Foundation/AGM2022/Election to Board/Answers and manifestos/Q08 OSMF and Tagging

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OSMF ... and Tagging

A debate is going on (latest) about standardising tagging and whether that is good or bad.

Do you agree/disagree that creating tagging standards would improve the ability for OpenStreetMap data consumers to create apps and services. Would you charge a new or existing OSMF working group to work on the issue?

Daniela Waltersdorfer J. - Q08 OSMF ... and Tagging

I believe some form of standardization is important, but we also have to comprehend that at times one size does not fit all. I think it would be interesting to keep something like "main tags" standard, with sub-tags for specifics that fall under that main tag. For instance, as a professional in the Transportation Industry, I appreciate the flexibility that exists when mapping signs. Signs have so much information, if needed, attached to them... think of parking or loading signs where there are specific times, or dynamic lanes adjacent to the curb that go from residential parking, to loading zones, to bus lanes. So much information! But, they can also simply be a "Stop" sign, where the only information is "STOP". Now, I know that even from that "STOP" you can interpret things differently in different countries, perhaps it means to wait for 3 seconds in one, whereas it just means look-around before proceeding in another. Even though a "sign" is the standard, the meaning behind that specific "Stop sign" has room to be different as needed.

Arnalie Vicario - Q08 OSMF ... and Tagging

It would be great to have standardized tagging at the global level which local communities can refer to, especially new communities who are new to OSM; however, I would urge OSMF and OSM contributors to respect local perspectives and that includes deferring to local tagging conventions as local knowledge is vital in the project. I am not against creating a new working group, but I see a potential collaboration between Data WG and LCCWG e.g. in resolving tagging conflicts.

Włodzimierz Bartczak - Q08 OSMF ... and Tagging

Do you agree/disagree that creating tagging standards would improve the ability for OpenStreetMap data consumers to create apps and services. Would you charge a new or existing OSMF working group to work on the issue?

I agree with the idea of introducing standards and, moreover, believe that they are necessary. One of the strengths of OSM is its flexibility in this respect, which means that this process will be continuous and evolutionary, so a working group will have to be set up for this.

Ariel Kadouri - Q08 OSMF ... and Tagging

A common theme at State of the Map 2022 was the reciprocal relationship between mappers and data consumers. One excellent talk that covered this subject was Sarah Hoffman and Richard Fairhurst's "What you map is not always what you get".

As a mapper interested in pedestrian features, I have a basic understanding of how Valhalla or OSRM use certain tags to determine how navigate certain features. Some of these common patterns are documented in the wiki, some things work as expected, and some are not supported yet by routers. This can be frustrating as a mapper who would like to map things accurately but also have applications work as expected. Some might say this is "tagging for the renderer" but it is less so tagging for a desired outcome and instead ensuring that proper tagging is accepted by software.

That being said, the board explicitly does not involved itself in tagging disputes. What the board can do, is create the space for the conversations to evolve from the mailing list to a proposal for the community to decide.

Victor N.Sunday - Q08 OSMF ... and Tagging

Christian Shadrack - Q08 OSMF ... and Tagging

Making things standard allows for a good evolution. I totally agree that this will be able to improve the capabilities of consumers in different areas especially in the creation of apps and services. Yes I will load an existing group or if the group doesn't exist, organize a new group for that.

Sarah Hoffmann - Q08 OSMF ... and Tagging

The evolution of tagging is a question I consider a core responsibility of the community that should not be decided top-down by the OSMF board. However, it is a topic where the board could give the necessary support to bring the topic forward by organizing a working group. As with the data model, such a working group would need to start with a study that researches the different options of standardization or consolidation of our tagging system, so that the community can have an informed discussion. Only then can we talk about how the OSMF can support a concrete evolution step.

Logan McGovern - Q08 OSMF ... and Tagging

I would not turn to the working groups. Instead I favor conferring some level of control of the content of country wikipages to OSM local chapters representing those countries. these bodies would in theory have the capacity to endorse or reject specific content submitted by users to communicate whether the guidance applies to the country or region they represent (this could be indicated via a fun stamp or national symbol or something less fun like a legalistic blurb at the bottom of a wikipage). I also want to define a third status for groups that are active contributors to the map for their country but lack official chapter status so they have some level of input. Criteria would include some arbitrary number of regular contributors and organized mapping initiatives.

Arun Ganesh - Q08 OSMF ... and Tagging

Completely agree that tagging standards for machine readable data like OSM is of great value to data users and beneficial to downstream consumers. However having lived in India, global standards can always be tricky, but can see them working much better at a national or local level depending on the type of feature.

If there's demand and volunteers, it might make sense to start with a tagging standards committee to identify candidate tags in consultation with local communities that would benefit from a global standard.

Mateusz Konieczny - Q08 OSMF ... and Tagging

Summary

OSMF board should not be discussing how to tag traffic parks. It is also not a role of a formal working group. OSMF should provide a contact channel where people can discuss this kind of topic.

Full answer

Heh, and I thought that I managed to stop myself from commenting on that topic :)

First of all, we already have tagging standards. No one disputes that we tag oneway roads with oneway=yes for regular oneway roads (and oneway=reversible, oneway=-1 and oneway:conditional=* etc for weirder cases). This is well documented on OSM Wiki and is in wide use as made clear by https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/oneway

Maybe we would benefit from some new way of documenting tagging standards or from avoiding deprecations or deprecating specific tags or communicating tagging info and changes to data consumers.

