On 21/09/2014, Tod Fitch <t...@fitchdesign.com> wrote: > Despite being actively discouraged, "paved=yes/no" is > used. And two of the top values for "surface=*" are "paved" and "unpaved",
A lot of those are historical values, before the practice of distinct surface values took hold. > clearly taggers find the concept of "is paved" versus "is not paved" a > natural one. And I strongly suspect you would get a more consistent result > from an arbitrary person trying to "map what you see" if you asked them to > look at a road and determine if it was paved or not than if you asked them > to specify the name of the surface material. It would be nice if it was true, but it isn't. Consider surface=compacted : while mappers do have a clear idea of what is "paved" or not, that's the kind of surface thay'll yield random/subjective paved=yes/no answers. Or consider surface=cobblestones : while everybody would tag that paved=yes, a lot of data users who look for "nicer" roads will want to avoid that particular kind of paved=yes. They're just two examples amongs many that show that a binary value is not as interesting as it sounds. As a user, I'd avoid a router that only cares about paved=yes/no. Looking at surface=* instead isn't hard. You can probaly afford to just look at the ~30 most common values (ignoring typos and rare items) and still get less issues than you'd get by looking at paved=yes/no. As an added bonus, you can make your own selection of what surface is "nice" for your usecase, and even use nuanced ratings. _______________________________________________ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
