Talk:Accepted features/Smoothness: Difference between revisions

From OpenStreetMap Wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Line 463: Line 463:
:: I predict that well see lot's of values besides the ones listed: entermediate, great, smooth, horible, horryble, verysmooth, verybad, veryexcellent, bad-, bumpy, gravel, ... But well see. [[User:Alv|Alv]] 12:22, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
:: I predict that well see lot's of values besides the ones listed: entermediate, great, smooth, horible, horryble, verysmooth, verybad, veryexcellent, bad-, bumpy, gravel, ... But well see. [[User:Alv|Alv]] 12:22, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
:::Thats the case with every single Tag out there. There are always a handful values being used that are not documented. Either because people think more values are needed, just mix them up with something else or simply spell them wrong. Presets in popular editors can prevent many of these. --[[User:Driver2|Driver2]] 20:07, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
:::Thats the case with every single Tag out there. There are always a handful values being used that are not documented. Either because people think more values are needed, just mix them up with something else or simply spell them wrong. Presets in popular editors can prevent many of these. --[[User:Driver2|Driver2]] 20:07, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
: You are not the first person who proposed a tag, saying nothing about deprecating existing similar tags or minimizing the risks of conflicts or confusion, got a positive vote from 15 people and try to impose the result to thousands users. The same happens with highway=path supporters which are now trying to deprecate footway, cycleway and bridleway. But when such activism leaves the wiki and comes to a wider public like the ML and renderers developers, the opposition is much stronger. So, please, leave existings tags, watch the statistics and wait 6 months. If your tag is really better, it will be voted by its popularity. -- [[User:Pieren|Pieren]] 10:27, 21 November 2008 (UTC)


== Limit Smoothness to road vehicles? ==
== Limit Smoothness to road vehicles? ==

Revision as of 10:27, 21 November 2008

Ok, I agree with the smoothness tag as proposed in you'r tab, because I need something like that for mountain track roads ( saying which vehicule you need at least to drive on it ) Sletuffe 16:28, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Even being new at OSM: from my view as a biker and inline-skater smoothness is a very practical solution in conjuntion with surface Pmurk65 27 May 2008

smoothness and surface

I dislike the dependencies between the proposed smoothness and the surface key. If I read your list correctly, a way with surface=cobblestone and smoothness=bad is illegal? I'd certainly like to distinguish between various grades of cobblestoned road. In my opinion, smoothness without surface is pointless, hence I'd rather a smoothness key refined surface, so you get excellent or good or intermediate paved roads, good to catastrophic cobblestoned roads, etc. So how about a key smoothness=0 (default), +1, -1 to refine a base smoothness for the type of surface? Robx 07:11, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

This dependency was not my intention. The surface descriptions in the second column are EXAMPLES, not used for definition. The smoothness of a way should be assessed solely based on the usability of that way by the vehicles I mention, NOT based on the surface. This is my whole point: as a user of a certain road or path I am only interested wether I can drive on this road or not. If I sit on a racing bike, I am not interested wether the surface of a way is cobblestone or mud, just wether it is smooth enough to be used with a racing bike or not. I changed the proposal to make that clear (hopefully). With your proposal of a refined surface key, it gets very difficult to draw usage-specific maps (e.g. for racing bikes), since there is a potentially infinite number of surface values. Imagine a piste on a salt lake -- with the surface key it would read "surface=salt", which would have no meaning before the key is integrated into all the renderers and Garmin type files and whatever. With "smoothness=excellent", it would instantly show up everywhere as usable with a racing bike, which is my intention. --Chrischan 11:05, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm beginning to like the proposal. It doesn't store all relevant information, but it's a good start, and appears to be clearly defined. I've started tagging some roads around here, the better cobblestoned roads with smoothness=intermediate and the awful ones with smoothness=bad. Also some really smooth paved roads with smoothness=excellent. I'd suggest adding some default values: A road should have a default of smoothness=good given its surface is paved or unspecified. A road with surface=cobblestone should default to smoothness=intermediate. A track should probably default to intermediate also. Robx 20:09, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps an additional value of "unknown" would be best as a default? I've even been on an interstate highway (motorway) which is definitely smoothness=bad, or maybe smoothness=intermediate if you're feeling generous. Just anecdotal, but I think it's a bad idea to imply the smoothness based on the highway (or even surface) classification. --Hawke 21:26, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm sure those exist, but they're certainly the exception. A default of unkown (or rather, no default), includes in the smoothness tag also the information whether the way has been surveyed for smoothness, which may be a good idea. But I'd rather not add thousands of smoothness=good tags and rather state somewhere that I've surveyed a given area for smoothness. Robx 18:37, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Subjective

I've never like subjective tags such as this. This is why tracktype=* never got anywhere, as it is not obvious what the difference between "bad" and "intermediate" is. For instance, the roads where I live are terrible, but saying as they're all like that, should it be smoothness=bad or smoothness=intermediate? Bruce89 14:19, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I like it, as long as there are usable guidelines for how to tag. "suitable for roller skates" and "suitable for mountain bikes and 4-wheel-drive automobiles" is quite good, IMO. --Hawke 15:16, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
In my opinion, tracktype=* never got anywhere because it does not describe a singular property of a way, but a combination of properties. Smoothness, although as far as I know not being a standardized physical property, could even be measured physically (I think of a wheel of defined size, measuring the vertical deflection while being dragged along the way). Obviously, this would be very unpractical. But when you honestly try to classify the roads you know into that scheme (based on wether you would drive on it with the vehicles I mention), you will see that the classification is pretty unambiguous in *most* cases. But I think this is very similar to the width of a road: although it is a physical property, few people would actually bring a rule and measure the width, most people would guess. Still it is very good to know wether the width is 2m or 20m, or wether the smoothness is excellent or horrible. --Chrischan 11:36, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Catastrophic?

