A special thank you for the links yesterday. I have read them. "Australian
Tagging Guidelines" and "Good practice" are worth knowing and I am very
grateful for our forefathers that put so much effort into writing these
documents. It worth noting, however, when you compared the two that they are
riddled with inconsistencies, idiosyncrasies and vagueness. It is worth
remembering this when we experience another of those "I am right, you are
wrong" conversations.
Reading "Australian Tagging Guidelines," I thought of Geffory Rush from Pirates
of the Carribean, "they are more guidelines than rules." Unapproved tracktypes
for 4WD (inventing tags, don't exist but perhaps they should) and small towns
called cities so they appear the map (mapping for the renderer), and the
principle of "we map what is there" but then don't map what is private (often
difficult to verify too). The descriptions are full of contradictions and
vagueness. The "Lifecycle prefix" wikitext needs more work, particularly
examples of use to get consistency in its application. As much of it is not
rendered (Mapnik), mapping it could be considered as a low priority.
Harry Wood's blog "community smoothness" addresses vagueness in language and
how everybody has a different opinion of what a text means. That is not new of
course and with certainty, everybody has an opinion about what the right way
is. It is human nature, when it comes to our own beliefs, every evidence
supporting it is embraced and every evidence against excluded.
Finally, it is easy to forget that the Wiki is written in dozens of different
languages and there will be inconsistencies between Wiki entries in different
languages. I can verify that for two. English and German wiki pages
descriptions are not surprisingly culture-specific (see also the
chemist/pharmacy/drug store discussion for AU/UK/US comparison).
Despite our best efforts inconsistencies, idiosyncrasies and vagueness will
reign in the OSM anarchy.
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