[Talk-GB] Mass edits of landuse /natural tags

[sk53.osm]

I notice that there have been a large number of mass edits of tags
associated with either land cover or land use recently. Some may indeed be
useful corrections, but altering all natural=meadow to landuse=meadow
probably interferes with the intentions of the original mapper: meadows can
be created and retained by entirely natural means.

Mass edits however well-intentioned should always be discussed in advance
(preferably here, and on the wiki, & possibly on IRC).

Jerry
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Re: [Talk-GB] Mass edits of landuse /natural tags

[John Baker]

I did this.

AFAIC these were typo edits and getting the whole database more consistent. I 
have done dozens of changes to fix typos worldwide over the past few weeks and 
it would be crazy to have lengthy discussions on each one for multiple 
countries in multiple communication channels. I understood that typos are ok to 
be undertaken but I will happily create a wiki page and/or another account for 
doing these.

For this case there I don't understand your basis for natural=meadow being 
correct. Landuse=meadow is the correct tag and IMHO Natural=scrub would be used 
if not kept.

cheers,

John



Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 11:09:34 +0100
From: sk53@gmail.com
To: talk-gb@openstreetmap.org
Subject: [Talk-GB] Mass edits of landuse /natural tags

I notice that there have been a large number of mass edits of tags associated 
with either land cover or land use recently. Some may indeed be useful 
corrections, but altering all natural=meadow to landuse=meadow probably 
interferes with the intentions of the original mapper: meadows can be created 
and retained by entirely natural means.


Mass edits however well-intentioned should always be discussed in advance 
(preferably here, and on the wiki, & possibly on IRC).

Jerry


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Re: [Talk-GB] Mass edits of landuse /natural tags

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 04/24/2013 04:26 PM, John Baker wrote:

AFAIC these were typo edits and getting the whole database more
consistent. I have done dozens of changes to fix typos worldwide over
the past few weeks and it would be crazy to have lengthy discussions on
each one for multiple countries in multiple communication channels.


If you don't have the time or the will to do it properly, then simply 
leave it be.


The rule is that as soon as you make an edit where you don't look at the 
individual object you edit, it is a mechanical edit that has to be 
discussed beforehand.


The reason for this rule is that it is too easy to introduce mistakes - 
what looks like a "typo" to one person could make sense to another.


Assume that there's an object tagged landuse=forest *and* natural=meadow 
*and* it carries a note tag that explains exactly what the mapper meant 
by this. Someone simply looking for all natural=meadow and replacing 
them with landuse=meadow would overwrite the landuse=forest and not even 
see the note tag - he performs a mechanical edit that needs to be 
discussed beforehand (in order to minimize undesirable side effects).


On the other hand, if someone were to manually go through all objects 
tagged natural=meadow, read potential note tags, look at the other tags 
and/or aerial imagery, and *then* change them to landuse=meadow, that 
would not be a mechanical edit.


Bye
Frederik

--
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Re: [Talk-GB] Mass edits of landuse /natural tags

[John Baker]

Just to be clear about what I am doing.

I have been changing many what I consider typos. The majority have been simple 
changes I started by cleaning up the lanes tag as I was doing work getting 
lanes tagged correctly for the new CartoCSS and lanes=90 (where they was not) 
and lanes=two made no sense. So I fixed each of these worldwide looking at 
aerial imagery, (e.g. needed so leave a lanes=27 or something for a massive 
border entrance)

Again inspired by my designing new style at doing CartoCSS styling I looked at 
other features that I has been doing, fountains, nightclubs, religions, ice 
rinks, etc

Then fixing some the nature, landuse tags, landuse=maedow to meadow, etc within 
the same tagtype.

Recently I wanted to tackle one of my biggest personal bugbears of 
natural=grass which is (now was) tagged incorrectly and should be 
landuse=grass. There where dozens/hundreds in my local area so I did the whole 
UK.

In case where I moved tag type (natural to landuse) I looked at if they added 
anything to the corresponding tag.
 
So if nature=grass already had landuse=park or something I didn't change it 
over.

Also I looked at the ways that had a name or had notes and decided if they 
where due more investigation and if to edit them or not. To be honest most 
didn't and it was quick and easy to check in JOSM when I highlight them all.

I tried to explain myself in the change set notes.

I like to think I have been responsible when doing this and think it improves 
the database/map.

http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Rovastar/edits?page=1




> Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 09:20:32 +0200
> From: frede...@remote.org
> To: talk-gb@openstreetmap.org
> Subject: Re: [Talk-GB] Mass edits of landuse /natural tags
> 
> Hi,
> 
> On 04/24/2013 04:26 PM, John Baker wrote:
> > AFAIC these were typo edits and getting the whole database more
> > consistent. I have done dozens of changes to fix typos worldwide over
> > the past few weeks and it would be crazy to have lengthy discussions on
> > each one for multiple countries in multiple communication channels.
> 
> If you don't have the time or the will to do it properly, then simply 
> leave it be.
> 
> The rule is that as soon as you make an edit where you don't look at the 
> individual object you edit, it is a mechanical edit that has to be 
> discussed beforehand.
> 
> The reason for this rule is that it is too easy to introduce mistakes - 
> what looks like a "typo" to one person could make sense to another.
> 
> Assume that there's an object tagged landuse=forest *and* natural=meadow 
> *and* it carries a note tag that explains exactly what the mapper meant 
> by this. Someone simply looking for all natural=meadow and replacing 
> them with landuse=meadow would overwrite the landuse=forest and not even 
> see the note tag - he performs a mechanical edit that needs to be 
> discussed beforehand (in order to minimize undesirable side effects).
> 
> On the other hand, if someone were to manually go through all objects 
> tagged natural=meadow, read potential note tags, look at the other tags 
> and/or aerial imagery, and *then* change them to landuse=meadow, that 
> would not be a mechanical edit.
> 
> Bye
> Frederik
> 
> -- 
> Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frede...@remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"
> 
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Re: [Talk-GB] Mass edits of landuse /natural tags

[sk53.osm]

Why do you assume that landuse=grass is more correct than natural=grass.
This is precisely the problem I have with your edits. If I use natural=*
for something someone comes and changes it to landuse=* which is not what I
meant.

I ONLY use landuse=grass for amenity grassland (mainly in cities) which
would otherwise not be mapped. I would never use landuse=grass for
grassland in a farm or a nature reserve, or on a sports pitch (we have a
perfectly good surface=* for that). Unfortunately many people have used
landuse=grass indiscriminately (for instance for farmland in Holland
http://osm.org/go/0E6w0ZK-- and here in
Lancashire<http://osm.org/go/evhgKyE>(the area around Garstang shows
wholly inappropriate use of landuse=meadow
too). It seems that people prefer the green colour rendering for these over
the brown for farmland. I am unaware that landuse=farmland only refers to
arable.

I don't know if you have heard of places like the Steppes & the Pampas, the
American Plains,
or the Serengeti, but there do exist large areas of the world covered by
grasses which are natural!