I have to say that I'm not so sure about "catastrophic" for the lowest value, it doesn't seem to fit with the others. I suggest "horrible" as an alternative. I'd support the proposal though. --Hawke 15:20, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I know what it means, I just don't think it's a very good word to use for a value here. --Hawke 17:06, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
Hawke, why do you think "catastrophic" does not fit with the others? I actually do not care about the values at all, I just want the schema ;-). But maybe I should add Alvs idea to have one more tag essentially saying "no wheeled access possible" beyond the 4wd access value. --Chrischan 11:42, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
It just doesn't fit with the rest, in my mind. "How was that sandwich you ate today?" "Oh, it was catastrophic!" doesn't work. Or -- "Hey, I want to go for a ride on Foo Lane; how's the surface quality?" "Oh, I wouldn't ride there, it's catastrophic!". "Catastrophic" to me would give a degree of badness to something that was already bad ("I had a catastrophic accident on my bicycle today").
I do like Alv's idea of a sixth grade beyond the 4wd level. Perhaps "impassable" would work, especially if this is intended to apply to wheeled vehicles only. Bipeds are quite good at navigating obstacles, and if it's impassable by them, we probably shouldn't be mapping it as any sort of routeable type.--Hawke 16:26, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
How about "very bad", then catastrophic as the lowest value. Otherwise it's too big a jump from grass to mountain tracks. --OliverLondon 16:28, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
I started mapping tracks as I was hiking this week end with the smoothness tag in addition of the highway=track tag, and it turns out that I mapped a lot of tracks with the lowest possible quality ( smoothness=catastrophic ). But I doubt any 4wd could pass the tracks I went to so I missused that tag because It lacks "above" (or below ;-) ) catastophic. So I wonder why those tracks were there If no 4 wheels vehicules can use them ? The answer to my question came 10 minutes later as we crossed their way : 2 differents 4 wheels vehicules, a tractor and a "Quad" ( in french ). So, I am in favour or adding a "horrible" or whatever we should call it level to increase to 6 the number of smoothness tags in the goal of mapping what can drive on after a 4wd. To my mind, Mountain Bike can drive where 4wd ( not the army ones) cannot, the "horrible" tag should fit for 4wd and the "catastrophic" tag for Mountain bike & Tractors & "quads" Sletuffe 13:34, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

impassable ?

ok this looks better because it's less subjective than catastophic, but I don't think it's ok either. Why ? Answer this : how could a track be impassable by 4 wheeled vehicules ? It cannot, by the fact that it was created as a track in the goal to make passing possible what's worse than horrible ? I'm not a native english speaker ? or could we insert a "very_bad" between bad and "horrible" ? Sletuffe 15:43, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I think impassable wouldn't be applicable to tracks. On a footway, it would say that it wouldn't be passable by mountainbike. It's not a value that would be used much, mostly there for completeness. Robx

Laterally varying smoothness

In fact, it doesn't need to be specified. The proposal is quite usable the way it is right now. I'd suggest voting on this as is, and then considering refinements such as smoothness=bad plus smoothness:left_border=good plus left_border:surface=painted_paving_stones. If you encounter a way that doesn't quite fit, add a note or invent some appropriate tag. Robx 18:32, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Vote? (and what about sand)

Since discussion seems to have died down without major objections, how about taking this to vote?

I did come across a minor problem: In the local forests, there's some deep sandy tracks (partly bridleways). Since they're barely passable by wheeled vehicles, I'd tag them smoothness=bad, but arguably they're really quite "smooth". Robx 07:42, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

  • Same as you, I'm using it for a while now, and would be sad to see it dropped ;-)
For your remark about "smooth sand" but passable ( only by 4wd ? then I would have tag it smoothness=horrible ), I forsee some confusion just because of the name "smoothness". If I understand this proposal correctly, and as I was saying here before Chrischan transformed it into a nice proposal, the real goal of it, as mentionned here in the proposal : The smoothness of a way should be assessed solely based on the usability of that way by the vehicles mentioned above, NOT based on the surface properties
In clear, even if it is a perfectly smooth surface such as a wall, because it isn't passable then it shouldn't be tagged with smoothness
Ok my example is bad because we don't tag walls, but I'm sure every one get the point Sletuffe

Accessibility / Usability?

I like the idea behind this proposal: "This is my whole point: as a user of a certain road or path I am only interested wether I can drive on this road or not." What I do not like are the names. If what you are after with with this tag is whether you can use a road with a particular type of vehicle and not how smooth the surface is (this is just a means to indicate whether you can use the road) than I think the name should be rather accessibility or usability. This is also why I proposed to extend the access tag to cover the semantics but it seems people prefer to reserve this tag for legal access restrictions. Something like accessibility=(car|hc|4wd|tractor) would work perfectly for motorized vehicles and is actually the way how it is done in most maps that I know. It has also the benefit of largely resolving the sand problem as well as the discussion about subjective scales (what precisely is the difference between bad and intermediate etc.). Above all the meaning will be clear for the users of the map (the meaning of accessability=HC is much more obvious than smoothness=intermediate). The only problem I see is that things like roller blades only interested in excellently smooth pavement will not be covered anymore. But such "vehicles" are really rather interested in the surface property and should be covered by the surface tag. Ukuester 15:58, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you too, what we really need more than "is it made of grass, sand, cobblestone, stones, asphalt, smooth asphalt, asphalt ( that the surface tag can handle) is the usability of a way, and I feel that "smoothness" doesn't serve it well ( anyone comming very fast to this proposal would think it's intended for roller, skate or jogger ). Also I don't want to forget them, it's to my mind a secondary need.
You are saying it would bann "roller blades" why not ?, if I continue your idea, why not use accessibility=roller_blades ?
(by the way what is an HC ? )
I would prefer usability rather than accessibility, and would propose something like :
Proposal usable by minimum supposed surface
usability=roller roller blade/skate board and all below smooth asphalt or equivalent
usability=sport_car sport car/racing bike and all below asphalt or equivalent
usability=car city bike/normal car and all below none
usability=4wd 4wd and all below none
usability=tractor tractors/quads/tanks/mountain motorcycle/Mountain bike none
When reading my table, I might be agreeing with you that the 2 first might well be dropped and returned to the surface tag. But not sure because maybe someone will imagine a different surface type than asphalt where roller could still go.
The only thing I am not happy with in this table is the fact that the tag refers to one and only one vehicule while I'd like to refer to a "group of"
example, my "car" would better, but longer, be "any_vehicule_group_that_can_drive_where_a_car_can_drive"
Usability Usability ! that what counts.
using surface=asphalt and saying rollers can use it will fail when later someone add à surface tag that is different but still usable.
Is it easy to see that I hate the surface tag, don't use it, and don't understand the need for it ?
My point of vue might also be transposed to the way the access tag is used. We should think in terms of "group of vehicule sharing some properties" and "group of surface type sharing some properties" or else a routing program ( isn't it what we want in the end ? ) is unable to take into account all tags and variation that are added all the time to those tags.
HUGH !, this is the friday thought

