be occasionally a confused mess.
> Now it's an organised, and "approved" confused mess where anyone with
> a clue automatically withdraws from discussions to keep their sanity
> intact

I was thinking exactly like this for quite a long time, but recently
changed my mind: I noticed that almost all new contributors rely on
the wiki (of course) and map according to what is defined there. I
therefore believe it is important to have at least some basics in a
way in the wiki, that it is there according to the actual usage of the
tags. Also I strongly believe that too much anarchy and contradiction
in the mapping guidelines and suggestions will make newbies turn away
(for the mentioned sanity-reasons).

cheers,
Martin

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Martin Koppenhoefer]

2009/8/10 Martin Simon :
> In the case of a combinet cycle and footway in germany, there is no
> primary purpose, pedestrians and cyclists have equal rights on these
> ways. So I tag "highway=path,bicycle=designated,foot=designated".

but it could be equally tagged as
highway=cycleway
foot=designated

OR:
highway=cycleway
foot=official

that latter was introduced (probably by the same people that already
forced path) to express designated (which was allegedly not used in a
proper way). In the end it seems, that every few month a new tag with
the same meaning of an already existing is introduced to solve the
problem of previously partly uncorrect associated tags. IMHO this
nonsense will not help getting more interpretable / reliable data.

cheers,
Martin

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] GPS Accuracy under Forest Canopy

[Mike N.]

>> You might be able to use sat overlays to estimate the true path.
> won't be more precise though (if you really mean sat and not aerial
> photo). In the end you would be tracing from aerial and use the track
> just as an "reminder".

  For this case, I checked with the Yahoo imagery, and the canopy totally 
obscures the trail.

>> It really depends what options you have available and how much time, 
>> money, effort etc you are willing to spend on it.
> Yes, if you have some time it will be an option to wait for the leaves
> falling in autumn (seriously).

  That's good to know - for most trails in this areas, the canopy consists 
of leaves that will fall.   I wasn't sure if that would improve things.

   Otherwise it'd be a shame not to be able to map the trails - the only 
trail maps currently are on "paid trail sites" or paper maps posted on 
information signboards.

 Thanks,

  Mike 


___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Nop]

Hi!

Tom Chance schrieb:
> The result is a totally unclear fudge which leaves us either with
> needlessly complicated maps, or stylesheets with a long string of "this or
> that or that or that" definitions to describe near-identical features that
> should be rendered in the same way.

It is even worse, as different groups of mappers use exactly the same 
tags with different meanings. This cannot be resolved by rendering rules 
or any other technicyl means.

bye
Nop


___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Martin Simon]

2009/8/10 Tom Chance :

> This is all very nice, but doesn't solve the problem - actually it
> illustrates it.

If you think having path and keep footway/cycleway/bridleway is a
problem: no, this "problem" can hardly ever be solved within OSM.
But it solves the problem of tagging these "minor ways" clearly.

> You've just explained that there are two different ways of tagging the same
> thing, and suggested that both are equally valid. That's pointless and
> confusing.

What would you like to do? Force Mappers to use path? Automated
mass-retagging of existing footways/cycleways/bridleways?
Or just keep the "old" system because  "there must not be another way
to do it, even if its more flexible"?


> But we don't start using highway=path
> as a catch-all for footways, cycleways, bridleways and others just because
> we can capture the same meaning using access, surface, width and other
> tags.

Why not? we can express the same, more flexible. And you know as well
as I do that this not about width and surface, so don't try to make
the "path" system look more complicated than it really is.

> Which do we go for? We can't have this stupid, unclear fudge.

We can. We had this multiple times before. Think of address tagging
before the Karlsruhe Workshop breaktrough or different public
transport tagging(?).

This "problem" will get solved automatically by time if people don't
try to re-define long documented tags because they don't see thier
use...

