On 2020-10-19 4:13 a.m., Shawn K. Quinn wrote: > On 10/14/20 19:54, Robert Delmenico wrote: >> Hi, >> >> I'm proposing that we change the man_made tag to human_made. >> >> I feel it is a discussion that we need to have as there seems to be >> little discussion to date. > [...] > I will vote against this proposal and any like it, because it involves a > lot of retagging work for zero actual benefit. > > At least healthcare=*, and the temporary dual tagging required to > transition to it, made some sense. This, to me, makes zero sense and > smacks of change for the sake of change. >
I don't feel particularly strongly about this change either way, but to say it has "zero actual benefit" seems like a pretty obvious exaggeration. A lot of this thread has been on the ramifications on the database, on data consumers, and on people being offended or misinformed, but these seem to be missing the point changes like this are supposed to have. The reason changes like this are useful is they serve as cultural markers for community openness and understanding. It's the same reason we want discourse on lists like this one to be friendly and amicable: it should be obvious to anyone outside looking in that contributing and participating in OSM is *enjoyable*, and they should feel welcome joining in. If core aspects of the tagging schema give hints at a bias towards a particular segment of the population (in this case, English-speaking men), even if those hints were just a result of change in zeitgeist or popular language norms, then that has an impact on the sort of people we attract as a community. (As an extreme example, it was mentioned elsewhere that tags are nearly arbitrary identifiers, but if all tags were randomly selected bits of profanity, I'm guessing everyone here would agree, the community would be a lot smaller, and leave out a lot of the more professional-oriented contributors.) Now, whether the impact this specific tag has is of sufficient weight to accept the costs others have mentioned (most notable IMHO being the impact on current data consumers), well that's the discussion we should be having. But hyperbole like "[this] makes zero sense and smacks of change for the sake of change" is not a helpful part of that discussion. Thanks, - Justin _______________________________________________ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