Sletuffe 18:51, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

HC stands for "high clearance". For most tracks that a passenger car can not navigate you wouldn't need 4WD but simply a sufficient high clearance which some 2WD Jeeps have. The typical hierarchy for unpaved/dirt roads in the US (where this type of road is much more common than in Central Europe is "any passenger car can use" - "requires high clearance" - "requires four wheel drive" (example). I'm fine with using "usability" instead of "accessability" to make a more clear distinction to "access". I like your scale except that I would want to have hc added between car and 4wd. The fact that groups of vehicles are meant instead of particular vehicles should be made clear in the documentation of the tag. I would like to see a comment by Chrischan though. :-) Ukuester 11:58, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

This sounds like a totally separate proposal from Smoothness. You might want to create a new proposal and move this discussion over to it. --Hawke 16:38, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. According to the proposal the rationale behind smoothness is "This is my whole point: as a user of a certain road or path I am only interested wether I can drive on this road or not." I tried to make this more explicit than it was in the original proposal. Please explain why you think that this is totally separate. Right now we have a proposal surface, another proposal additional surface values, a third proposal tracktype, and a fourth proposal smoothness which are all closely related. I don't think a fifth proposal usability will make thinks any better. Ukuester 07:34, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
I was mostly referring to Sluteffe's table, which is effectively another proposal. Your "accessibility" tag is also another proposal. --Hawke 06:01, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
I also think this discussion should stay here, because indeed it is what I intended with this proposal. Actually something like this was one of my first thoughts. But then I decided to propose it the way I did, because I think "smoothness" is exactly what I want to describe. With the tagging scheme above, I see two problems:
  • as mentioned above, I would like to address the "smoothness" independent of a particular type of vehicle. Ofcourse it could be mentioned in the documentation that a way for racing bikes should be tagged as "sport_car", but people only into biking would probably not start using this tag. Likewise, people driving in cars would probably not start tagging something as "roller_blade", because they think this is something for the roller blade crowd.
  • More important, we get into conflict with other tags. Many people might imply that they can use a way with "Usability=sport_car" with their sports car, although it might be a road without car access ("access=no"). It would also be very strange to tag a 50cm wide path in the alps with "usability=4wd" (although it definitely can't be used by a 4wd), only because I want to make clear that I can use it with a mountain bike. -Chrischan 20:29, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
The 50cm 4WD path is a point well taken. Unfortunately, you can also turn this argument against your original proposal. How do you tag a 2,50m wide track which has two very smooth drive traces but requires HC because the cross cut profile of the track looks like this: __x^x__ (smooth traces left and right but a something in the middle that would cause every passenger car to hit the ground)? I'm lacking the proper English terms for this but such tracks are not uncommon. If you tag it with smoothness=bad people driving in cars will know they can't use it but people riding city bikes will assume they can't use it either, although they actually might be well able to do so. To me it looks as if usability by bikes and cars (not to speak about other types of vehicles) might actually require different scales. :-/ Ukuester 08:20, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
I agree with what Chrischan says, and disagree that you've made that argument against the original proposal. IMO That would call for another access tag (high_clearance=* or access:high_clearance=* perhaps? I think naming the values after particular modes of transport, such as accessibility=sports_car is nonsensical because of the complications that arise when you see a way tagged like that but which you can't take a sports car down. "bad" doesn't have this problem, and as long as objective standards are used for deciding what a "bad" or "good" smoothness is, it doesn't have the ambiguity that the original post was concerned with. --Hawke 06:01, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
The question the proposed tag is supposed to answer is whether I will be able to use a particular road/track/path with a particular vehicle. Now how do you use smoothness to tag the track described by me above and make clear that it can be used by pretty much any type of bicycle but only by cars that posess high clearance. According to the table on the definition scale its impossible (the reason is that there is no complete ordering among vehicle types such that one vehicle can use all tracks usable by a "larger" vehicle). Of course a car specific tag clearance=* would do the job but the need of an additional tag suggests that the proposal is unable to really answer the question it is supposed to answer. It seems to me that usability by roller skates and racing bikes (and probably trecking bikes) could be handled resonably well by the surface=* as well as the smoothness=* tag. To know whether I can use a footpath with my mountain bike I would need to know the maximum steepness (not covered by neither smoothness=* nore surface=*) and the amount/existence of "steps", big rocks etc. (somewhat covered by smoothness=* but rather not by surface=*). Actually, for mountain bikes some scale denoting the technical difficulty similar to the proposed hiking scale might be usefull. For cars I need to now whether I need 4WD (related to the steepness and the surface) and whether I need HC (related to the existence of clefts, rocks, etc.). Both is not fully covered by neither smoothness=* nor surface=*. To me it seems that all these aspects cannot be squeezed into a single tag because the question of usability is multidimensional. The question now is, whether we are better of with smoothness=* (and some additional tags) or with usability=* with multiple values listing the vehicles able to use a road/path or with splitting all the information about a highway in multiple tags as proposed below. I agree that in any case we should and would not tag a smooth footpath with usability=sportscar and that we would not list all vehicles able to use a particular highway but make reasonable defaults/assumptions (e.g. any highway usable by a passenger car can be used by a trecking bike). Ukuester 10:02, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
  • The argument here seems to be that the proposed smoothness=* isn't enough to tell whether a given way is usable by a car with a certain amount of ground clearance. My proposed solution:
  1. Reword the definition of smoothness=* so people don't think it's the be-all and end-all in usability-tagging. It just says whether a way is smooth enough to drive with a given class of wheeled vehicle.
  2. Propose a separate tag clearance=* or whatever that states how much ground clearance a four-or-more-wheeled vehicle needs to use the given way.
In my opinion, smoothness=* is well-defined as is, providing a nice balance between detail and simplicity. It's a usable tag (I've been using it a lot already), and if there's some special cases it doesn't cover, so be it. Robx 10:53, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Ok then, we have to move forward. I'm ok with the name "smoothness" also I'm still scared about confusion, but a nice description might do the work. ( I also suggest to remove the "surface examples" colum to minimise confusion ).
Ok also not to use "vehicule centric" tags and stay with excellent/good/intermediate/bad/horrible
I also accept that we cannot "as is" deal with left/center/right changing smoothness, but other tags might be created for that purpose
If the global idea is ok for most people here, I think we could move to voting
I however d'like to point some refinement :

Sletuffe 15:53, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. I added a lot of pictures that can be used for illustration (also for the limits of this proposal). Ukuester 18:36, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Missing vehicules

Also I'm globaly happy with the main table I want to add refinement in the goal of not forgetting some vehicles while keeping actual compatibility.