You are not the only remote mapper to do this kind of change, xybot zapped
one of my natural=grass tags.

Obviously I will now have to make my intentions absolutely explict with
notes etc., which rather defeats the point of tags. Perhaps I should use
SK53:natural=wood and then they won't get trampled on.

The problem is that you are anxious for everything to be rendered in a
uniform manner, but you are not considering the many other use cases
particularly for landuse/landcover data. Continuous tidying up of tagging
in this area means that OSM is not currently a viable platform for serious
use for conservation

Jerry
.


On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 12:48 PM, John Baker  wrote:

> Just to be clear about what I am doing.
>
> I have been changing many what I consider typos. The majority have been
> simple changes I started by cleaning up the lanes tag as I was doing work
> getting lanes tagged correctly for the new CartoCSS and lanes=90 (where
> they was not) and lanes=two made no sense. So I fixed each of these
> worldwide looking at aerial imagery, (e.g. needed so leave a lanes=27 or
> something for a massive border entrance)
>
> Again inspired by my designing new style at doing CartoCSS styling I
> looked at other features that I has been doing, fountains, nightclubs,
> religions, ice rinks, etc
>
> Then fixing some the nature, landuse tags, landuse=maedow to meadow, etc
> within the same tagtype.
>
> Recently I wanted to tackle one of my biggest personal bugbears of
> natural=grass which is (now was) tagged incorrectly and should be
> landuse=grass. There where dozens/hundreds in my local area so I did the
> whole UK.
>
> In case where I moved tag type (natural to landuse) I looked at if they
> added anything to the corresponding tag.
>
> So if nature=grass already had landuse=park or something I didn't change
> it over.
>
> Also I looked at the ways that had a name or had notes and decided if they
> where due more investigation and if to edit them or not. To be honest most
> didn't and it was quick and easy to check in JOSM when I highlight them all.
>
> I tried to explain myself in the change set notes.
>
> I like to think I have been responsible when doing this and think it
> improves the database/map.
>
> http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Rovastar/edits?page=1
>
>
>
>
> > Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 09:20:32 +0200
> > From: frede...@remote.org
> > To: talk-gb@openstreetmap.org
> > Subject: Re: [Talk-GB] Mass edits of landuse /natural tags
>
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > On 04/24/2013 04:26 PM, John Baker wrote:
> > > AFAIC these were typo edits and getting the whole database more
> > > consistent. I have done dozens of changes to fix typos worldwide over
> > > the past few weeks and it would be crazy to have lengthy discussions on
> > > each one for multiple countries in multiple communication channels.
> >
> > If you don't have the time or the will to do it properly, then simply
> > leave it be.
> >
> > The rule is that as soon as you make an edit where you don't look at the
> > individual object you edit, it is a mechanical edit that has to be
> > discussed beforehand.
> >
> > The reason for this rule is that it is too easy to introduce mistakes -
> > what looks like a "typo" to one person could make sense to another.
> >
> > Assume that there's an object tagged landuse=forest *and* natural=meadow
> > *and* it carries a note tag that explains exactly what the mapper meant
> > by this. Someone simply looking for all natural=meadow and replacing
> > them with landuse=meadow would overwrite the landuse

Re: [Talk-GB] Mass edits of landuse /natural tags

[Tom Chance]

>>
>> Again inspired by my designing new style at doing CartoCSS styling I
>> looked at other features that I has been doing, fountains, nightclubs,
>> religions, ice rinks, etc
>>
>> Then fixing some the nature, landuse tags, landuse=maedow to meadow, etc
>> within the same tagtype.
>>
>> Recently I wanted to tackle one of my biggest personal bugbears of
>> natural=grass which is (now was) tagged incorrectly and should be
>> landuse=grass. There where dozens/hundreds in my local area so I did the
>> whole UK.
>>
>> In case where I moved tag type (natural to landuse) I looked at if they
>> added anything to the corresponding tag.
>>
>> So if nature=grass already had landuse=park or something I didn't change
>> it over.
>>
>> Also I looked at the ways that had a name or had notes and decided if
>> they where due more investigation and if to edit them or not. To be honest
>> most didn't and it was quick and easy to check in JOSM when I highlight
>> them all.
>>
>> I tried to explain myself in the change set notes.
>>
>> I like to think I have been responsible when doing this and think it
>> improves the database/map.
>>
>> http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Rovastar/edits?page=1
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> > Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 09:20:32 +0200
>> > From: frede...@remote.org
>> > To: talk-gb@openstreetmap.org
>> > Subject: Re: [Talk-GB] Mass edits of landuse /natural tags
>>
>> >
>> > Hi,
>> >
>> > On 04/24/2013 04:26 PM, John Baker wrote:
>> > > AFAIC these were typo edits and getting the whole database more
>> > > consistent. I have done dozens of changes to fix typos worldwide over
>> > > the past few weeks and it would be crazy to have lengthy discussions
>> on
>> > > each one for multiple countries in multiple communication channels.
>> >
>> > If you don't have the time or the will to do it properly, then simply
>> > leave it be.
>> >
>> > The rule is that as soon as you make an edit where you don't look at
>> the
>> > individual object you edit, it is a mechanical edit that has to be
>> > discussed beforehand.
>> >
>> > The reason for this rule is that it is too easy to introduce mistakes -
>> > what looks like a "typo" to one person could make sense to another.
>> >
>> > Assume that there's an object tagged landuse=forest *and*
>> natural=meadow
>> > *and* it carries a note tag that explains exactly what the mapper meant
>> > by this. Someone simply looking for all natural=meadow and replacing
>> > them with landuse=meadow would overwrite the landuse=forest and not
>> even
>> > see the note tag - he performs a mechanical edit that needs to be
>> > discussed beforehand (in order to minimize undesirable side effects).
>> >
>> > On the other hand, if someone were to manually go through all objects
>> > tagged natural=meadow, read potential note tags, look at the other tags
>> > and/or aerial imagery, and *then* change them to landuse=meadow, that
>> > would not be a mechanical edit.
>> >
>> > Bye
>> > Frederik
>> >
>> > --
>> > Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33"
>> >
>> > ___
>> > Talk-GB mailing list
>> > Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org
>> > http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
>>
>> ___
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Re: [Talk-GB] Mass edits of landuse /natural tags

[John Baker]

To be honest I am struggling to see anything wrong with what I have done.
Let take grass in your example Jerry.

There are always more suitable tags than natural=grass, landuse=grass being the 
most obvious there is also natural=grasslands as was pointed out by Tom. I am 
aware of these. I am surprised at the assumption that I am not.

Now I said I did not update if there was an existing tag. So for 
landuse=farmland I left it.

But if there was no existing landuse tag what is the harm?

Even if a soccer pitch was changed from natural=grass to landuse=grass what is 
wrong with that? It still states in the tag that is is grass. It was tagged 
"wrong" to being with as it should be surface=grass but now it will be tagged 
slightly less "wrong" as it is at least following some standards.

