as far as I am aware, a wash, an arroyo, and a wadi are functionally the same. 
It is mostly a separation of language - where the words wash, arroyo, and wadi 
are basically the same functional thing, however Wadi and arroyo, in some 
regions, also have a wider definition that includes other valley definitions. 

as it might be confusing to have three tags for the same thing (A lot of washes 
in California have Spanish names using the word Arroyo (“Arroyo Seco Del 
Diablo” ) and we have a de facto established tag with wadi, it seems like 
making three tags for the same functional item is overkill - as long as we 
preface that whatever it is being tagged functionally be a “wadi", not one in 
name only.

That seems like a small caveat to avoid confusion between 3 tags. 

If avoiding that confusion at all costs means 3 tags, then lets make three tags 
- waterway=arroyo, waterway=wash, waterway=wadi and the different nuances 
between what really defines the tag can be spelled out on each page, and 
regional taggers can find a tag they are familiar with.


I spelled out my definition of a wadi on the waterway=wadi talk page. 
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Tag:waterway%3Dwadi 
<http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Tag:waterway=wadi>

I look forward to further input, especially anyone who lives in a region with 
things called "wadis" - as my experience is with “washes" in California.

Javbw. 


> On Jan 15, 2015, at 6:09 PM, Martin Koppenhoefer <dieterdre...@gmail.com> 
> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> Am 15.01.2015 um 05:27 schrieb John Willis <jo...@mac.com>:
>> 
>> I'm really surprised you were "shot down" from using wadi when it is the 
>> most applicable tag for the item, 
> 
> 
> sometimes the most applicable tag is not sufficiently well describing/ 
> distinguishing a feature and it is better to introduce a new tag that fits 
> 100%
> 
> To me, the Term "wadi" is quite specific for certain waterways that occur in 
> a certain region of the world. We can decide whether we'd want to use it 
> anyway everywhere for "similar" (or partly similar) features or if we 
> introduce other, dedicated  tags on the same level of specificity for these 
> features. Why not having a tag waterway=wash, or are those really the same 
> than a "wadi"?
> 
> cheers,
> Martin
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