On 03/04/2009 14:11, Steve Hill wrote: > However, mistake or not, we have what we have and making fundamental > changes doesn't seem especially likely (I have in the past made > suggestions regarding the fundamental data structure and have been met > with nothing but sarcastic replies and put-downs - I find it quite > depressing that no one seems interested in even thinking about any > revolutionary changes instead of just continuing down a potentially > dead-end route. See my brain-dump on the wiki: > http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User_talk:Steve_Hill)
We don't really have a mechanism for making that kind of decision collectively. It's easy for someone to influence how new tags are used, for example, as those just require someone to start doing it, or to be rendered. If it's a good idea people will use it, if not it will die. But unless it can be upward compatible, it is just much harder to achieve with the fundamental infrastructure and requires at least some measure of concensus but that's not nearly enough: the will and skill to put in the hours to make the change is the thing that will actually make something happen. Relations only got introduced (and segments abolished) because someone (Frederick mainly) got down to it and actually did it rather than just talking about it. There seems to be a proposal for a radical shake-up-and-lets-start-from-scratch every few weeks. There has to be a really, really good reason to turn over the apple cart because the cost is just so high. FWIW, I agree largely with the specific points on your wiki page, but I don't think it will happen because of the effort involved. What we have now is not perfect, but it can and largely does model what you are suggesting already, so there is no huge impetus to change it. There is also a camp which actively wants a node to be able to have more than one "type" in your terminology: we have (non-accidental) examples of place=town and building=town_hall for example, and (worse) place=town and amenity=post_box on the same node. I think that's ludicrous myself, and I'm sure you do too, but there are those who don't see it that way. David _______________________________________________ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