None of the cases mention I can see that I did any harm. 

And I do tag the landuse/natural for Nature reserves. Why would you not? Why 
would you leave off information. If the nature reserve is grass, scrub, 
wood/forest I tag this too. I might/do breakdown the different areas of of the 
reserve. There is no conflict with leisure=nature_reserve and other tags.

When we say discuss things on the mailing list surely then this goes both ways. 
I personaly object to others using their own tagging system when there is a 
well established tagging system in place already. If only 1 person decides to 
use non standard tagging like natural=grass where more useful, appropriate and 
standard tagging applies then that doesn't help anyone, in fact I think you 
should stop as *that* defeats the point of the tags and use what everyone else 
uses. If you really want this put in an RFC for the wiki and get it more 
standardised.

If anyone has specific examples about where I made a mistake let me know. I 
cannot believe there will be many at all and the benefits of doing these 
changes are IMHO largely beneficial to the map.

Cheers,

John
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 14:19:39 +0100
Subject: Re: [Talk-GB] Mass edits of landuse /natural tags
From: t...@acrewoods.net
To: sk53@gmail.com
CC: rovas...@hotmail.com; talk-gb@openstreetmap.org

I can sympathise with some of what Jerry, John and Frederik have said here.
There is undoubtedly a lot of slightly inappropriate tagging in the database, 
meaning that serious use of the data often requires a lot of cleaning up. I 
went around Southwark changing lots of land uses but based on surveys and where 
it was clearly wrong, so that I could do some analysis and make nice maps of 
green spaces in the borough. It used to be the case that 
landuse=recreation_ground was _the_ way that we all tagged any green space that 
wasn't a park. I routinely change these to landuse=grass when I come across 
them these days, unless they really are recreation grounds. I wouldn't want to 
be held back by having to divine (or enquire about) the intention of the 
original editor each time!

It's also annoying when the tag Jerry is looking for, according to the wiki, is 
"natural=grassland" not "natural=grass" as you would 
expect:http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:landuse%3Dgrass


Also the tag "natural=meadow" has been merged into "landuse="meadow". There is 
now another key "meadow=agricultural/perpetual" (oh joy) to distinguish between 
managed and unmanaged meadow, or what used to be the natural/landuse split!

There is, in general, a longstanding confusion about natural/landuse. The 
natural=wood/landuse=forest use is pretty interchangeable across the UK, so 
that we can only really treat them as equivalent and meaning "some trees".

The problem that John, Jerry and I have all run into is the downside of a free 
tagging system without a mechanism to iron these wrinkles out. We can only 
really shrug our shoulders and accept that the data is really patchy in terms 
of coverage and appropriate tagging, and do our best to improve it after 
discussion. Incidentally, if you want to see a real basket case of a key, look 
at the values in Taginfo for the building key!

As Frederik said, it is best to discuss ideas for large scale corrections on a 
mailing list first. That way these issues come out and can be discussed before 
the edits, clean-up strategies can be improved, and people don't get upset at 
mistaken edits no matter how good the intentions.

John, I would suggest that you inspect each natural=grass object on a case by 
case basis to try and determine which of these it best 
fits:http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:landuse%3Dgrass


Regards,Tom

On 25 April 2013 13:59, sk53.osm  wrote:

Why do you assume that landuse=grass is more correct than natural=grass. This 
is precisely the problem I have with your edits. If I use natural=* for 
something someone comes and changes it to landuse=* which is not what I meant. 




I ONLY use landuse=grass for amenity grassland (mainly in cities) which would 

Re: [Talk-GB] Mass edits of landuse /natural tags

[Jonathan Bennett]

On 25/04/2013 16:23, John Baker wrote:
> 
> There are always more suitable tags than natural=grass, landuse=grass
> being the most obvious

Are you claiming that the land *is used for* grass? That the purpose man
has put that piece of land to is just "grass"? surface=grass yes,
landcover=grass maybe (and if it's the "natural" bit you're objecting
to, you might be able to justify man_made=grass) but landuse=grass
absolutely not. Landuse is for general planning/zoning classification,
such as residential, industrial, mixed etc.

The feature that has a grass surface will be something else, something
more specific like a park, a residential garden, a meadow, a field
(landuse=agriculture), or maybe the grass is just there because
*something* has to be (e.g. the centre of a roundabout). You're using a
tag originally intended for a sociopolitical construct (land use and
zoning) to show a physical characteristic of the land (what it's covered
with). The two are only loosely connected at best, and a surface covered
with grass can be put to many different and mutually exclusive *uses*.

J.

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Re: [Talk-GB] Mass edits of landuse /natural tags

[Matt Williams]

On 25 April 2013 16:23, John Baker  wrote:
> To be honest I am struggling to see anything wrong with what I have done.
> Let take grass in your example Jerry.
>
> There are always more suitable tags than natural=grass, landuse=grass being
> the most obvious there is also natural=grasslands as was pointed out by Tom.
> I am aware of these. I am surprised at the assumption that I am not.
>
> Now I said I did not update if there was an existing tag. So for
> landuse=farmland I left it.
>
> But if there was no existing landuse tag what is the harm?
>
> Even if a soccer pitch was changed from natural=grass to landuse=grass what
> is wrong with that? It still states in the tag that is is grass. It was
> tagged "wrong" to being with as it should be surface=grass but now it will
> be tagged slightly less "wrong" as it is at least following some standards.
>
> None of the cases mention I can see that I did any harm.

The potential for harm arises from your assumption that some tags are
implicitly more wrong than others. natural=grass and landuse=grass are
not the same thing. One has not replaced the other. On a case-by-case
basis, one might be more correct than the other but it's plain silly
to say that 'landuse' is de jure more correct than 'natural'.

Your later talk of 'RFCs in the wiki' shows you don't understand the
subtleties of the OSM tagging schema and the way we choose what tags
to use where. This makes me very dubious about you running scripts to
'correct' anything.

Matt

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Re: [Talk-GB] Mass edits of landuse /natural tags

[SomeoneElse]

John Baker wrote:


But if there was no existing landuse tag what is the harm?


Without visiting each place and doing an on-site survey, how do you know 
what the actual landuse is?


It worries me that these sort of global search-and-replaces are taking 
place without any discussion


The best person to decide what something should be tagged as is someone 
who's been there and had a look.  They may be making incorrect 
assumptions about tag use (think of the various odd "designations" that 
pop up from newbies that are really "descriptions"), but in that case 
the best way is to discuss it with the mapper concerned, then raise on a 
list such as this one if they insist on "doing it wrong".  In most cases 
with non-newbie mappers there's usually a genuine reason why they've 
tagged things as they have.  Any attempt to restrict tag use like this 
will restrict the usefulness of the data, in this case to "well it looks 
green on aerial imagery", which anyone in their armchair can see.  The 
advantage of OSM over other maps (even over the OS for most of the 
country) is having people who actually go there and have a look, not 
just take as given what e.g. a local authority thinks is there, or what 
it looks like from a few thousand feet up.