  • Has Ukuester mentionned a car with High clearance cannot fit in any tags but is able to pass ways where normal car cannot while it is not able to pass where a 4wd can.
  • I also think tractors/quads/Trials are not taken into account and we might loose, in the mountains, special usability ( maybe also contributors from forest managers ) ONF (france )

Here is my proposal :

Proposal usable by :
smoothness=excellent roller blade/skate board and all below
smoothness=good racing bike and all below
smoothness=intermediate city bike/sport cars/wheel chair/Scooter and all below
smoothness=bad trekking bike/normal cars/Rickshaw and all below
smoothness=very_bad Car with high clearance/ Mountain bike without crampons and all below
smoothness=horrible 4wd and all below
smoothness=very_horrible tractor/ATV/tanks/trial/Mountain bike
smoothness=impassable ??? no vehicles ?

Comments :

  • I still have problem understanding what impassable will be used for
  • I think mountain bikes can go where 4wd have to stop ( dispending on pilote's legs ! )

Sletuffe 15:53, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I guess impassable would mean no vehicles. I added a lot of example pictures (that I would like to see how they would be tagged) and one of them cannot be navigated even on a mountain bike. If you are very good, you might be able to go it down (although it's pretty tough) but certainly not up. Ukuester 18:33, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Don't try to fit the surface description into one key, use more objective tags

I don't think this tag alone describe the surface better than the other tags for surface and tracktype. This may fit for wheeled vehicles somehow, but why use the subjective keys and don't use directly the size of wheels that works on this surface?

I suggest to use a combination of tags to describe the surface. Some of the tag may even be subjective. The usability tag above is a start. We may extend the surface tag from paved/unpaved to describe better if it's sand, asphalt, concrete, stone, grass.

  • example: An old shabby residential road
 highway=residential, width=5, surface=asphalt, smoothness=coarse, usability=bike, clefts=yes, minwheelsize=25cm
  • example: A narrow track with paved surface in good condition
 highway=track, width=3, surface=paved, smoothness=fine, usability=roller, clefts=no, minwheelsize=5cm

Of course you don't need all those tags for each road. You can assume some defaults. The last example don't need the usability tag, it should be clear from other tags that the surface is usable for skates --Andy 14:20, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

  • Nobody's claiming that smoothness=* alone describes the surface of a way completely. It can be used independently of the current tracktype=*. You're free to propose additional tags for capturing the type of surface more exactly. Robx 10:57, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Ok, see, this is maybe a case where someone missunderstood the smoothness=* tag. smoothness=* is not intended to describe the surface of a way. It's just only about usability.
I however note that your idea about a tag called minwheelsize=* + using width=* could maybe solve our problem
But I am not completly sure that size of weels is enough. Maybe a F1 with big wheels while not be able to drive on a track. Adding the surface would help, but then we would loose the easy use of smoothness=* describing usability in one tag

Sletuffe 16:05, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Most of the vehicles mentioned in the table above (sports cars, racing bikes, mountain bikes, 4WD cars, ...) have the same wheel size. Thus, I don't think wheel size is going to help much. But your comment "smoothness is not intended to describe the surface of a way. It's just only about usability" highlights that surface is what people think when they read smoothness. :-/ Ukuester 18:24, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Don't invent too many similar tags

I agree we really need a more general tag describing the surface conditions of the highways like this smoothness.

  • I would preffer, if it would deprecate the tracktype. Would be a mapping reasonable like grade1->good ... grade5->impassable?
I'd like to deprecate tracktype too, but I'am scared there is no mapping at all between smoothness & tracktype and not the same goal in the end.
I don't personnaly understand the usage of tracktype, and it seams to me many are not using it the way it was intended to be used by using it as a scale to describe how hard is it to drive on a track. Usage which should be better covered by the smoothness tag.
If you look closely at the describtion, you'll find grade1 is duplicate of highway=unclassified
and that grade3 to grade5 is very vague with many terms like "A mixture of", "quite compact", "tire marks" compared to "subtle tire marks". All that seams very confusing and subjective to me.
For exemple, should I tag a track with grade4 in winter and then grade5 in summer when grass has grown ?
For me, tracktype is an "in between" surface tag and smoothness tag Sletuffe 11:19, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
  • What about the hiking tag? Shouldn't there be only one tag describing the usabillity for wheeled vehicles and for use by foot?
I don't think so, we shouldn't bother people who don't care about hiking by creating a single global tag Sletuffe 11:19, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
But tracks are quite often used by vehicles and by foot. So you need two different tags for describing the same condition of the same way. I would preferre a mapping of the hinking values to the smoothness and probably extend the smoothness for ways where riding is not possible any more but where we can still make a difference for usage by foot.--De muur 08:41, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
  • And what default value shall be assumed, if no smoothness tag is set? Default value for surface is paved, so it could be either Excellent or Good.--De muur 11:39, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
I suppose something like "bad" for a track, "good" for other highway and "excelent" for cycleway should be enough Sletuffe 11:19, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Examples

Some examples to discuss and illustrate the taggings.

Quite "smooth" can be used by any type of bike. Obviously not wide enough for motorized vehicles.
Wide smooth path
Same path as above a little down the road. Still quite "smooth" but much narrower. Can still be used by any type of bike. Obviously not wide enough for motorized vehicles.
Still same path as above which crosses a meadow now. Not very "smooth" anymore. Could be used by mountain bike (not comfortable though) and probably with HC cars.
Thumb
Another track covered with grass, but short and thus quite smooth. Can be used with a passenger car and a trekking bike.
Thumb
Path covered with medium rough gravel (3cm pieces). Maybe ok with Trekking bike and above.
Thumb
An example of an impassable (except on foot) path. Heavily washed out, exposed roots and rocks. Cannot be navigated uphill even on a mountain bike, but no problem downhill.
Thumb
An example of a pretty rough track. Quite eroded, exposed roots and rocks. Can be used with a mountain bike and a high clearance vehicle. Depending on the steepness and the weather conditions the track may additionally require 4WD.
Thumb
Another example. Not eroded as the one above, simply covered with very rough gravel/rocks. Can be used with a mountain bike and probably even a passenger car, not very comfortably so though.
Thumb
This track is smooth in the direction of use (can be used by a trekking bike) but has an eroded cross profile. The left, downhill facing side of the track is maybe 30cm lower than the right half. This track requires exceptional high clearance. This becomes particularly obvious if you look at the far end where the track turns right.
Thumb
The same phenomenon, but a very different type. This track is smooth in the middle and can be used by any type of bike. On the outskirts it is muddy, thus requiring high clearance if navigated with a car.
Thumb

Another proposal

I think the original proposal has not enough values. And for non-english speaking people it is hard to find the difference. I'm very interested in this probosal, because our car has a very hard suspension, and it would be nice to find a route with good streets. I travel to ukraine sometimes, and there it can be really horrible if you choose a bad route. In germany we have some streets which have a very good asphalt surface, and it looks like an excelent road. But with the car they are very uncomfortable, because the asphalt is on top of a very old cobblestone road. (after reunion of germany they tried to repair the roads in east germany very fast) This roads could be good with skates, but horrible with cars. I think for skates the surface material is an information which is more useful.

