User talk:Steve Hill
Tagging Overhaul
The Problem
The current tagging methods produce data which does not contain very obvious contextual information since the object type and object attributes are mixed together. For example, consider the following two ways:
- natural=cliff, rock=limestone, height=25
- climbing=route, rock=limestone, height=25
Are both these objects of the same type (rock=limestone), or is one describing a cliff and one describing a climbing route? Without prior knowledge of the tags used, it is impossible to tell which tags are describing the object type, and which are merely describing attributes of the object.
Additionally, a tag does not necessarily have a single globally defined meaning, which means you must know the context in order to understand it. This is especially important when doing things like looking up the meaning of tags in the wiki.
Also, things start to become a problem when an object if of more than one type - for example, a way which is a road during the summer and a piste during the winter. If the way is tagged as both a road and a piste, how do you know which attributes are relevant to the road and which to the piste? A prime example would be the "name" tag - the piste may well have a different value to the road.
A Solution
The current tagging system used for relations offers a solution - a designated "type" tag. By extending this idea, it is possible to produce a tagging scheme that separates the context from the attributes and can be applied equally to both relations, and to the underlying objects.
So, we could tag a way thusly:
- type=road, classification=tertiary, name=Foo
Or, in the case of an object that has a number of different types associated with it, rather than tagging the object itself, a relation can be created for each type and the same tagging scheme used to tag the relation:
- Relation 1: type=road, classification=tertiary, name=Foo
- Relation 2: type=piste, difficulty=easy, name=Bar
Example Tagging Scheme
| Key | Values |
|---|---|
| type | road |
| classification | motorway, motorway_link, trunk, trunk_link, primary, primary_link, secondary, tertiary, unclassified, service, track |
| name | * |
| gradient | 10%, 20%, 30%, etc. |
| crossing | ford, bridge, tunnel |
| traffic_calming | bump, chicane, cushion, hump, rumble_strip, table, choker |
| smoothness | excellent, good, intermediate, bad, vary_bad, horrible, very_horrible, impassable |
| surface | black_top, concrete, brick, slab, cobble, dirt |
| type | piste:downhill |
| name | * |
| difficulty | novice, easy, intermediate, advanced, expert |
| lit | yes, no |
| abandoned | yes, no |
| grooming_priority | 1, 2, 3 |
| type | piste:nordic |
| name | * |
| difficulty | novice, easy, intermediate, advanced, expert |
| grooming | classic, skating, scooter, backcountry |
| lit | yes, no |
| abandoned | yes, no |
| grooming_priority | 1, 2, 3 |
| type | piste:sleigh |
| name | * |
| lit | yes, no |
| abandoned | yes, no |
| grooming_priority | 1, 2, 3 |
| type | piste:sled |
| name | * |
| lit | yes, no |
| abandoned | yes, no |
| grooming_priority | 1, 2, 3 |
| type | piste:snow_park |
| name | * |
| lit | yes, no |
| abandoned | yes, no |
| grooming_priority | 1, 2, 3 |
| type | aerialway:cable_car, aerialway:gondola |
| name | * |
| occupancy | (Number of people per car) |
| capacity | (Number of people per hour) |
| duration | (Number of minutes the lift takes to go between stations) |
| type | aerialway:chair_lift |
| occupancy | (Number of people per chair) |
| capacity | (Number of people per hour) |
| duration | (Number of minutes the lift takes to go between stations) |
| enclosed | yes, no |
| heated | yes, no |
| type | aerialway:mixed_lift |
| name | * |
| chair_occupancy | (Number of people per chair) |
| gondola_occupancy | (Number of people per car) |
| capacity | (Number of people per hour) |
| duration | (Number of minutes the lift takes to go between stations) |
| enclosed | yes, no |
| heated | yes, no |
| type | aerialway_pylon |
| ref | * |
| type | ski_lift:t-bar, ski_lift:j-bar, ski_lift:platter, ski_lift:rope_tow, ski_lift:magic_carpet |
| name | * |
| capacity | (Number of people per hour) |
| duration | (Number of minutes the lift takes to go between stations) |
| type | ski_lift_pylon |
| ref | * |
| type | station |
| name | * |
Discussion
Please add discussion points below. :)
Looks great, Steve. How about for natural areas:
| Key | Values |
|---|---|
| type | natural |
| classification | water, farmland, forest, sand, rock, mountain, scrub, meadow, prairie, bog, tar_pit, glacier, swamp |
| name | * |
| wheeled_navigable | yes, no |
| min_wheeled_type | none, 4WD, 4WD_high_clearance |
actually I am not so pleased by the idea to have an relation for almost every object. What do you think about hierarchical tags? Like in the address-scheme you could apply (and there are quite a bit of proposals in the wiki for this) tags in namespaces: in the case of your Piste this could be: instead of
type=piste, difficulty=easy, name=Bar
you use:
piste:difficulty=easypiste:name=Bar
--Dieterdreist 23:07, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
- You don't need a relation for almost every object - only those objects which share a geometry (e.g. a road that is also a piste, etc.) Steve Hill 09:28, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
Request for adoption of climbing proposal
Hi, I see that you have not been active on the wiki since 2012. IS it ok if I adopt your proposal?--PangoSE (talk) 07:16, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
Missing file information
Hello! And thanks for your upload - but some extra info is necessary.
Sorry for bothering you about this, but it is important to know source of the uploaded files.
Are you the author of image File:Mixed lift.png ?
Or is it copied from some other place (which one?)?
Please, add this info to the file page - something like "I took this photo" or "downloaded from -website link-" or "I took this screeshot of program XYZ".
Doing this would be already very useful.
Licensing - photos
In case that you are the author of the image: Would you agree to open licensing of this image, allowing its use by anyone (similarly to your OSM edits)?
In case where it is a photo you (except relatively rare cases) author can make it available under a specific free license.
Would you be OK with CC0 (it allows use without attribution or any other requirement)?
Or do you prefer to require attribution and some other things using CC-BY-SA-4.0?
If you are the author: Please add {{CC0-self}} to the file page to publish the image under CC0 license.
You can also use {{CC-BY-SA-4.0-self}} to publish under CC-BY-SA-4.0 license.
Once you add missing data - please remove {{Unknown|subcategory=uploader notified March 2022}} from the file page.
Licensing - other images
If it is not a photo situation gets a bit more complicated.
See Drafts/Media file license chart that may help.
note: if you took screenshot of program made by someone else, screenshot of OSM editor with aerial imagery: then licensing of that elements also matter and you are not a sole author.
note: If you downloaded image made by someone else then you are NOT the author.
Note that in cases where photo is a screenshot of some software interface: usually it is needed to handle also copyright of software itself.
Note that in cases where aerial imagery is present: also licensing of an aerial imagery matter.
Help
Feel free to ask for help if you need it - you can do it for example by asking on Talk:Wiki: new topic.
Please ask there if you are not sure what is the proper next step. Especially when you are uploading files that are not your own work or are derivative work (screenshots, composition of images, using aerial imagery etc).
If you are interested in wider discussion about handling licencing at OSM Wiki, see this thread.
(sorry if I missed something that already states license and source: I am looking through over 20 000 files and fixing obvious cases on my own, in other I ask people who upladed files, but it is possible that I missed something - in such case also please answer)
--Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 16:11, 12 March 2022 (UTC)