Cheers,
Andy

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Re: [Talk-GB] Mass edits of landuse /natural tags

[sk53.osm]

I think JonathanB is spot on here: if the original landuse tags had been
landuse=forestry, landuse=farming;
landuse=selling_things;landuse=office_drudgery and so on, the widespread
confusion between landuse (usually can be denoted by an abstract noun), and
natural or landcover (which can usually be described by concrete nouns) may
never have arisen.

As it is it is very difficult to get people to separate these concepts:
insistence on a single  (and if derived from the wiki, often hopelessly
misinformed) view of tagging will reduce the richness and usefulness of the
data. Achieving consistency is an issue for the cartographer (and in the
cases we treat can easily be covered by (landuse='grass' or
natural='grass').

On the point about grass is grass. The British National Vegetation
Classificationrecognises
48 different categories of grassland. Most improved grassland in
farms and amenity grassland in towns fall into only 1-2 of these
altogether. I'm interested in finding examples of the other 46 which should
all fall in the natural category (natural=grass or natural=grassland,
whatever).

However, we are getting away from the point, which is that country wide
edits,whether right or wrong are best discussed/notified beforehand.


On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 4:34 PM, Jonathan Bennett wrote:

> On 25/04/2013 16:23, John Baker wrote:
> >
> > There are always more suitable tags than natural=grass, landuse=grass
> > being the most obvious
>
> Are you claiming that the land *is used for* grass? That the purpose man
> has put that piece of land to is just "grass"? surface=grass yes,
> landcover=grass maybe (and if it's the "natural" bit you're objecting
> to, you might be able to justify man_made=grass) but landuse=grass
> absolutely not. Landuse is for general planning/zoning classification,
> such as residential, industrial, mixed etc.
>
> The feature that has a grass surface will be something else, something
> more specific like a park, a residential garden, a meadow, a field
> (landuse=agriculture), or maybe the grass is just there because
> *something* has to be (e.g. the centre of a roundabout). You're using a
> tag originally intended for a sociopolitical construct (land use and
> zoning) to show a physical characteristic of the land (what it's covered
> with). The two are only loosely connected at best, and a surface covered
> with grass can be put to many different and mutually exclusive *uses*.
>
> J.
>
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Re: [Talk-GB] Mass edits of landuse /natural tags

[John Baker]

Wow creating a storm here.

I cannot believe we are have so much discussion about grass. I have had some 
before not about this type...

Things should be tagged first and foremost with both wiki definitions and what 
is in general usage. In both of these cases landuse=grass should be used for 
grass landcover. 

This is what is defined in landcover, landuse wiki pages. That is what is used 
in general around the UK. 

I know how few natural=grass where in the database before I changed them so 
there were not in common usage and a agreed standard and I am confused at the 
passion this brings for those that didn't even edit it as such.

Cheers,

John
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 16:42:44 +0100
From: li...@mail.atownsend.org.uk
To: talk-gb@openstreetmap.org
Subject: Re: [Talk-GB] Mass edits of landuse /natural tags


  

  
  
John Baker wrote:



  
  

But if there was no existing landuse tag what is the harm?

  



Without visiting each place and doing an on-site survey, how do you
know what the actual landuse is?  



It worries me that these sort of global search-and-replaces are
taking place without any discussion



The best person to decide what something should be tagged as is
someone who's been there and had a look.  They may be making
incorrect assumptions about tag use (think of the various odd
"designations" that pop up from newbies that are really
"descriptions"), but in that case the best way is to discuss it with
the mapper concerned, then raise on a list such as this one if they
insist on "doing it wrong".  In most cases with non-newbie mappers
there's usually a genuine reason why they've tagged things as they
have.  Any attempt to restrict tag use like this will restrict the
usefulness of the data, in this case to "well it looks green on
aerial imagery", which anyone in their armchair can see.  The
advantage of OSM over other maps (even over the OS for most of the
country) is having people who actually go there and have a look, not
just take as given what e.g. a local authority thinks is there, or
what it looks like from a few thousand feet up.



Cheers,

Andy



  


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Re: [Talk-GB] Mass edits of landuse /natural tags

[Chris Hill]

On 25/04/13 17:00, John Baker wrote:

Wow creating a storm here.

I cannot believe we are have so much discussion about grass. I have 
had some before not about this type...




See! Discussion is needed. There are points of view that you don't 
understand and didn't find out about because you didn't ask.


Things should be tagged first and foremost with both wiki definitions 
and what is in general usage. In both of these cases landuse=grass 
should be used for grass landcover.


No. The wiki is hardly an oracle or fount of all knowledge. It is a 
muddle that 'just growed'. There is no right tag or wrong tag and a wiki 
page is certainly not a licence to mass edit. You are squashing subtle 
meanings from people's tagging that you don't seem to understand even 
exists.


This is what is defined in landcover, landuse wiki pages. That is what 
is used in general around the UK.


So? It's a guide, not a law. It is at the mercy of whomsoever last 
edited the page.


I know how few natural=grass where in the database before I changed 
them so there were not in common usage and a agreed standard and I am 
confused at the passion this brings for those that didn't even edit it 
as such.


A minority tag is not there to be squashed out of existence with a mass 
edit, it is there because someone chose to use it. The passion is to 
show respect for the process of discussing mass edits to prevent people 
who don't get it from doing it.


--
Cheers, Chris
user: chillly


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Re: [Talk-GB] Mass edits of landuse /natural tags

[John Baker]

On the contrary Chris but I do understand. It seems that many here do not.

The objections still baffle me. I can only presume that anyone doing any edit 
without a GPS and physical survey is not welcomed on this list much like the 
continuing animosity over armchair mapping/using aerial imagery.

The wiki is a consensus of opinion over the years about how to tag things. The 
lack of respect for this I find staggering.

I have no problem with people using minority tags but if you choose to use them 
that conflict and/or are easily confused with existing tags. e.g. if you want 
to use something for describing the type of grass used, use grasstype= or 
something not natural=grass that *most* have been entered incorrectly when they 
mean landuse=grass for grass landcover.

To be honest I am less likely to engage in discussion about future edits as all 
they will seem to end in is: always message the original editor, always do a 
manual survey and you don't know what you are doing - all of which I strongly 
disagree with.


> Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 17:17:32 +0100
> From: o...@raggedred.net
> To: talk-gb@openstreetmap.org
> Subject: Re: [Talk-GB] Mass edits of landuse /natural tags
> 
> On 25/04/13 17:00, John Baker wrote:
> > Wow creating a storm here.
> >
> > I cannot believe we are have so much discussion about grass. I have 
> > had some before not about this type...
> >
> 
> See! Discussion is needed. There are points of view that you don't 
> understand and didn't find out about because you didn't ask.
> 
> > Things should be tagged first and foremost with both wiki definitions 
> > and what is in general usage. In both of these cases landuse=grass 
> > should be used for grass landcover.
> 
> No. The wiki is hardly an oracle or fount of all knowledge. It is a 
> muddle that 'just growed'. There is no right tag or wrong tag and a wiki 
> page is certainly not a licence to mass edit. You are squashing subtle 
> meanings from people's tagging that you don't seem to understand even 
> exists.
> >
> > This is what is defined in landcover, landuse wiki pages. That is what 
> > is used in general around the UK.
> 
> So? It's a guide, not a law. It is at the mercy of whomsoever last 
> edited the page.
> 
> > I know how few natural=grass where in the database before I changed 
> > them so there were not in common usage and a agreed standard and I am 
> > confused at the passion this brings for those that didn't even edit it 
> > as such.
> 
> A minority tag is not there to be squashed out of existence with a mass 
> edit, it is there because someone chose to use it. The passion is to 
> show respect for the process of discussing mass edits to prevent people 
> who don't get it from doing it.
> 
> -- 
> Cheers, Chris
> user: chillly
> 
> 
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Re: [Talk-GB] Mass edits of landuse /natural tags

[Lester Caine]

John Baker wrote:

The wiki is a consensus of opinion over the years about how to tag things. The
lack of respect for this I find staggering.


It would be nice if there WAS a consensus. There are a number of 
'contradictions' and the area of landuse vs natural has been debated many times 
and I don't think any of the current 'selections' accurately describe the 
situation so there is still room for improvement.


The general consensus seems to be that 'landuse' is used where an area is 
managed or has been artificially created and natural where there is no 
discernible management. 
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:natural%3Dgrassland highlights some of 
the subtle differences, and there is a valid argument for natural=meadow co 
existing with landuse=meadow since there are still some remaining natural 
meadowlands, or should that be natural=grassland/grassland=meadow ? I don't see 
the need for the 'grasslands' here at all - just use meadow,veld,pampas or what 
ever with natural. 'wood' is another area where there are managed and unmanaged 
woodland which is not forest.


landcover was I think proposed at one time to remove the distinction between 
managed and unmanaged but in reality the distinction IS important even if it's 
use is not being applied properly. So what checks are you making that there is 
not such a distinction between the areas that you arbitrarily changing?


--
Lester Caine - G8HFL
-
Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=contact
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Re: [Talk-GB] Mass edits of landuse /natural tags

[John Baker]

If the original editor applied the tags on 
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:landuse%3Dmeadow there is no issue. 
There it defines the state of the managed or unmanaged.

> Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 18:54:42 +0100
> From: les...@lsces.co.uk
> To: talk-gb@openstreetmap.org
> Subject: Re: [Talk-GB] Mass edits of landuse /natural tags
> 
> John Baker wrote:
> > The wiki is a consensus of opinion over the years about how to tag things. 
> > The
> > lack of respect for this I find staggering.
> 
> It would be nice if there WAS a consensus. There are a number of 
> 'contradictions' and the area of landuse vs natural has been debated many 
> times 
> and I don't think any of the current 'selections' accurately describe the 
> situation so there is still room for improvement.
> 
> The general consensus seems to be that 'landuse' is used where an area is 
> managed or has been artificially created and natural where there is no 
> discernible management. 
> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:natural%3Dgrassland highlights some of 
> the subtle differences, and there is a valid argument for natural=meadow co 
> existing with landuse=meadow since there are still some remaining natural 
> meadowlands, or should that be natural=grassland/grassland=meadow ? I don't 
> see 
> the need for the 'grasslands' here at all - just use meadow,veld,pampas or 
> what 
> ever with natural. 'wood' is another area where there are managed and 
> unmanaged 
> woodland which is not forest.
> 
> landcover was I think proposed at one time to remove the distinction between 
> managed and unmanaged but in reality the distinction IS important even if 
> it's 
> use is not being applied properly. So what checks are you making that there 
> is 
> not such a distinction between the areas that you arbitrarily changing?
> 
> -- 
> 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
> Rainbow Digital Media - http://rainbowdigitalmedia.co.uk
> 
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Re: [Talk-GB] Mass edits of landuse /natural tags

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 25.04.2013 19:07, John Baker wrote:

The wiki is a consensus of opinion over the years about how to tag
things.


It isn't. There have been more than enough cases where after *years* it 
was found that somewhere hidden away in a wiki page there was a 
statement that was absolutely not reflecting any kind of consensus. 
There are, regularly, votes in which Wiki users decide to "deprecate" 
some tag used by thousands, and replace it with something else - all 
that with 20 people participating and voting.


We aim to make the Wiki a good documentation of our work in OSM, but 
where Wiki and practice diverge, practice rules. That's why before you 
take some wiki page and interpret it as code to modify the database, you 
are expected to discuss - to make sure that (a) the wiki page is right, 
(b) your reading of the wiki page is right, (c) the algorithm you are 
planning to apply has no unfortunate side effects, and so on.



To be honest I am less likely to engage in discussion about future edits
as all they will seem to end in is: always message the original editor,
always do a manual survey and you don't know what you are doing - all of
which I strongly disagree with.


As long as you're making manual edits you can get away with a lot; 
people will assume that if you make a specific change then you have 
valid reasons for that (e.g. some kind of additional source rather than 
just an algorithm). Any sort of mechanical mass-edit requires discussion 
so if you don't feel like discussing then you must not make the edit.


There's scope for widely accepted automatic or mechanical edits. Some 
guy in Germany removes, I believe, trailing spaces from names - but only 
in Germany because he hasn't discussed this idea outside. It is also 
very unlikely that you find someone who objects to e.g. automaticall 
yreplacing the mis-typed "highway=residentail" with 
"highway=residential". But even such simple things should, if applied in 
a wider scope, be discussed beforehand - out of politeless if nothing 
else, but also to avoid a potential flaw in your reasoning to go undetected.


Someone once replaced all name=McDonalds with name=McDonald's, arguing 
that that was the correct name of the fast food chain but accidentally 
renaming a couple of totall different things that were really called 
McDonalds. A short discussion beforehand could helped to avoid that mistake.


Re. your latest point "you don't know what you're doing" - my impression 
is that your attitude is "I know better anyway", an attitude that is 
problematic enough in mappers but becomes inacceptable as soon as people 
make large-scale edits.


