Well, when proposing this, I'm trying to avoid these problems: - the set of paved and the set of unpaved surfaces is not closed, and so it would require us to continuously update Carto with new surface types - people don't seem to agree on which tag to recommend overall to describe surface conditions: tracktype, or smoothness, or simply surface - different people argue in favour of different tags because each of these tags fit their particular needs better, but the meaning of these tags overlap, so that's (in a sense) a needless replication of information that may, at times, even be contradictory (say, smoothness=excellent + tracktype=grade8 makes no sense but it is an allowed tag combination) - considering many tags at once (and specially conflicting or missing tags with similar meaning) is harder for all data consumers, including renderers and routers, all it does is create pressure to adopt a single tag
I don't think that smoothness is self-documented. You need to read what "horrible" means to know "who is it horrible for" (certainly not for a pedestrian). That's more evident with tracktype. Surface is more self-documented indeed, but then it does not describe surface condition. On Fri, Jan 3, 2014 at 5:08 PM, Gerald Weber <gwebe...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 3 January 2014 15:19, Fernando Trebien <fernando.treb...@gmail.com> > wrote: >> >> I decided to extend my comparison between tracktype and surface, now >> including smoothness. I think we may need a new tag to integrate all >> surface quality classification systems (it can well be a simple >> numeric tag). See this: http://i.imgur.com/yEJ52eE.png > > > This table is interesting, but in my experience computers are better at > looking up tables than humans ;) So instead of creating a new tag, why not > settle with such a lookup table for routers/renderers only? > > Another idea would be to use a score system. For example the > surface=compacted scores positive, say 3, and surface=asphalt sores 5. But > smoothness=bad scores -2 and so on, from which one could obtain a measure of > the overall quality of a road. > > One of the drawbacks of using a numeric grade for classifying road > conditions is that after a while people forget why they did chose a given > grade in the first place. If you leave the various tags surface, smoothness > etc this becomes essentially self-documented. > > By the way, in Ouro Preto, Brazil, there are streets paved with cobblestone > which get so slippery under wet condition that they can only be used by 4x4 > vehicles. > > _______________________________________________ > Tagging mailing list > Tagging@openstreetmap.org > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging > -- Fernando Trebien +55 (51) 9962-5409 "The speed of computer chips doubles every 18 months." (Moore's law) "The speed of software halves every 18 months." (Gates' law) _______________________________________________ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