-Martin

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Dave Stubbs]

On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 11:32 AM, Tom Chance wrote:
>
> On Mon, 10 Aug 2009 12:13:39 +0200, Martin Simon wrote:
>> "Path" was and is intended to provide an alternative tagging scheme
>> for things tagged with footway/bridleway/cycleway before that is not
>> biased mode-of-transport-wise.
>>
>> With path, you can distinguish between e.g. officially designated
>> "footways" and those that have no designation at all.
>> Furthermore, it is possible to tag combined cycle/foot/whateverways
>> without discriminating one of the modes of transport. (like with
>> "highway=cycleway, foot=yes" before)
>
> If this is the proper conclusion of the voting then the tag is a complete,
> hopeless mess!
>
> Since the vote very clearly opposed deprecating footway, cycleway, and
> bridleway we must now have two parallel tagging schemas that are marking
> exactly the same features with more or less the same information in a
> different way.
>
> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Approved_features/Path
>
> Germans use highway=path for paths of any description fields and forests,
> Italians for paths in the countryside, English-speaking mappers either for
> miscellaneous little footpaths or as a wholesale replacement of
> footway/cycleway/bridleway, and in a few places people seem to just be
> making random distinctions (like footpaths in cemeteries).
>
> The result is a totally unclear fudge which leaves us either with
> needlessly complicated maps, or stylesheets with a long string of "this or
> that or that or that" definitions to describe near-identical features that
> should be rendered in the same way.
>
> It just makes me despair about the anarchic approach we have towards
> tagging. It's almost as bad as the utterly pointless (and still unresolved)
> distinctions around wood/forest. It's absolutely fine to create a new tag
> for a new feature, do what you want! But it's crazy that we let random
> unaccountable groups of wiki users change the rules for basic features like
> footpaths without having any sufficient processes and tools to make sure
> this then gets full agreement, clear documentation and proper enforcement.
>

Anarchy in tagging died a bit back when some guys on the wiki decided
ochlocracy was the way to go.
Tagging used to be occasionally a confused mess.
Now it's an organised, and "approved" confused mess where anyone with
a clue automatically withdraws from discussions to keep their sanity
intact (and to give them some more time to go and actually map
something), knowing full well that not being there won't make much
difference to the eventual stupid decision.

Gah... must... be... more... positive...

Dave

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

[OSM-talk] Fwd: Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Martin Simon]

-- Forwarded message --
From: Martin Simon 
Date: 2009/8/10
Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway
To: Marc Schütz 


2009/8/10 "Marc Schütz" :

> ... except that many people don't like your assumption and interpret it as 
> foot=yes instead.

Well, you're right here, we can not assume a designation for footways
because in ancient OSM times nearly everything was tagged as a
footway... "don't change the meaning of existing tags" is nearly as
important as "don't tag for the renderer" ;-)

So just add an explicit foot=designated to my example.

-Martin

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] GPS Accuracy under Forest Canopy

[John Smith]

--- On Mon, 10/8/09, Martin Koppenhoefer  wrote:

> Yes, if you have some time it will be an option to wait for
> the leaves
> falling in autumn (seriously).

What if they are evergreen and don't loose their leaves in autumn? :)


  

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] GPS Accuracy under Forest Canopy

[Martin Koppenhoefer]

2009/8/10 John Smith :
>>    I didn't record PDOP information and
>> such, but are there any solutions to
>> record decent GPS traces on trails under forest canopy data
>> collection other
>> than a high end professional GPS datalogger?
>
> Not all data loggers are the same some have a much higher sensitivity.

+1, actually you don't need (for better accuracy than 100 m) a high
end professional DGPS (at least several thousand quid).

> You might be able to use sat overlays to estimate the true path.
won't be more precise though (if you really mean sat and not aerial
photo). In the end you would be tracing from aerial and use the track
just as an "reminder".

> It really depends what options you have available and how much time, money, 
> effort etc you are willing to spend on it.
Yes, if you have some time it will be an option to wait for the leaves
falling in autumn (seriously).

cheers,
Martin

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Marc Schütz]

> It's not about allowing cycling(like official fooways that _also_
> allow bicycles as "guests"), it's about official designation. This
> makes, at least in Germany, a big (legal) difference...
> So you could tag a footway which also allows bicycles as
> highway=footway,bicycle=yes(assuming "footway" implies
> foot=designated) or as highway=path,foot=designated,bicycle=yes. No
> Information loss, no difference, no problem. :-)

... except that many people don't like your assumption and interpret it as 
foot=yes instead.