Bye
Frederik

--
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Re: [Talk-GB] Mass edits of landuse /natural tags

[Brian Prangle]

>>
>> The problem is that you are anxious for everything to be rendered in a
>> uniform manner, but you are not considering the many other use cases
>> particularly for landuse/landcover data. Continuous tidying up of tagging
>> in this area means that OSM is not currently a viable platform for serious
>> use for conservation
>>
>> Jerry
>> .
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 12:48 PM, John Baker wrote:
>>
>>> Just to be clear about what I am doing.
>>>
>>> I have been changing many what I consider typos. The majority have been
>>> simple changes I started by cleaning up the lanes tag as I was doing work
>>> getting lanes tagged correctly for the new CartoCSS and lanes=90 (where
>>> they was not) and lanes=two made no sense. So I fixed each of these
>>> worldwide looking at aerial imagery, (e.g. needed so leave a lanes=27 or
>>> something for a massive border entrance)
>>>
>>> Again inspired by my designing new style at doing CartoCSS styling I
>>> looked at other features that I has been doing, fountains, nightclubs,
>>> religions, ice rinks, etc
>>>
>>> Then fixing some the nature, landuse tags, landuse=maedow to meadow, etc
>>> within the same tagtype.
>>>
>>> Recently I wanted to tackle one of my biggest personal bugbears of
>>> natural=grass which is (now was) tagged incorrectly and should be
>>> landuse=grass. There where dozens/hundreds in my local area so I did the
>>> whole UK.
>>>
>>> In case where I moved tag type (natural to landuse) I looked at if they
>>> added anything to the corresponding tag.
>>>
>>> So if nature=grass already had landuse=park or something I didn't change
>>> it over.
>>>
>>> Also I looked at the ways that had a name or had notes and decided if
>>> they where due more investigation and if to edit them or not. To be honest
>>> most didn't and it was quick and easy to check in JOSM when I highlight
>>> them all.
>>>
>>> I tried to explain myself in the change set notes.
>>>
>>> I like to think I have been responsible when doing this and think it
>>> improves the database/map.
>>>
>>> http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Rovastar/edits?page=1
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> > Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 09:20:32 +0200
>>> > From: frede...@remote.org
>>> > To: talk-gb@openstreetmap.org
>>> > Subject: Re: [Talk-GB] Mass edits of landuse /natural tags
>>>
>>> >
>>> > Hi,
>>> >
>>> > On 04/24/2013 04:26 PM, John Baker wrote:
>>> > > AFAIC these were typo edits and getting the whole database more
>>> > > consistent. I have done dozens of changes to fix typos worldwide over
>>> > > the past few weeks and it would be crazy to have lengthy discussions
>>> on
>>> > > each one for multiple countries in multiple communication channels.
>>> >
>>> > If you don't have the time or the will to do it properly, then simply
>>> > leave it be.
>>> >
>>> > The rule is that as soon as you make an edit where you don't look at
>>> the
>>> > individual object you edit, it is a mechanical edit that has to be
>>> > discussed beforehand.
>>> >
>>> > The reason for this rule is that it is too easy to introduce mistakes
>>> -
>>> > what looks like a "typo" to one person could make sense to another.
>>> >
>>> > Assume that there's an object tagged landuse=forest *and*
>>> natural=meadow
>>> > *and* it carries a note tag that explains exactly what the mapper
>>> meant
>>> > by this. Someone simply looking for all natural=meadow and replacing
>>> > them with landuse=meadow would overwrite the landuse=forest and not
>>> even
>>> > see the note tag - he performs a mechanical edit that needs to be
>>> > discussed beforehand (in order to minimize undesirable side effects).
>>> >
>>> > On the other hand, if someone were to manually go through all objects
>>> > tagged natural=meadow, read potential note tags, look at the other
>>> tags
>>> > and/or aerial imagery, and *then* change them to landuse=meadow, that
>>> > would not be a mechanical edit.
>>> >
>>> > Bye
>>> > Frederik
>>> >
>>> > --
>>> > Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33"
>>> >
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>
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Re: [Talk-GB] Mass edits of landuse /natural tags

[John Baker]

Frederik,

Like I said before all these are not scripted/automated and I look for 
conflicts. I explained the process I used and that seemed to completed with 
your original post here. Are you saying now it does not? *shrug*

And I use both wiki pages and common practice, like I explained previously. 

Are there any cases that I have changed where I have not?

John


> Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 20:33:11 +0200
> From: frede...@remote.org
> To: talk-gb@openstreetmap.org
> Subject: Re: [Talk-GB] Mass edits of landuse /natural tags
> 
> Hi,
> 
> On 25.04.2013 19:07, John Baker wrote:
> > The wiki is a consensus of opinion over the years about how to tag
> > things.
> 
> It isn't. There have been more than enough cases where after *years* it 
> was found that somewhere hidden away in a wiki page there was a 
> statement that was absolutely not reflecting any kind of consensus. 
> There are, regularly, votes in which Wiki users decide to "deprecate" 
> some tag used by thousands, and replace it with something else - all 
> that with 20 people participating and voting.
> 
> We aim to make the Wiki a good documentation of our work in OSM, but 
> where Wiki and practice diverge, practice rules. That's why before you 
> take some wiki page and interpret it as code to modify the database, you 
> are expected to discuss - to make sure that (a) the wiki page is right, 
> (b) your reading of the wiki page is right, (c) the algorithm you are 
> planning to apply has no unfortunate side effects, and so on.
> 
> > To be honest I am less likely to engage in discussion about future edits
> > as all they will seem to end in is: always message the original editor,
> > always do a manual survey and you don't know what you are doing - all of
> > which I strongly disagree with.
> 
> As long as you're making manual edits you can get away with a lot; 
> people will assume that if you make a specific change then you have 
> valid reasons for that (e.g. some kind of additional source rather than 
> just an algorithm). Any sort of mechanical mass-edit requires discussion 
> so if you don't feel like discussing then you must not make the edit.
> 
> There's scope for widely accepted automatic or mechanical edits. Some 
> guy in Germany removes, I believe, trailing spaces from names - but only 
> in Germany because he hasn't discussed this idea outside. It is also 
> very unlikely that you find someone who objects to e.g. automaticall 
> yreplacing the mis-typed "highway=residentail" with 
> "highway=residential". But even such simple things should, if applied in 
> a wider scope, be discussed beforehand - out of politeless if nothing 
> else, but also to avoid a potential flaw in your reasoning to go undetected.
> 
> Someone once replaced all name=McDonalds with name=McDonald's, arguing 
> that that was the correct name of the fast food chain but accidentally 
> renaming a couple of totall different things that were really called 
> McDonalds. A short discussion beforehand could helped to avoid that mistake.
> 
> Re. your latest point "you don't know what you're doing" - my impression 
> is that your attitude is "I know better anyway", an attitude that is 
> problematic enough in mappers but becomes inacceptable as soon as people 
> make large-scale edits.
> 
> Bye
> Frederik
> 
> -- 
> Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frede...@remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"
> 
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Re: [Talk-GB] Mass edits of landuse /natural tags

[Dudley Ibbett]

I suspect mapping meadows is a job for "experts".  I tried asking one and was 
told there are no "natural" meadows in the UK and meadow is a "landuse".  
Probably time to find another expert.  To this extent, for most mappers 
natural=meadow and landuse=meadow would certainly be interchangable.  If 
however people could avoid using meadow just because there is a horse in the 
field this would be good.  

If a mass edit removes information (i.e. the type of meadow) then I wouldn't be 
happy if this was done to my work.  Discussing such edits with the local 
community would seem the best approach.