Here is my proposal :

Proposal Description:
smoothness=1 Very comfortable road
smoothness=2 In germany this would be a usual road
smoothness=3 In germany it would have a sign "Achtung! Straßenschäden" (Attention! Street-Damage). This road would be a littlebit uncomfortable with car ... In berlin many streets have this sign .. This can also be good cobblestoned roads ..
smoothness=4 For example a usual cobblestoned road. Or a very bad asphalt road. This are usual streets in ukraine. Feels uncomfortable in car.
smoothness=5 For example a very bad cobblestoned road. Feels very uncomfortable in the car.
smoothness=6 Very bad road. In the car you must drive very slow, because the suspension would be damaged.
smoothness=7 You need a 4wd car.
smoothness=8 Not usable by car. But for walking it's ok.
smoothness=9 Only for mountain climbers. :)

Please say what you are thinking about this proposal.. --TEL0000 23:36, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't like the numbers, as they are harder to remember. The "level 8" and "level 9" are pointless, at this point it's not a road (9 is a joke?). It also is very subjective, more so than the original proposal. e.g. "feels uncomfortable" depends a lot on the person and indeed the car. --Hawke 00:18, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
For me only 1 to 7 are important, because i'm driving in car. For me the numbers are more easy to remember, than the english names, because my english is very bad. I agree with you, that it depends a lot on the person, and the car, but i don't know how i can explain the smoothness better. --TEL0000 22:38, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
I don't like numbers either, because we cannot extend it later if we find a need between 2 and 3 ( 2.5 ? ;-) ) 1 and 2 ? are german road uncomfortable ?
for the rest, you want to distuinguish the comfort of a road, then the surface tag is made for that
because smoothness cares about the usability of a road Sletuffe 11:34, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
I agree with you, it is hard to extend it later. So maybe words are really better. But anyway we need more words, than the original proposal. :) The most german roads are comfortable, but in east germany there are still many uncomfortable roads. And in Berlin they can't repair the roads enough fast...
You are right, i was thinking about the comfort of the roads. I thought smoothness is the right tag for it. I think surface is for the material of the surface (cobblestone, concrete, asphalt, dirt). But cobblestones can be comfortable, or very uncomfortable, depending on the quality. The same with concrete or asphalt. --TEL0000 19:31, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Moving to vote period ?

As no one has raised comment to improve or refute the original proposal updated by my and Ukuester's version. I'd like to propose moving to a vote period. Starting it the 1st september ( to let people come back from holydays :-) ) Sletuffe 12:39, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Now we have September 18th. Why did you not start the voting? --De muur 18:46, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
because I forgot ;-) ok, let's do it ( as soon as I understand how) Sletuffe 16:07, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Moved from another page - quantizing status

A fella with bad speling

you know what ? i'ts even worse in my own language ;-) Sletuffe 00:28, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

kindly advised me to move over here, so here I copy myself from there, which would apply to smoothness. The significance of my copy is that (there) I tried to define the meaning of the - abovementioned subjective - terms. We definitely need this, even if it's not consistent to the exact level all over the world, because route planning could put this variable in good use.

This is not a final design, just trying to show how to quantize a bit more general than telling "you can go on this way by 3 wheeled yellow skateboards if you are medium experienced", whatever that should mean. ;-)

state description
excellent (smooth) smooth surface, like newly made highway, cycleway, compact footway, etc.
good the normal worn-and-used state of ways, some bumps and cracks as normal
average (wave) as highway/cycleway: patched and a bit cracked, corners may be degraded, starts to limit maximally possible speed; as track, it have smaller bumps and holes; generally a way which could use some fixing, but still pretty useable
bad (rough, holey) as highway: broken surface, holes, cracks, corners broken, surface sink or raised, wavy; as track it shows definite wear, holes, or other surface problems (mud, water-craved little holes, etc); either case it severely needs fixing up, definitely limits usage by faster vehicles (or fast feet ;))
very bad really broken, like a paved highway with large unpaved parts, or stone road with large dirt/mud patches, big holes, etc; cars cannot go faster than 40Km/h as highway, and as a footway running people may broke their ankles. Generally it's been some official's joke to call this road "highway" or "track". Needs rebuild.

Others tried to mention other "possibilities", but please realise that most of them seems to be designed for tracks (cycleway, footway) and not highways.

If I have repeated old arguments, apologies. If I offended someone, apologies. Generally forgive me for being existant. :-) But comments are welcome nevertheless. --grin 10:54, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Maybe what you want in the end is, like it was said near the end of : Proposed_features/Smoothness#Another Proposal is to describe the "comfort" of the road. What (I think) we want here, is the "usability" or "passability" of a road. Even if I need to drive at 5km/h to go with my car, that's a possibility my routing program should take into account.
I like this new proposal. But if this page is about the usability or passability, is there any other proposal-page for the comfort of the road? There are so many resembling proposals now, that i don't want to open a new proposal again... --TEL0000 02:33, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
Same issue from a roller-blading point of view. A road with 'excellent' smoothness would be great (a fun place to go to especially for skating perhaps), but then a road with 'good' smoothness might just be more uncomfortable on roller-blades. Seems like just a problem with the descriptions. Maybe 'uncomfortable for type x' bits should be added the description. -- Harry Wood 15:39, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
If we introduce a concept of "uncomfort" then It would become even more subjective, and I don't like that, however your point is interesting, good and excelent are too close in description, and it's quite clear that you can be roller-blading where a racing bike can drive. Maybe we should drop excellent by merging it with good. Sletuffe 21:41, 22 September 2008 (UTC)


