I was about to list some points by which I think this proposal has great
advantages, but I'll stick to these three, where Vincent sums it up much
more elegantly than I could have written.
As it happened before and it's still happening with other schemes, we
should always try to improve the overall tagging structure whenever
possible.
Yes, we have to evaluate if a change like this would give any benefit
given the amount of work necessary, but I have no doubt that the map
would be better in terms of data structure, easier to read, easier to
map and with less ambiguities.
Regards,
António.
Às 16:33 de 13/02/2023, Cartographer10 via Tagging escreveu:
Though also explained in the proposal, let me answer these:
1) New mappers often have trouble learning how to map
landuse/natural/landcover. It is not always clear when to use the
different tags and when not. However, assessing the physical landcover
is much easier. You can say, this area is covered with grass, no
matter the function of that area. And even experienced mappers like me
sometimes struggle to find the correct tag why the physical landcover
is clear. Therefore, the landcover tag will make mapping much easier
for new mappers.
2) I personally often face that I can't properly access the function
of a piece of land. Instead of possible incorrectly tagging with with
e.g. a landuse tag, tagging it with landcover instead is much better
because you can describe the physical coverage. Somebody with more
knowledge can then maybe add the function of tag with another tag.
3.1) First of all, it makes rendering easier because the values are
much better separated. For example, you no longer have a physical tag
(landuse=grass/flowerbed) in the same key as a functional tag (e.g.
landuse=residential).
3.2) The tagging system and thus the data is easier to understand for
a data consumer. Now they have to learn all the strangeness of the
current landuse/natural/landcover tagging system.
So it is not just "satisfying the data normalisation urges of people
familiar with working with databases". Using landcover will result in
long term improvements for the tagging scheme. Even we now have to
make some hard choices on some existing tags.
Regards,
Vincent
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