More detailed mapping of the rural landscape does seem to be increasing so 
perhaps a GB guidance page on rural mapping with GB examples would be a good 
idea if a consensus can be found.

Regards

Dudley






  

Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 19:57:10 +0100
From: bpran...@gmail.com
To: t...@acrewoods.net
CC: talk-gb@openstreetmap.org
Subject: Re: [Talk-GB] Mass edits of landuse /natural tags

Just to take take the conversation into another orbit simultaneously, I'd like 
to clarify Tom's remarks about natural=wood and landuse=forest being  
interchangeable in the UK. I always tag landuse=forest where aerial imagery 
shows a regular pattern of tree spacing which is a good indicator of planting 
following the wiki guideline for forest as being "Managed forest or woodland 
plantation" to differentiate from naturally spaced trees. Without surveying 
it's difficult to ascertain the "managed" bit though

Regards

Brian


On 25 April 2013 14:19, Tom Chance  wrote:

I can sympathise with some of what Jerry, John and Frederik have said here.
There is undoubtedly a lot of slightly inappropriate tagging in the database, 
meaning that serious use of the data often requires a lot of cleaning up. I 
went around Southwark changing lots of land uses but based on surveys and where 
it was clearly wrong, so that I could do some analysis and make nice maps of 
green spaces in the borough. It used to be the case that 
landuse=recreation_ground was _the_ way that we all tagged any green space that 
wasn't a park. I routinely change these to landuse=grass when I come across 
them these days, unless they really are recreation grounds. I wouldn't want to 
be held back by having to divine (or enquire about) the intention of the 
original editor each time!


It's also annoying when the tag Jerry is looking for, according to the wiki, is 
"natural=grassland" not "natural=grass" as you would 
expect:http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:landuse%3Dgrass



Also the tag "natural=meadow" has been merged into "landuse="meadow". There is 
now another key "meadow=agricultural/perpetual" (oh joy) to distinguish between 
managed and unmanaged meadow, or what used to be the natural/landuse split!


There is, in general, a longstanding confusion about natural/landuse. The 
natural=wood/landuse=forest use is pretty interchangeable across the UK, so 
that we can only really treat them as equivalent and meaning "some trees".


The problem that John, Jerry and I have all run into is the downside of a free 
tagging system without a mechanism to iron these wrinkles out. We can only 
really shrug our shoulders and accept that the data is really patchy in terms 
of coverage and appropriate tagging, and do our best to improve it after 
discussion. Incidentally, if you want to see a real basket case of a key, look 
at the values in Taginfo for the building key!


As Frederik said, it is best to discuss ideas for large scale corrections on a 
mailing list first. That way these issues come out and can be discussed before 
the edits, clean-up strategies can be improved, and people don't get upset at 
mistaken edits no matter how good the intentions.


John, I would suggest that you inspect each natural=grass object on a case by 
case basis to try and determine which of these it best 
fits:http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:landuse%3Dgrass



Regards,Tom

On 25 April 2013 13:59, sk53.osm  wrote:


Why do you assume that landuse=grass is more correct than natural=grass. This 
is precisely the problem I have with your edits. If I use natural=* for 
something someone comes and changes it to landuse=* which is not what I meant. 





I ONLY use landuse=grass for amenity grassland (mainly in cities) which would 
otherwise not be mapped. I would never use landuse=grass for grassland in a 
farm or a nature reserve, or on a sports pitch (we have a perfectly good 
surface=* for that). Unfortunately many people have used landuse=grass 
indiscriminately (for instance for farmland in 
Hollandhttp://osm.org/go/0E6w0ZK-- and here in Lancashire (the area around 
Garstang shows wholly inappropriate use of landuse=meadow too). It seems that 
people prefer the green colour rendering for these over the brown for farmland. 
I am 

Re: [Talk-GB] Mass edits of landuse /natural tags

[Roy Jamison]

Funny, I thought a typo was a "mispelling", not a change in use or change
of tag.
natural=gras fair enough, but actually changing any subtle definitions of
what a mapper actually meant by the difference between tags cannot be done
by "an armchair mapper" as someone put it.

What really pees me off (OK I've not been around for a while but the fact
remains), and many others here is that it was not previously discussed
before this started.

It's like changing a country leader without checking with the public is
it's ok to do so.

Doesn't happen in a democratic society, which OSM embodies.


On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 9:00 PM, Dudley Ibbett wrote:

> I suspect mapping meadows is a job for "experts".  I tried asking one and
> was told there are no "natural" meadows in the UK and meadow is a
> "landuse".  Probably time to find another expert.  To this extent, for most
> mappers natural=meadow and landuse=meadow would certainly be
> interchangable.  If however people could avoid using meadow just because
> there is a horse in the field this would be good.
>
> If a mass edit removes information (i.e. the type of meadow) then I
> wouldn't be happy if this was done to my work.  Discussing such edits with
> the local community would seem the best approach.
>
> More detailed mapping of the rural landscape does seem to be increasing so
> perhaps a GB guidance page on rural mapping with GB examples would be a
> good idea if a consensus can be found.
>
> Regards
>
> Dudley
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------
> Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 19:57:10 +0100
> From: bpran...@gmail.com
> To: t...@acrewoods.net
> CC: talk-gb@openstreetmap.org
>
> Subject: Re: [Talk-GB] Mass edits of landuse /natural tags
>
> Just to take take the conversation into another orbit simultaneously, I'd
> like to clarify Tom's remarks about natural=wood and landuse=forest being
>  interchangeable in the UK. I always tag landuse=forest where aerial
> imagery shows a regular pattern of tree spacing which is a good indicator
> of planting following the wiki guideline for forest as being "Managed
> forest or woodland plantation" to differentiate from naturally spaced
> trees. Without surveying it's difficult to ascertain the "managed" bit
> though
>
> Regards
>
> Brian
>
>
> On 25 April 2013 14:19, Tom Chance  wrote:
>
> I can sympathise with some of what Jerry, John and Frederik have said here.
>
> There is undoubtedly a lot of slightly inappropriate tagging in the
> database, meaning that serious use of the data often requires a lot of
> cleaning up. I went around Southwark changing lots of land uses but based
> on surveys and where it was clearly wrong, so that I could do some analysis
> and make nice maps of green spaces in the borough. It used to be the case
> that landuse=recreation_ground was _the_ way that we all tagged any green
> space that wasn't a park. I routinely change these to landuse=grass when I
> come across them these days, unless they really are recreation grounds. I
> wouldn't want to be held back by having to divine (or enquire about) the
> intention of the original editor each time!
>
> It's also annoying when the tag Jerry is looking for, according to the
> wiki, is "natural=grassland" not "natural=grass" as you would expect:
> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:landuse%3Dgrass
>
> Also the tag "natural=meadow" has been merged into "landuse="meadow".
> There is now another key "meadow=agricultural/perpetual" (oh joy) to
> distinguish between managed and unmanaged meadow, or what used to be the
> natural/landuse split!
>
> There is, in general, a longstanding confusion about natural/landuse. The
> natural=wood/landuse=forest use is pretty interchangeable across the UK, so
> that we can only really treat them as equivalent and meaning "some trees".
>
> The problem that John, Jerry and I have all run into is the downside of a
> free tagging system without a mechanism to iron these wrinkles out. We can
> only really shrug our shoulders and accept that the data is really patchy
> in terms of coverage and appropriate tagging, and do our best to improve it
> after discussion. Incidentally, if you want to see a real basket case of a
> key, look at the values in Taginfo for the building key!
>
> As Frederik said, it is best to discuss ideas for large scale corrections
> on a mailing list first. That way these issues come out and can be
> discussed before the edits, clean-up strategies can be improved, and people
> don't get upset at mistaken edits no matter how good the intention