In you'r proposal, the advantage I see for routing is to decide between different roads wich is faster, then you'r "maxqspeed" could do the work Sletuffe 00:45, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh, And this should be relative to the material of the road. So if the road's made of dirt (is there a material tag?) or unpaved then "good" means a good unpaved road, even if it's not "good" for a Porsche. --grin 10:56, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I hope the surface=* tag will evolve to take many other "surface values" into account
'relative to material' Mmmm, sounds a pain for routing algorithms Sletuffe 00:45, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

And the most important may be not obvious: this should work for highway=motorway, highway=primary, highway=secondary, highway=residential, etc. too! --grin 11:02, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes it does ! "Apply to linear" so any way can get the smoothness tag. But a reasonnable defaut for all ways should be choosen to avoid "over tagging"
By the way, sorry for "inserting" my comments inside yours, but it was quite long and I wanted to multi-part comment ;-) Sletuffe 00:46, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Weather conditions

Reading this one could think that all your tracks are inside a mall. We need a system that considers dry, wet, snowy and frozen ground differences. For instance some kinds of paved ground can be very slippery when wet for inline skates. Other ways turn impassable when muddy. We should not start a new system that does not consider weather conditions. We have enough systems that don't care for the weather. --Lulu-Ann 15:03, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't agree, for now we have NO system that deal with usability at all. So even if that proposal doesn't deal with wet/snowy condition that's still a step in the good direction, we could later increase it with a system like : smoothness:wet=very_bad or smoothness:snowy=impassable. But even then, that would become complicate, will you map every possible snow thickness between 1 and 20 cm ? Sletuffe 21:52, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Mountain bikes vs. tractors

I'd imagine that a mountain bike is normally less able than a atv or a tractor. Naturally some sporty people might do "parkour on bike" just like they even compete with trial bike, but I wouldn't consider that "usable for travel". Factors limiting travel by tractor and mountain bike are (approximations here, feel free to adjust and add what's missing) Alv 09:08, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

element Tractor ATV bike
Mud surface pressure smaller, "wins" tires sink into mud first, "lose"
High middle strip clearance of > 50 cm, tie clearance of > 30 cm or unaffected because of small width no effect, tie
Consecutive deep holes maximum diameter > 40 cm, winner max d. 30 cm. at over 60 cm they start to become unobstructive "valleys" max d. maybe 40 cm
Fallen trees, roots maximum diameter 30-40 cm, winner max. d. 20-30 cm max d. 20-30 cm
Pointy and/or loose rocks maximum diameter 40 cm, winner max d. 20-30 cm max d. 20-30 cm

early approval and last unilateral modification

This Proposal has been Approved by majority (18:6 on 2008-11-02)

  • Created Key:smoothness
  • Removed very_* because no-one can guess the difference between horrible and very_horrible.
  • Instead of impassable access=no should be used!

--Phobie 15:26, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Hey ??? how can you take such unilateral decision of that kind without discussing it first on the talk page ?? I'm moving it to the talk page and undoing your changes Sletuffe 17:16, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
Let's talk about it first if you wish :
  • Approval, ok, if no-one is voting on it anymore we could move it to approved features
  • remove very_* : "no-one can guess" and so what ? is the feature page at all guessable ? no. There are descriptions made for that
  • access=no Instead of impassable : well, then you didn't understood this proposal or didn't read it. smoothness is intended to be a physical propertie, while access is a right propertie. nothing forbids a way from being impassable AND access=yes Sletuffe 17:23, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
Other than perhaps common sense. A right of way that is impassable is by definition not a right of way. Chriscf 09:33, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
Other countries might not and don't have a concept of a right of way, in the sense used above. Alv 10:04, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
This is moot. It's generally accepted that a right you cannot exercise is no right at all. access=no for ways that are impassable at all times makes sense. Remember that highway=steps already implies motorcar=no, which equivalent. Chriscf 14:03, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
Well we don't have a such rights at all, we have the freedom to travel, so claiming that anything with highway=* requires a "right of way" is just not valid worldwide. (Here only building a road on others' properties is a right that can be given, bought or acquired.) Alv 09:08, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
Impassable = access=no. End of discussion. Chriscf 11:04, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
(I haven't been pursuing the tag nor the value impassable, my comment was solely on that right-of-way remark...)
As the definition used in the proposal now is and has been, admittable. Probably what made me refrain from voting, was just the implications and the lack of intertwining this with access definitions. Now anything with smoothness=very_bad to very_horrible could imply motorcar=no but it even doesn't... If I were to want to find where access is only physically restricted or difficult but not forbidden (say, to find best places to propose that the city takes measures to improve the connectivity), they'd all be motorcar=no when I'd benefit from some of them being motorcar=obstructed or the others being motorcar=forbidden. Or I wanted to make a routing software for situations justifiable by necessity, I'd need to know what is just forbidden but faster and what is a physical dead end. But it's not (yet) in my interest to pursue such changes. Alv 12:10, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Approval: Normal votes takes 2 weeks and vote-time gets extended if you get too few votes. This vote was set to 12 weeks! After 6 weeks acceptance by the community was more than obvious...
  • Remove very_*: Yes, this was a arbitrary effort to create "key" which is goot for OSM. I will add those senseless values to Key:smoothness if you need that.
  • I read everything here. While the key has been approved, the values impassable and very_* seems not to get a clear approval. Since smoothness is a generic key only minefields and active volcanos are impassible by all kinds of vehicles, horses and passers-by! Things like motorcar=no has always been used for ways which are impassible by cars. It would make more sense to use motorcar=impassible and have a vehicle-specific value than using smoothness for that!
--Phobie 00:48, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
  • no problem for approval for me
  • very_* : yeah, thanks, I'll do it myself
  • As you said earlier, there are 24 votes on the proposal which include very_* and impassable. Don't take a shortcut saying it was not clearly approved while it was. I won't say impassable will be useful, and I personnaly would have dropped it and won't use it, but HERE, we respected a democratic process, and because the guys who added impassable have their reasons I ignore, I respect the process and will keep impassable. Create a proposal deprecation of very_* and impassable if you which, but don't change the content of this proposal after the vote. Sletuffe 09:11, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
I personally didn't even vote on this because I still plan to have a stack of photos to classify by several different surface criteria and only then make up my mind about the relevant factors. But since this is likely to be used, I think that it should be with values that offer reasonable benefits over the old tracktype=*: without the very_* it's impossible to differentiate between
  1. tracks that have gone bad enough that a normal modern day car is likely to scrape it's undercarriage but where an older car is very much usable from tracks where both are usable. Yet getting a rickshaw over the bumps of the worse class can be most difficult.
  2. tracks that are very much usable by an old and slow car with high clearance - or some SUV's - and other's that require a Jeep with raised suspension, off road tires and lockable differentials - say a road to a remote village in the jungle. Tractors are on a par with ATV's but much more able than any non-off-road-equipped car and that difference is easy to spot. Alv 09:08, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
And as to impassable, I think that it would be usable later when a tagging for seasonal variations is agreed upon; say smoothness=horrible + surface=sand + seasonal:spring:surface=mud + seasonal:spring:smoothness=impassable. Alv 09:08, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
Alv ! You enlighted my mind ! I now know for what purpose impassable could be used for : In france we have (a quite special case) a tertiary road that is exactly 1 meter above see level. Due to [tides] this road is usable only 12 hours per day and the 12 other hours it is under 1 meter of water and so unpraticable by any wheeled vehicule. While we don't have the time variation smoothness, I'll certainly tag it with impassable Sletuffe 10:01, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
"Unlikely navigable even by 4wd or a mtb, but might be possible" was the original draft wording for the last value. That'd then be "Normally no wheeled vehicles, but they just might get through depending on conditions." Alv 10:08, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
I can't remember of that wording, that would have helped me much into understanding it. Now I see much it's potential (even still rare) use. I'd like to change the description, but since it as been accepted "as is" (="no vehicules") I'don't know what to do Sletuffe 10:39, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
Democratic? I read OSM was meant to be anarchic! All those proposals are only there to create a best practice guide. But still everyone can use his own tagging scheme. If you really think smoothness=impassible is usable it should be kept. But keeping it because of some wikilogins posting {{yes}}-tags (without comment and without adding anything to the discussion) is not the best idea! I think motorcar=impassable and motorcar=forbidden is a much better idea! --Phobie 20:11, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

