Lulu-Ann wrote: > User Dieterdreist has changed the description so the highway tag is > no longer used for the objective physical description but for a subjective > feeling of "importance". Millions of highway tags would need to be > reviewed if this change without proposal and approval would become valid.
Dieterdreist isn't far from being right. "Importance" is what the highway tag was created for, and in fact that's more what Map Features originally said. Where I'd differ is that it's not a "subjective feeling" - it should be verifiable, often by reference to your country's highway system. Objective physical descriptions are good. But you shouldn't use the highway tag for them: that can't ever work. Combinations of physical attributes vary so wildly between countries that you'd end up with 200 different values for the highway tag. That would be a nightmare for renderers and routers to parse. Rather, you should add unambiguous physical tags like surface=, lanes=, that sort of thing. That way, those routers and renderers that need them can reliably parse the information. If your editor of choice doesn't make it easy to enter such tags, then nag the authors until it does (did I really say that? :) ). Fortunately, any edit war here shouldn't make any difference either way to how anyone maps, and there's no need for retagging. This is because the best authority for "what highway value should I use?" is, in fact, the "International equivalence" table on the wiki. This documents, at least in theory, the consensus within your country: for example, in the UK, we've had a settled set of definitions for several years now and they are summarised in the International equivalence table. You should map according to that. (Wiki Actually Useful Shock Horror!) cheers Richard -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/New-dimension-of-vandalism-tp25150223p25151132.html Sent from the OpenStreetMap - General mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
