Re: [Talk-us] Best practices for dealing with old TIGER tags?

[Dion Dock]

Loud opinions follow.  Be warned.  :)

I wish “unclassified” would just die in the USA.  I think it has a formal 
meaning in other countries (see also “living_street”) but doesn’t have meaning 
in the USA.  Further, since almost all of the TIGER import didn’t use it, it’s 
just creating busywork to apply it in place of existing tags.  However, since 
it’s defined on the Wiki, everyone tries to find a place for it.  I would 
compare this to having a tag of “prime minister”.  Yes, it means something 
somewhere, but not here.

I think the rural residential roads are either “highway=service”, 
“highway=track” or “highway=path”.  I think “highway=residential” should always 
have a name.  Service might or might not have a name, same for path and track.

In general, people should not be encouraged to take path/service/track when 
there is a residential road.

I basically never remove the tiger:reviewed tag; typically because it’s another 
step that isn’t easily supported by most tools.

-Dion

> Eric Ladner  writes:
> 
>> On Sat, Jun 4, 2016 at 5:58 AM Greg Troxel  wrote:
>> 
>>> 
>>> Kevin Kenny  writes:
>>> 
 OK, 'residential' if it looks like 'subdivision', 'unclassified'
 otherwise (as long as it's drivable in, say, my daughter's car rather
 than my 4-wheeler). Got it.
>>> 
>>> I also see a distinction between residential/unclassified as denoting a
>>> legal road (around me, carved-out parcel wise from the surrounding land)
>>> vs track and some service denoting a non-legal-road.  However, others
>>> see the physical and legal attributes as separate.
>>> 
>> My understanding of the description of "unclassified" is unclassified is a
>> step between residential and tertiary.   It's a connecting road, minor
>> connector, whatever, that doesn't have residential on it, but it's not high
>> enough in classification to make it a tertiary road.
> 
> I agree with that notion.
> 
>> I usually use it for roads in industrial complexes, loops around malls,
>> business complexes, or other connectors/roads where there's no obvious
>> residential around.
> 
> Mostly agree, but I only use it for legal roads, not driveways or
> private roads.  Meaning someplace where (in new england) it's legally
> separate and the public has a right of access.


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Re: [Talk-us] Best practices for dealing with old TIGER tags?

[Kevin Kenny]

On 06/04/2016 09:12 PM, Harald Kliems wrote:

All these discussions are the reason why I almost never touch the
highway=* tag and rather add surface=* or other descriptive tags to
TIGER roads. There just isn't any consensus and many good reasons for
many positions about residential, unclassified, track, etc.

I go farther than that. I try to avoid adding subjective tagging
entirely. I'll add surface=, because I can tell asphalt from clay. But
tracktype=, smoothness=, mtb:scale=, sac_scale=, are all things I tend
to avoid. Two mappers are likely to come up with different answers,
which flies in the face of the
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Verifiability principle. And the
consequences are unlikely to be severe; subtle differences in
rendering, or tweaks in time estimates from a router, are all that I
really expect.

I find that there's an element of machismo in the assignment of the
scales. SAC scale is a really good example. Novices are likely to
overrate a route, because they lack confidence and also don't have the
experience of harder routes to compare against. Experienced
mountaineers are likely to underrate them. Someone who routinely
free-solos a route that's 5.6 on the Yosemite scale doesn't know what
a grade 4 route is! About the only people who can grade a route
reliably are experienced guides, who have an idea what to expect of
clients at various skill levels - and the description of the grades
has to be written in terms of, "what would you take a client on," or
they'll still underrate them.

I've seen trails with the steepness and exposure of
https://www.flickr.com/photos/65793193@N00/3183604309/ and
https://www.flickr.com/photos/65793193@N00/3183604743/ tagged as
anything from sac_scale=hiking (T1) to sac_scale=alpine_hiking (T4).
If subjectivity allows for that wide a range of classifications, the
scale isn't all that useful.

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