elaborate on 4wd

Somebody please elaborate on the meaning of "4wd" as used in the tag definition: a 4wd Audi all-road & high clearance Subaru Forester (4wd) - stock 4wd pickup - stock 4wd Jeep - 4wd Jeep with raised suspension, off-road tires, limited slip differentials etc.? Alv 09:08, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
This is a very clever question ! thanks for asking it ;-) And the problem is not that simple, the definition asks for an "image" we have in our head of a 4wd, and unfortunetly, there are so many on the market, that my basic 2 traction car is sometimes better at going on a track than a 4wd Panda "plastic toy" is. However, since the proposal talks about a scale, we have to assume by reading it that a 4wd is "better" at going on crappy roads than any other transport means listed before. So I would say a 4wd in this proposal is something like that :

[4wd in snow] or [in mud] Sletuffe 09:19, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

These two pictures appear to be the same. :-) Certainly a better name than "4wd" is needed, since this is a specific technical term that refers to the drivetrain of a vehicle, meaning only that all four wheels are powered. This includes standard road vehicles such as the Audi A4 and the Ford Mondeo. Chriscf 09:51, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, clearly the same, because in my mind, there is only one type of 4wd, but that's because in french we call a 4x4 a car that is able to drive on very crapy roads. And we almost dropped it's original meaning of having four powered wheels. The Audi A4 is, to my mind not a 4wd while unfortunetly, it is.... I then agree 4wd is unclear... what else could we use ? All terain vehicule ?Sletuffe 10:12, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
"All-terrain vehicle" has a specific definition - a subset of quad bikes. Chriscf 13:59, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
"offroader" --Richard 16:43, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
Wasn't aware of the name, so an "off road vehicule", I'm changing the description ! [1] Sletuffe 16:47, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Talks about default values

At the beginning of this proposal, their was no default values so, in the final accepted one, there still are no defaults values. However, could some be supposed in many case to ease the pain of mappers ? I would propose :

  • Without a smoothness values,
highway tags are supposed to be tagged smoothness=good
except track that is supposed to be tagged smoothness=bad

Sletuffe 09:41, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

I think default values are a stupid idea, because the tagging in OSM is typically incomplete. Rigth now we have many thousand ways without a smoothness tag. Assuming one single default value for these ways is just senseless.
And when you define a default value, there is no way to differentiate, whether a tag is still missing or whether someone omitted the tag, because it is already covered by the default.
--De muur 11:50, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
That might be a "stupid" idea, but that's allready in use in many case. Either we have to define a new way to tell something is missing, or not mapped (I'm working on it if you want to help : see Proposed features/internal informations between mappers or using defaults until that.
Wether or not we explicitly say there are no defaults, there will be in the developper's mind that makes a navigation software and that's allready the case for other cases. Sletuffe 12:12, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
Without a default value, a missing smoothness tags means, that we do not know the smoothness of the object. And for all the existing items in the data base this is the only correct assumption.
Since in reality each object has a smoothness, there is no mixing between not present and not known for this tag. So you do not need default values and you do not need to define mark for a missing smoothness tag.
--De muur 12:00, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
We are talking about that on the talk@ list, and as I am constructing my mind, I now think that defaults, for any kind of feature is bad juste because, like you said, we cannot tell for sure, wether the mappers decided not to set one because he doesn't know or because he knows the default was enough. I'm ok to drop defaults on this feature, renderers and routing software will decide on themself Sletuffe 14:50, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Next step : deprecation of tracktype ?