Regards, Marc

-- 
Jetzt kostenlos herunterladen: Internet Explorer 8 und Mozilla Firefox 3 -
sicherer, schneller und einfacher! http://portal.gmx.net/de/go/atbrowser

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Ulf Möller]

John Smith schrieb:

>> for a new feature, do what you want! But it's crazy that we
>> let random
>> unaccountable groups of wiki users change the rules for
> 
> Maybe some pages on the wiki should be locked, and translations of mapping 
> features shouldn't change the original meaning/intent of them.

That however doesn't solve the problem of random unaccountable groups of 
wiki users voting on tagging proposals. Many "accepted features" have 
had less than 20 votes, and some of the tags even are in broken English.

If you're saying translations can't change the meaning you need to make 
sure that the original descriptions work for any place in the world. How 
would you do that?


___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] GPX on OSM slippymap?

[Nic Roets]

Hello Igor,

You can go to gpsies.com and give it the URL for the GPX file e.g.
http://www.openstreetmap.org/trace/475187/data
After it renders you can choose the OSM slippy map.

Regards,
Nic

On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 1:02 PM, Igor Brejc  wrote:

> Hi,
>
> This has probably been asked before, but I couldn't find anything on
> google.
>
> Is there a way to display an uploaded GPX on the OSM slippymap? Something
> similar to how you can highlight an OSM way, node or relation:
> http://www.openstreetmap.org/?way=31904301
>
> I took some friends on a hiking tour and I wanted to send them a simple URL
> with the indicated track, since I've already uploaded the GPX for mapping
> purposes.
>
> Regards,
> Igor
>
> ___
> talk mailing list
> talk@openstreetmap.org
> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
>
>
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Tom Chance]

On Mon, 10 Aug 2009 13:09:20 +0200, Martin Simon wrote:
> Well, I don't see why highway=path + proper access/designation tags
> can be a simplification compared to a simple "cycleway" or "footway".
> For your footway example, I would suggest either highway=footway,
> bicycle=yes or highway=path, foot=designated("this is intended for
> pedestrians by law"), bicycle=yes("bicycles are also allowed to use
> this way, but only as guests").

This is all very nice, but doesn't solve the problem - actually it
illustrates it.

You've just explained that there are two different ways of tagging the same
thing, and suggested that both are equally valid. That's pointless and
confusing.

Either we really do deprecate footway/cycleway/etc. and force people to
more fully describe these ways; tools like Potlatch and JOSM could offer
bundles of tags for common defaults like "this is a footpath, ergo
highway=path + foot=designated + bicycle=yes + motorbike=no".

Or we find a way to consistently qualify footway, cycleway, bridleway and
perhaps a new "highway=path" for miscellaneous little paths, to suit the
legal complications of 195 countries. But we don't start using highway=path
as a catch-all for footways, cycleways, bridleways and others just because
we can capture the same meaning using access, surface, width and other
tags.

Which do we go for? We can't have this stupid, unclear fudge.

Regards,
Tom

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Elizabeth Dodd]

On Mon, 10 Aug 2009, Martin Simon wrote:
> 2009/8/10 Liz :
> > On Mon, 10 Aug 2009, Nop wrote:
> >> - Some mappers are applying footway and cycleway rather indiscriminately
> >> to all sorts of ways so it basically only means "not for cars" in some
> >> areas
> >>
> >> In short: It's a mess. :-)
> >
> > would a suggestion made on the talk-au list in which highway=footway and
> > highway=cycleway be deprecated and be replaced by
> > path=cycleway
> > path=footway
> > path=shared
> > be logically consistent with the German legal status of cycleways and
> > footways?
>
> What does path=shared stand for? Shared between cyclists and
> pedestrians, pedestrians and horse riders or all three(as seen in
> Belgium, for example)?
>
> As highway=path was introduced to seperate the highway tag from the
> access tags and allow tagging of the legal status more clearly(not
> just in Germany), why not just use it as intended? This doesn't mean
> we have to throw awy everything tagged with
> footway/cycleway/bridleway...
>
> -Martin


The question is exploring the logic.
>From your answer you want to know more about shared
It is hard to explore the logic with people vigorously defending a position 
and not answering the question.
The underlying point is should highway be used at all where motorised vehicles 
are not wanted?
At this stage we are just exploring the question, and asking if this different 
system would fit in another place.


