Proposal talk:Deprecate crossing=zebra in favor of crossing:markings

Typo in title

"Deprecate crossing=cebra in favor of crossing:markings" instead of "Deprecate crossing=zebra in favor of crossing:markings" --MalgiK (talk) 14:51, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for the info, didn't catch that. Has been fixed. --Bauer33333 (talk) 19:11, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

The reason not to is already stated in the proposal

crossing=zebra was originally intended to describe zebra crossings in the UK with their respective legal effects

If these legally defined crossings haven't been eliminated in their entirety throughout the UK and any former colonies who still use the term then the reason for it hasn't gone away. It is shorthand for something with legal consequences and the common term, it's easy to type, it's simple: leave it alone. --InsertUser (talk) 21:47, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

In the Commonwealth, crossing:markings=zebra still doesn't necessarily mean crossing_ref=zebra

• UK: There are Implied Zebra crossings being trialed locally that don't have Belisha Beacons, and zig-zag lines
• Hong Kong: Yellow stripes are used at signalized crosswalks to mean no blocking (equivalent to box junction), and at non-public road or bus terminal crosswalks without pedestrian priority for visibility

—— Kovposch (talk) 03:48, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

@InsertUser: Long ago, the community made the same observation and the result was crossing_ref=zebra. But deprecating crossing=zebra hit strident opposition, not so much from the UK but from certain parts of continental Europe, where the tag was not being used with quite the same semantics, by those with no love lost for iD. – Minh Nguyễn ^💬 03:52, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

@InsertUser: Zebra crossings without Belisha beacons aren't "implied" and they aren't being "trialled locally". The law in Great Britain has not required that they be used for zebra crossings on cycle tracks since at least 2016. Schedule 14, Part 1, para. 25 TSRGD 2016 --Rskedgell (talk) 05:34, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

Please link to the bit where I use the phrase "trialled locally". You seem to be referring to arguments I'm not making --InsertUser (talk) 14:18, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, that suggestion was made by @Kovposch: above, not by you. --Rskedgell (talk) 14:39, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

@InsertUser: Even if crossing=zebra might still work in the UK, it certainly does not in other countries, including a lot of the colonies. While we could deprecate crossing=zebra only outside the UK all the global tag suggestion systems will turn this into a herding cats event. --Bauer33333 (talk) 08:52, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

"all the global tag suggestion systems will turn this into a herding cats even" Well that's the real root of this proposal isn't it? The software changes at the whim of whoever happens to be maintaining it today and suddenly the community now has to come up with newer more bloated tagging to mean the same thing. --InsertUser (talk) 14:18, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

"Well that's the real root of this proposal isn't it?" It is not, that statement was about a deprecation only in some areas instead of worldwide, not the current situation. The intend is rather to start tackeling the bloat a bit. This proposal does not introduce any new tags. If the current growth of crossing:markings=* continues at the same rate all crossing=* worldwide will have an additional crossing:markings=* tag within about three years. Even if you want you can't stop the usage of that tag anymore. So instead we can now start to reduce the values of crossing=* and eventually phase it out completely long term. --Bauer33333 (talk) 14:54, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

I actually don't have a problem with the crossing:markings=* tag, there are places that vary this even for the same type of crossing. But reducing bloat by removing a very common value that doesn't conflict with anything is utterly pointless and can only be done by wasting a huge amount of contributor time or automatically deleting useful information. --InsertUser (talk) 22:12, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

I agree that deprecating crossing=zebra does not solve the bloat, and that crossing=zebra remains a harmless first mapping for zebra's. I would rather deprecate crossing=marked, crossing=unmarked, crossing=controlled, crossing=uncontrolled, and crossing=traffic_signals in favour of their more specific crossing:*=* counterparts. --Peter Elderson (talk) 08:03, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Mapping new zebras combined with traffic lights

A preset should not assume that the local zebra type is uncontrolled. In Nederland, zebra is a legally defined type of crossing. It is often uncontrolled, but many zebra crossings are located at traffic light controlled junctions. --Peter Elderson (talk) 08:05, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

The main goal of the preset is to replace the "one click action" of adding crossing=zebra with an other one click action. By its original british definition crossing=zebra is always uncontrolled, the missusage of crossing=zebra for controlled crossings is one of the reasons I started this proposal.

Can you add the implications of a legally defined dutch zebra crossing to the wiki page of crossing_ref? It is unknown to me currently what the difference between a light controlled crossing with zebra markings and a light controlled crossing with dashes is. Are there crossings that have zebra markings but are not legally zebra crossings, like the british debate about needing belisha beacons?--Bauer33333 (talk) 12:51, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

I am checking the consensus in the Dutch mapper community about the usage and meaning of crossing_ref=zebra. We have had our own "belisha beacon discussions", about the presence of the Dutch L2 traffic sign. The outcome, AFAIK, was that an L2 sign should be placed by the relevant authority, but if it's not there, or if dimensions or colours are not conform the norm, the pedestrian priority still holds. Also, proper zebra crossings with L2 signs can be found at junctions with traffic lights. The pedestrian priority is overruled by the traffic lights when they are operating normally, but if they don't, the zebra grants priority to pedestrians. About other markings: only zebra markings have legal meaning: grant priority to pedestrians. Dashes and dots are just guidance lines. Ignoring dashes and dots can be dangerous behaviour, though, which may be punishable. --Peter Elderson (talk) 16:06, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for adding it to the crossing_ref=* page. I'm not sure how to adopt the presets I proposed to cover all NL use cases, looks like you would need at least four presets for that. Same goes for other countries with sometimes a lot more options. I consider adding presets for all crossing types worldwide out of scope for this propsal and would like to focus on replacing crossing=zebra only. Maybe the preset can be named "zebra crossing without traffic lights" for compatibilty? Either global or in the dutch translation. The "crosswalk" escapade of crossing=zebra has already shown how powerful the name choice can be so you are right on being careful with that.

In Nederland, we have controlled and uncontrolled crossings with and without markings, where markings can be zebra, dots and lines, all in abundance, and for bicycles as well as pedestrians (separated, though pedestrians may use bicycle crossings if there is no pedestrian crossing nearby). Limited to pedestrian crossings, the markings can be zebra or none, and control can be traffic_signals or none.

Limited to zebras, there can be control or not, both in abundance. So, to add a zebra, you need at least a checkbox for controlled or not. Many Dutch mappers cling to crossing=controlled plus either crossing:markings=zebra or crossing_ref=zebra. Others cling to ducktagging crossing=zebra and leaving the control for detail mapping. Abandoning crossing=zebra is unthinkable for many.--Peter Elderson (talk) 23:17, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

I have no idea what you mean with a checkbox, in ID you need to pick one preset out of the list and can edit it later. If you just want to tag the markings crossing=zebra is the wrong approach anyway, since it implies the absence of signals, making ducktagging impossible with that tag in most countries. I have added some more sentences to the preset section now. --Bauer33333 (talk) 11:53, 14 February 2025 (UTC)