Re: [Talk-GB] Mass edits of landuse /natural tags

[Malcolm Herring]

On 26/04/2013 00:32, Roy Jamison wrote:

Doesn't happen in a democratic society, which OSM embodies.



Actually, OSM is more akin to an anarchic society - there is no 
government to enforce laws, instead we rely on all citizens to 
self-police. This requires a much higher level of personal 
responsibility. Everything we do is in the public space, so we must 
always take care to behave according customary standards. If in doubt, 
first raise the issue at the parish pump!


For global editing, the pump is located in the tagging mailing list.


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Re: [Talk-GB] Mass edits of landuse /natural tags

[Tom Chance]

On 25 April 2013 19:57, Brian Prangle  wrote:

> Just to take take the conversation into another orbit simultaneously, I'd
> like to clarify Tom's remarks about natural=wood and landuse=forest being
>  interchangeable in the UK. I always tag landuse=forest where aerial
> imagery shows a regular pattern of tree spacing which is a good indicator
> of planting following the wiki guideline for forest as being "Managed
> forest or woodland plantation" to differentiate from naturally spaced
> trees. Without surveying it's difficult to ascertain the "managed" bit
> though
>

My point was really that if you download an extract of all the forests and
woods, and check the aerial imagery, you'll find the usage might as well be
random. The same goes for lots of other tags where the difference isn't
clearly explained on the wiki and isn't consistently applied in editor
presets.

I worry a bit about the view put across by Chris Hill, among others, that
we should always assume every tag has been put in place with the greatest
of care and so shouldn't be changed; that little-used tags are probably
valuable, rather than being accidental or unknowing variations on a more
appropriate tag.

Such a position shows little regard for data users, who have to deal with
the resulting mess and inconsistency. As with the wood/forest example, it
means you really can't rely on the difference so you just have to treat
them as interchangeable, all meaning "some trees here". The building key is
treated by most, at the moment, as a catch-all. There are so many pointless
variations on similar meanings that people treat it as "everything under
the building key is basically a building". Without a lengthy translation
matrix drawn up from manually inspecting TagInfo you can't say much more.

I routinely change tagging I find that looks inappropriate in an effort to
make the data more useful. I'm happy to see John Baker trying to do this. I
only wish he had discussed his plans on this list first, as doing otherwise
always raises hackles, and that he took care to inspect each individual
case rather than processing batches of objects en masse.

Regards,
Tom

-- 
http://tom.acrewoods.net   http://twitter.com/tom_chance
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Re: [Talk-GB] Mass edits of landuse /natural tags

[Chris Hill]

I'd like to respond to Tom's points:

On 26/04/13 10:12, Tom Chance wrote:


I worry a bit about the view put across by Chris Hill, among others, 
that we should always assume every tag has been put in place with the 
greatest of care and so shouldn't be changed; that little-used tags 
are probably valuable, rather than being accidental or unknowing 
variations on a more appropriate tag.


My point is not that every tag is carefully chosen, but that some are 
and a mess edit will not differentiate . Indeed Jerry started this 
thread with the very concern that a tag key being changed reduced the 
value of the tagging. A wide-scale or mass edit will blunder through 
these with little regard and hence the reason for discussion first. 
Contacting editors and discussing mass edits first will throw up these 
issues.


Such a position shows little regard for data users, who have to deal 
with the resulting mess and inconsistency. As with the wood/forest 
example, it means you really can't rely on the difference so you just 
have to treat them as interchangeable, all meaning "some trees here". 
The building key is treated by most, at the moment, as a catch-all. 
There are so many pointless variations on similar meanings that people 
treat it as "everything under the building key is basically a 
building". Without a lengthy translation matrix drawn up from manually 
inspecting TagInfo you can't say much more.


I am sure you, like me, are a data consumer Tom, but I'm surprised at 
this attitude. Whenever data is consumed it must be processed and 
identified, how else do you tell between a wood and a lake? If you 
choose to treat two things as equivalent, such as natural=meadow and 
landuse=meadow, the lines of code to use both in the same way are 
insignificant compared to the effort to mass edit or manually change 
them. Once you have written that few lines of code you have solved the 
problem once and for all, no matter how many other occurances get added 
to the database. You can deal with this as you load the data, extract 
the data, render or otherwise process the data, it doesn't matter, but 
as someone who uses OSM data I know this is easy, repeatable, reusable 
and provides a permanent solution. Mass editing doesn't; someone may 
revert your edit or add a new object with that tag at any time in the 
future, making the editing solution fragile to say the least. I don't 
have a lengthy translation matrix, I have a few extra lines of code I 
can copy to my next project.


I routinely change tagging I find that looks inappropriate in an 
effort to make the data more useful. I'm happy to see John Baker 
trying to do this. I only wish he had discussed his plans on this list 
first, as doing otherwise always raises hackles, and that he took care 
to inspect each individual case rather than processing batches of 
objects en masse.


You make the data more useful to you, but are you sure you are not 
destroying someone else's detail? Would you alter the geometry of an 
object just so it looks tidier on your map, even though it does not 
reflect its real shape? Why is that different to altering tagging? If 
you know the area or survey it and actively decide to add or change tags 
to reflect more accurately what is there then that is great, but just 
homogenising data is awful and potentially reduces the value of other 
contributors' work.


I am fully in favour of editing the data in our database and I actively 
encourage it by assisting new mappers as and when I can. I want to see 
all kinds of edits of any object type, but those edits should add value 
and detail, not reduce it.


--
Cheers, Chris
user: chillly


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Re: [Talk-GB] Mass edits of landuse /natural tags

[Lester Caine]

John Baker wrote:

If the original editor applied the tags on
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:landuse%3Dmeadow
 there is no issue.
There it defines the state of the managed or unmanaged.


And that is the pain the the backside since all these EXTRA tags are unnecessary 
if the base standard is followed properly. I should not have to look at 
secondary tags to find that an area is not actually 'landuse', but rather 
'natural'. You should be able to identify managed and unmanaged areas from the 
main tag!


--
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
Rainbow Digital Media - http://rainbowdigitalmedia.co.uk

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