Thanks for the continued discussion. It seems that one of you removed the offending landuse that I mentioned in my email yesterday (from an import that was not attributed). As a result, the tiles have begun to regen, and we can now see the beautiful, detailed forest tracing that someone did around the ski slopes. This is an example of why blanketing a few hundred thousand square miles is not appropriate. Here is a screenshot: https://www.dropbox.com/s/7xgtiodzjvhq1l4/2016-05-10%2013_14_51-OpenStreetMap.png?dl=0
Now, I gave this some more thought, and I do tend to agree with Steve A that landuse=forest indicates an area designated by humans for a particular use. For instance, landuse=residential is used to define an area that is residential in nature, landuse=cemetery is a cemetery. Keeping with that trend, I think that the semantics of the tag are aligned with a managed forest. That said, we need to document this and then move to start using a new set of tags for landcover=*, to map areas covered with whatever it is, regardless of whether humans put them there or not. landcover=trees, landcover=grass, landcover=rocks, etc. These tags could be on landuse=forest areas, or alone. I think we should resurrect the landcover proposal! Next step would be change landuse=forest to landcover=trees where appropriate. That is the only way I think we as a community can hope to resolve this. Thanks, Elliott On Mon, May 9, 2016 at 7:53 PM Russell Deffner <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Steve and all, > > > > I think you are correct that we’re trying to build consensus, I think this > is a good time to review the ‘OSM best practices/rule(s) of thumb’. I > would counter-argue that a ‘blanket use of landuse=forest’ does not meet > the ‘verifiable rule/guideline’ [1]; it’s not something you can easily > observe when there is not active timber harvesting. Also, we know that not > only is National Forest land used for timber production, but also > mushroom/berry harvesting, hunting, recreation, etc., etc. – so we also > should not ‘blanket’ national forest with other tags, but try to > accurately/verifiably show things. If you look at the discussion page for > the proposed landcover features [2] it is a good representative of many of > these ‘natural’ vs. landuse vs. vegetation cover, etc. As I have said in > previous threads on this topic – please have patience with Pike National > Forest – I’ve been working on this and have verified that Pike does not > allow timber harvesting except by permit in very small designation > sub-sections of the forest, which rotate/change frequently, so unless we > are talking about ‘importing those boundaries’ then I’m slowly working on > tagging ‘forested’/areas with trees as natural=wood (i.e. that I believe > meets ‘verifiability’ – i.e. you can pretty well see forest edge/tree line > in imagery). > > =Russ > > > > [1] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Verifiability > > [2] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Proposed_features/landcover > > > > *From:* OSM Volunteer stevea [mailto:[email protected]] > *Sent:* Monday, May 09, 2016 3:29 PM > *To:* [email protected] > > > *Subject:* Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests > > > > Mike Thompson writes: > > 1) I don't know how anyone would able to tell this from simple on the > ground observation. > > > > Granted: from an on-the-ground observation, a landuse=forest might look > very much like a natural=wood. However, if you saw that part of the area > had some stumps, you could safely conclude it is not natural=wood (unless > there was "illegal logging” going on, and that DOES happen) but rather that > it is landuse=forest. THEN, there is where you know for a fact (from facts > not on-the-ground, but perhaps from ownership data, signage like “Welcome > to Sierra National Forest” or other sources) that THIS IS a real, live > forest, in the sense OSM intends to mean here (landuse=forest implies > timber harvesting now or at some point in the future). > > > > 2) While the English word "natural" might suggest this, we use "natural" > for other things that man has a hand in creating or modifying, e.g. > natural=water for a man made reservoir. > > > > Again, I’ll grant you this, but it only shows that OSM’s tagging is not > always internally consistent. I can live with that. What is required (and > “more clear" in the case of natural=water) is the understanding that > consensus has emerged for natural=water: this gets tagged on bodies of > water which are both natural and man-made, and that’s OK, and we don’t lose > sleep over it or look for more consistency. It’s like an exception to a > rule of grammar: you just learn it, and say “shucks” that there are such > things as grammatical exceptions. > > > > I’m doing my very best to listen, and it seems many others are, too. > Listening is the heart of building consensus. Let us not also become > entrenched in minor exceptions or established conventions adding further > confusion when identifying them as such actually can help us achieve more > clarity. > > > > SteveA > > California > _______________________________________________ > Talk-us mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us > -- Elliott Plack http://elliottplack.me
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