But in this context, I want to mention primarily the OSMF role. And I would strongly prefer OSMF to stay away from making specific tagging decisions or from establishing formal groups to make specific tagging decisions.

OSMF board should not be discussing things like "should we treat surface=cement as duplicate and equivalent of surface=concrete". It is also not a job for a formal OSMF working group.

OSMF should set up a platform where such discussions can take place (and it is and was being done by OSMF for a long time)

So the role of the foundation is to provide upkeep for OSM Wiki, mailing lists, and discussion forum where people can discuss and document tagging. This would involve hosting, moderation and some governance of these platforms. If a group of people wants to create together a tagging proposal they can coordinate on such forum. But I do not see the benefit from some selected groups getting OSMF branding and being elevated as more official than others.

It may be also providing grants for the development of new software (for example, in form of free hosting) for new software that would help with documenting existing tagging.

But I have seen no specific ideas for more formal tagging schemes that would look well. I have seen some of "following approved OSM Wiki proposal will be mandatory" (how it would be even enforced) or "deprecate many popular tags without a specific plan" and similar.

OSMF board may also hire someone who would maintain one of tagging presets providing a form of tagging documentation. In fact, OSMF did it by hiring iD developer who maintains also the iD preset.

For the core data model (adding area data type for example) some OSMF involvement is more justifiable as it is tightly tied to OSMF-run services. See for example this attempt partially funded by OSMF

I agree that many tagging schemes can be made more clear or better documented or no longer used or made more detailed and that it would be useful for mappers and users of data...

I spend quite a lot of effort on

But deprecated or duplicate tagging schemes in use are not critical issues anyway. And specifically amenity=hospital healthcare=hospital double tagging that triggered this specific discussion is not a problem at all. Anyone disliking double tagging can just ignore the existence of healthcare=hospital

And again: while OSMF board members can and should contribute like other community members, the role of the OSMF board is to do things like for example

  • setup necessary things so OpenStreetMap can participate in Google Summer of Code or similar project
  • publish a blog post on the official OSM blog about how the Data Working Group needs a specific tool and ask for volunteers
    • note: blog posts may be delegated to the Communications Working Group. But in the end responsibility for using official communication channels go back to the OSMF board. And maybe we can use them a bit more?
  • or maybe give grants/employment so someone will develop such a critically needed system
    • This has many side effects, many negative so needs to be handled well
    • partially done
  • hire a sysadmin to maintain OSM Wiki and other critical systems (done!)
  • gather info about missing moderation tools needed by DWG, sysadmins and moderators on forums and mailing lists

In summary again: the OSMF board should not be discussing how to tag traffic parks. It is also not a role of a formal working group. OSMF should provide a contact channel where people can discuss this kind of topic.

Craig Allan - Q08 OSMF ... and Tagging

Do you agree/disagree that creating tagging standards would improve the ability for OpenStreetMap data consumers to create apps and services. Would you charge a new or existing OSMF working group to work on the issue?

Tagging Standards or Any Tag You Like:

I was trained as a Town Planner and have a long history of working with standardised land use classifications. I wrote a system and I know data systems work better when geographic codes (tags) are standardised. Data users would be overjoyed if we adopted standards and made their use of OSM data in apps and services much easier, so yes, I agree with the premise of the question.

But that is not how OSM works. For us, making the life of mappers easy has priority. I respect that goal, so my answer is that NO, we shouldn't standardise tags. For the forseeable future the policy is Any tags you like.

Handling many tags:

My position is that multiple tags can be used for one geographic object. So coverage=wood or crop=trees can both be tagging a cluster of trees. No problem. You can train the server to understand that the tags point at the same geographic thing. This aligns with the rule "Any tags you like".

But, we hit big problems when you use the same tag for two different geographic objects. For example if timber decking and a forest are both tagged with 'coverage=wood'. Then the back-room servers have no idea what is on the ground. Is it a tree? Is it a wooden surface? So we need a rule. To quote myself from the discussion on the mailing list:

To avoid the same tag identifying different features we need to collectively set just one rule. "No two different mapped features may be identified by the same tag"

This rule will help lot and removes much of the motivation for standardising tags. This rule does not fail the rule "Any tags you like" because, if you read the second sentence on the wiki article, it says that anarchy is NOT ok.

In OSM we do NOT standardise tags, but behind the scenes we eliminate confusion and chaos (this is the short version) by creating a catalogue of rendered geographic objects, with a one to many relationship to tags used and we then use the catalogue for rendering. It happens sometimes that unusual uncatalogued tags slip through the cracks and are not rendered.

Preferred tags:

Our Wiki and editing apps do specify preferred tags - though the Wiki and apps don't always agree. Most mappers do like to use the 'right' tag, and ask for guidance and help on that. I will guide mappers to the preferred tag by referring and deferring to the Wiki. But there is no 'right' tag. The rule "Any tags you like" always applies.

Working group:

I see no need for a new working group. The existing and very capable Data WG is fully able to deal with this. I think many people in the Data WG have a good understanding of the advantages, the problems and the compromises that have been made. A new WG would just be re-ploughing a well ploughed field.

Apology:

If I could make this response fully technically accurate it would be at least five pages long and nobody would read it, so I cut a few corners. My apologies. See 'Data Items' in the wiki for scary complexity.


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