___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Martin Simon]

2009/8/10 Liz :
> On Mon, 10 Aug 2009, Nop wrote:
>> - Some mappers are applying footway and cycleway rather indiscriminately
>> to all sorts of ways so it basically only means "not for cars" in some
>> areas
>>
>> In short: It's a mess. :-)
> would a suggestion made on the talk-au list in which highway=footway and
> highway=cycleway be deprecated and be replaced by
> path=cycleway
> path=footway
> path=shared
> be logically consistent with the German legal status of cycleways and
> footways?

What does path=shared stand for? Shared between cyclists and
pedestrians, pedestrians and horse riders or all three(as seen in
Belgium, for example)?

As highway=path was introduced to seperate the highway tag from the
access tags and allow tagging of the legal status more clearly(not
just in Germany), why not just use it as intended? This doesn't mean
we have to throw awy everything tagged with
footway/cycleway/bridleway...

-Martin

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Ulf Möller]

John Smith schrieb:

> That isn't the case in other places, in some states of Australia you are 
> allowed to cycle on foot paths, but the primary purpose is for pedestrians 
> and they have right of way over cyclists.

foot=designated, bicycle=yes

> In other areas there are cycle paths and pedestrians are allowed but they 
> aren't the primary users intended to use the way and cyclists mostly use 
> them. So yes there would be information lost by simplifying things in the way 
> you describe.

bicycle=designated, foot=yes

No information lost there...


___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Martin Simon]

2009/8/10 John Smith :
>
> --- On Mon, 10/8/09, Martin Simon  wrote:
>
>> makes, at least in Germany, a big (legal) difference...
>
> That isn't the case in other places, in some states of Australia you are 
> allowed to cycle on foot paths, but the primary purpose is for pedestrians 
> and they have right of way over cyclists.
>
> In other areas there are cycle paths and pedestrians are allowed but they 
> aren't the primary users intended to use the way and cyclists mostly use 
> them. So yes there would be information lost by simplifying things in the way 
> you describe.

Well, I don't see why highway=path + proper access/designation tags
can be a simplification compared to a simple "cycleway" or "footway".
For your footway example, I would suggest either highway=footway,
bicycle=yes or highway=path, foot=designated("this is intended for
pedestrians by law"), bicycle=yes("bicycles are also allowed to use
this way, but only as guests").

We have this kind of footway (among other variants) here, too.

>> Information loss, no difference, no problem. :-)
>
> That might be true for Germany, but it isn't for other parts of the world.

No, this can be used everywhere. :-)

-Martin

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Liz]

On Mon, 10 Aug 2009, Nop wrote:
> - Some mappers are applying footway and cycleway rather indiscriminately
> to all sorts of ways so it basically only means "not for cars" in some
> areas
>
> In short: It's a mess. :-)
would a suggestion made on the talk-au list in which highway=footway and 
highway=cycleway be deprecated and be replaced by 
path=cycleway
path=footway
path=shared
be logically consistent with the German legal status of cycleways and 
footways?



___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

[OSM-talk] GPX on OSM slippymap?

[Igor Brejc]

Hi,

This has probably been asked before, but I couldn't find anything on google.

Is there a way to display an uploaded GPX on the OSM slippymap? Something
similar to how you can highlight an OSM way, node or relation:
http://www.openstreetmap.org/?way=31904301

I took some friends on a hiking tour and I wanted to send them a simple URL
with the indicated track, since I've already uploaded the GPX for mapping
purposes.

Regards,
Igor
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk