Considering that requiring local surveys in Antarctica would lead to an empty map and that assuming that governments are always lying would prevent us from importing government data, to me it seems relatively safe to assume that something exists if it has visible traces in imagery and multiple different sources mention its existence, especially if photos are independently provided. I found traces of other "minor" supply traverses in imagery (apparently some other mappers did too, considering their edits), except for one stretch [1] that I marked with fixme=* for future review. Due to the color of the snow, these traces are easier to see in JOSM by changing the gamma of the image layer. To me, this corroborates some level of activity beyond political propaganda.
What is OSM's parameter to judge existence? Does the route need to be traveled twice a year to exist? Maybe once every two years or once every decade? Are such parameters absolute, or would we get a better map if we adapt them to local realities? Whether these minor supply traverses are correctly mapped as highway=primary is the topic of this thread. Route du Raid and Mirny - Vostok lead to larger stations with multiple structures, so I wouldn't map them as highway=service. Kohnen has one main building and several auxiliary structures. Zhonshan - Dome A goes to two stations: Kunlun (at its end) and Taishan (midway, mostly a relay station). Each is composed of a single building, so the route serves two buildings. Taishan, Kunlun and Kohnen depend entirely on these hundreds of kilometers long ground routes, so I think the importance of these traverses is probably greater than highway=service. [1] https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/1233516169 On Thu, 25 Apr 2024 at 04:51, Christoph Hormann <o...@imagico.de> wrote: > > I wanted to add some cautionary advice here. > > Mapping in the Antarctic in OSM is to a much larger part than on other > continents fueled by 'imagined' things. I am not talking about stuff here > individually made up by mappers but more institutionally conjured ideas, > projections and to some extent also political propaganda. The percentage of > things mapped in the Antarctic in recent years that is based on secondary > sources (government/institutional publications, wikipedia etc.) without any > verification based on primary sources (local observations, satellite/aerial > imagery, ground photos) is rather high - in a way that in the long term would > become a serious problem for OpenStreetMap. > > Having looked at a lot of satellite imagery from the Antarctic over the years > i can clearly say that a lot of claims that are being made about 'roads' in > the Antarctic - in OSM or in Wikipedia - do not hold up in scrutiny against > primary source evidence. And in such cases you'd have to ask yourself: Do > you want OSM to represent the observable reality on the ground or do you want > it to reflect the major consensus narrative of a certain cultural sphere. > > As a basic definition a route of navigation on land has two requirements to > qualify as a road/path in OSM: > > * it is physically manifested in some form, at least during those periods > when it is used (in case of seasonal roads on seasonally dry/frozen > lakes/rivers for example). > * it is used in the physically manifested form with some level of regularity > and permanency. > > Two examples from outside the Antarctic that would probably not qualify: > > https://mc.bbbike.org/mc/?lon=10.713939&lat=17.952688&zoom=13&num=3&mt0=bing-satellite&mt1=mapnik&mt2=nokia-satellite > https://mc.bbbike.org/mc/?lon=14.069293&lat=22.547244&zoom=17&num=3&mt0=bing-satellite&mt1=mapnik&mt2=nokia-satellite > > The first simply lacks a physical manifestation (because the ground is too > dynamically re-shaped by wind and the route used is too variable in its exact > course). The second visibly demonstrates that no single physically > manifested track is commonly used by the different users of the route. Both > of these are evidently verifiable routes of navigation (a bit like ferry > routes) - but, by established meaning of the road tags in OSM, not roads > (though of course mappers are free to map them as such - as evidenced by the > examples). > > Looking concretely at long distance supply routes in the Antarctic - those > are largely quite comparable to the linked to cases outside the Antarctic - > except that most of them are much more sparsely used for very specific > purposes (supply of a specific remote location with certain goods that are > impossible or much less cost efficient to transport via airplane). By > established conventions of functional road tagging in OSM these would almost > all be service roads (no through-traffic to other destinations than the ones > the route ends at). The level of physical manifestation varies a lot > depending on local snow and wind conditions and type and frequency of use. > Some routes that have likely not been used for many years are clearly visible > in images while others (some of which are claimed to be used with high > frequency on Wikipedia and elsewhere) have clearly no physical manifestation. > > In general, it is unlikely that mappers at large can be convinced to refrain > from inflating tagging in the Antarctic to compensate for the variable scale > of the Mercator projection or to reproduce certain subjective believes of > importance. This applies to both routes of navigation and populated places. > The solution would be to create distinct tagging to account for the concrete > features that exist and are practically verifiable specifically to be used in > parallel with the subjectively inflated (and therefore semantically > meaningless) mainstream tags. In this specific case that would be tagging of > routes of land navigation with sporadic use and permanently/regularly > populated places that are not settlements in the sense that people > individually settle there for a longer time, but that might still fulfill > some of the functions settlements have elsewhere. The criteria for such > tagging should be chosen for practical verifiability based on available > primary sources. > > -- > Christoph Hormann > https://www.imagico.de/ > > _______________________________________________ > Tagging mailing list > Tagging@openstreetmap.org > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging -- Fernando Trebien _______________________________________________ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
