Just my thoughts but ... I would certainly not encourage guessing the legal status - if I don't know (either from signage on the ground or from on-copyright sources elsewhere) and I can't find out I don't use designation= ... Although there is certainly no problem with using designation=unknown.
BUT importantly I don't think highway=footway / cycleway etc. implies anything at all about legal status - only about suitability for use, as judged on the ground from observation and signage, as a more informative tag than highway=path. Adding a surface= (or, as I often do, tracktype=) tag is a bonus that provides further information for the database. IMHO this is not country-specific - the only bit which is POM-only is the actual values given to the 'designation' tag. The key point here is that I do try to separate the legal (via the designation tag) from the rest of the tagging. This list and elsewhere there is of course an enormous ongoing debate on the uses and misuses of highway=path vs. all the other values for highway= ... But life is too short! Mike Harris > -----Original Message----- > From: tagging-boun...@openstreetmap.org > [mailto:tagging-boun...@openstreetmap.org] On Behalf Of Roy Wallace > Sent: 08 December 2009 00:23 > To: Tag discussion, strategy and related tools > Subject: Re: [Tagging] bicycle=no > > On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 9:01 AM, Mike Harris > <mik...@googlemail.com> wrote: > > > >> I think this is an important point. It becomes a problem > when people > >> try to map the *law*, because legal status is often difficult to > >> verify - e.g. you can't see it! > > > > ... Unless you have access to non-copyright information on legal > > status and this is reasonably available in the public > domain in England and Wales ... > > And what would you suggest for the rest of the world? > > > I would avoid highway=path so far as possible and give > preference to > > highway=footway / cycleway / track etc. unless the path on > the ground > > was an ill-defined informal track with unknown (or no) > legal status. > > This provides more information. > > In Australia, we ARE tagging paths generally with "unknown > (or no) legal status". Should we *guess* the legal status and > use footway/cycleway etc., or use highway=path + surface + width? > > _______________________________________________ > Tagging mailing list > Tagging@openstreetmap.org > http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging > _______________________________________________ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
