Proposal talk:Geographical Places

Hardly useful as a point feature

I can see where you're coming from but a point feature will not help. What you want is a chance for the renderers to write a name across a whole feature such as "T H E   A L P S" or so but you'd have to either assign the tag to an area (and where, exactly, are the Alps) or to a line (either a way that forms the text baseline, or a relation with some nodes that, arranged in a line, form the text baseline), which would probably draw criticism because it is "tagging for the renderer" - a criticism I would be tempted to ignore in this respect, in fact I would explicitly say that this tag is mainly intended to help rendering and that's not a bad thing. --Frederik Ramm 22:57, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

For many features a point would be fine. It will show in that spot for any correct scale maps, while smaller scale maps wouldn't show it even if it happened to be in the map. But I agree that a way or area would work better for any really large scale item. Take the Pacific Ocean (a place level 1 example). A central point would probably be somewhere between Fiji and Hawaii. But if I was making a map of Australasia, a big chunk of the map would be the Pacific, but it wouldn't cover that point, so probably wouldn't be named. Some possibilities-

• Draw an area (it wouldn't have to cover the whole region exactly when we're talking this scale) and render the name in the area if it (or enough of it) is shown on a map. Disadvantage - I wouldn't want to download an area the size of the Pacific by accident while trying to work near the edge of this way, so it would have to be broken up, which makes maintaining it harder.
• Put a number of points with the same name at various locations (in a relation), and render the name at one of these points if several show on the same map (maybe the most central point?) Careful placement of these should allow good coverage with the minimum of points. --DancingFool

• I don't think this proposal is helpful. What you are trying to do is to assign a name to an area or a collection of entities (these mountains form "The Alps") by putting a node somewhere with the title. This might help to create simple maps, however it will not help for other things (is this mountain part of the alps?) and it will not be possible to write "The Alps" where they actually go. What you want is a relation that combines a number of nodes: Relation "The Alps" contains all mountain peaks. Or you want just to assign a "name" to an area natural=water/land if it's one area. --spaetz 09:56, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

The definition as a relation of features only gets you so far. The Everglades as a relation of bogholes? The Wash as a collection of buoys? Tagging an area "Haarstrang", "Mala Fatra" or "Camargue" should work best. The interior of the area, such as public phones, peaks and streams, are part of that area. Ipofanes 15:45, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Amended proposal

I have made two changes to my proposal: 1. "place_level" changed to the more logical "size_level". 2. The proposal has been extended to ways and areas. Especially the use on ways seems very useful for rendering a name along the direction of the feature. Polderrunner 22:23, 8 May 2009 (UTC)