I fear there's gone a be a lot of opposition, that's why we didn't mentionned that in this proposal, but that's the next step I think we need to take. The tracktype tag has many problems I mentionned on the surface and tracktype page, and I think people are notmiss-using it because it's not clear and not efficient enough. Only future will tell, but I have great hope that people will find the smoothness advantage over tracktype. So I'm going to start a separte page ont this idea of deprecating it Sletuffe 11:15, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

When you have objective criteria and a less stupid value set. Not before. Chriscf 11:30, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
Usage will tell, I didn't say I'm going to deprecate tracktype, I said I'm going to propose to, by arguing about tracktype being worse than smoothness in many regards. Nothing is ever perfect, but it's clear to me that it's now a bit better Sletuffe 12:06, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
Have you thought of better tag values yet? It remains the case that we cannot have the values listed here in Map Features. They're subjective, and don't tell people anything useful. Most importantly, new mappers can't learn anything from it. They see a road tagged with "name" and "ref" tags, they can guess what they need to tag in their own ways - they can't do that with this. Any scheme for this property must be intuitive. Chriscf 17:35, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
"We" most definitively can have, it's not in your power to tell those bastards that voted on this that they cannot have it. Alv 18:02, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
Usage will tell if people find the Tag useful, having them in the Map Features is just one step towards wider usage. Concerning the subjectivity: Unless someone proposes better values and definitions, I find it a rather useful compromise. It's just pretty hard to define an objective tag describing the surface quality, since judging the surface quality is already subjective. Or how could you do it, aside from counting every bump? --Driver2 20:07, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
I must admit you are quite right, yeah those values are not quite intuitive, but we have all search for, and no one found any better. Because, probably, like Driver2 said, it is a bit subjective, but just a bit : If you are using rollers, then no chance for you to drive on a mountain track. But any how, we have come to a point that we thought (at least those who voted yes) that having it was better than not. And in regard to tracktype=* gradeX are not much intuitive, but more than that, to me at least, the description is not intuitive either. And guys from the surface=* have tried hard to cover all possible case of the nature of a track or road without being able to answer what many people wants to know : "Can I go there with my car". I don't say smoothness=* answers this perfectly, because where someone would stop by fear of damaging his car, some other, with the exact same car, will try and perhaps manage to do it. I would end by saying that not only does a tag can't solve it, but not any explanation of anyone will either, so we try to keep in this tag the maximum description to what people await from a "passable by passenger car" while still knowing that so many other indescriptible factors will probably make it fail. Sletuffe 01:25, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
We have ca. 300.000 tracks in the OSM data base of Europe and ca. 200.000 times the tag tracktype is used. I think this is quite a good quota, and I don't expect smoothness to reach such a level in the foreseable future.
tracktype, smoothness and surface all describe different factors of the same way. They are somehow linked to each other, but no one can substitude for the other ones.
--De muur 12:12, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
Maybe not in the near futur, but I bet a bear with you it will ;-))) Sletuffe 12:17, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
I predict that well see lot's of values besides the ones listed: entermediate, great, smooth, horible, horryble, verysmooth, verybad, veryexcellent, bad-, bumpy, gravel, ... But well see. Alv 12:22, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
Thats the case with every single Tag out there. There are always a handful values being used that are not documented. Either because people think more values are needed, just mix them up with something else or simply spell them wrong. Presets in popular editors can prevent many of these. --Driver2 20:07, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
You are not the first person who proposed a tag, saying nothing about deprecating existing similar tags or minimizing the risks of conflicts or confusion, got a positive vote from 15 people and try to impose the result to thousands users. The same happens with highway=path supporters which are now trying to deprecate footway, cycleway and bridleway. But when such activism leaves the wiki and comes to a wider public like the ML and renderers developers, the opposition is much stronger. So, please, leave existings tags, watch the statistics and wait 6 months. If your tag is really better, it will be voted by its popularity. -- Pieren 10:27, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Limit Smoothness to road vehicles?

Let me give some use cases to say why I don't think smoothness is usable for other means of moving. Considering a snowmobile. Any way if there is no snow will be unusable. If there is 1m of snow, most places will become passable, however for some places maybe there is a need for 2-3m of snow until it's possible to go on a snowmobile. Clearly, for a snowmobile this specification would not work at all. For snowmobiles other factors would become important, like snowdepth, temperature, avalanche danger, etc.... For a skier it's not so drastic but also clearly unusable. I think for both cases there is clear agreement that another classification must be setup. --Extremecarver 00:58, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I
smoothness is clearly not for snowmobile, ski or hiking, the proposal talks about wheeled vehicule only and if you need it, create a new proposal for them Sletuffe 14:28, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
I don't need them (yet), but just wanted to give it as an example.--Extremecarver 14:57, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

So let's come to mountainbiking that is included in the proposal for now, but had voices in the talk page above about inability to transmit all important information. The biggest differentiation must be made between uphill and downhill. While on uphill my technical riding level will matter to a certain extent, this extent is not as big at all as for going downhill. Therefore there are systems setup for mountainbikers, notably the IMBA in the english speeking world, and the singletrack skala in the German speeking world, maybe other language regions usually use even other classification systems, using such a classification, a much better differentiation can be achieved and will be asked for by participants of the sport. I see this as a chance for OSM to be able to cater for a wide range of different expectations, not only people who look for a streetmap.--Extremecarver 00:58, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I clearly agree with you here, the mtb part of smoothness might not be well suited, there are talks somewhere I'll move to help creating a mtb scale Sletuffe 14:28, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I would not see the key smoothness as bad, but I think diversification should be held up more than simplification. In the end there exists no acces=no or impassable, it's just about the means you need to use the way. If many sports develop their own tagging scheme, after a while renderers will be able to see the similarities and use it for the better. There is a myriad of different tags related only to cardriving, other means of transport shall describe the ways they need for their needs with the same scrutiny. I support the smoothness approach for vehicles with 4 wheels, but I don't think it will be successful, because the needs are to different to put into one bag.--Extremecarver 00:58, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I clearly agree once more, we "could" depracate the mtb part of smoothness and stay with motorized vehicules or with 4 wheeled vehicules. and create alternative scale for any sports
BUT ! I don't necessarly see it bad to include a thought in smoothness about mtb because, think of that : who will take care of setting tags for mountain bike only ? well, easy answer : mtb users only. And that is some loss of information : I am personnaly tagging with smothness in the goal of tagging for 4 wheeled vehicules and I don't care that much about mtb (well, at list for now, 'cause I have just bought one ;-) )
The final result you are expecting by removing the mtb part of smoothness will probably end with the opposite : less informations added about mtb by people who don't care much about mtb.
smoothness=horrible or very_horrible is a very poor information for mtb, I admit that, but it might be added by people who don't care about mtb and in such, give information to mtb users.
If you want more precision, there is no problems in adding a mtb scale, but fewer people will contribute to that scale than to the smoothness tag, keep this in mind. So, in the end, I don't see problems in smoothness being somehow a sub-set of the mtb_scale but still independant. Sletuffe 14:28, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
I can accept that point of view, as long it is made clear on the front page, that for hiking, mtbiking etc there too exists more specific tags. For a non mtbiker the picture that a way is usable with a mtb, quad etc, might help in deciding which smoothness grade to give.--Extremecarver 14:57, 20 November 2008 (UTC)