Proposal talk:Generic road

Discuss Proposed features/Generic road here:

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Yahoo imagery sketching

This is part of a larger issue to do with sketching over yahoo imagery. If we were to agree that people sketching over aerial imagery should be using a highway tag (rather than untagged ways), then I think this would be a good idea.

That's not something universally agreed upon though. Some people find it irritating that these "sketched" roads are showing up on the map at all. I've talked about these considerations here: Talk:Yahoo! Aerial Imagery#Sketching - Is just tracing useful?. I've suggested that we should sketch in untagged ways BUT the untagged ways should be rendered on the map as sketchy grey lines.

I was pondering another system (rendering change) which would be an alternative, or could exist alongside my untagged way idea. ...If the skecher wants to set highway tags, they could set surveyed=no and then we'd have the renderers show these as faded out pale coloured roads. Under that scheme, we might also support a highway=road as suggested here.

-- Harry Wood 09:44, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

It isn't just tracing Yahoo images - there is also the issue of people driving around with a GPS as they go about their business. I do this, since I believe that some data is better than no data - when I'm not explicitly surveying I still take a GPS with me as I drive. When I come to trace the GPS logs I will fill in some details from memory, but some of the time all I really know is that the way is a road.

Whether or not you believe it is a good idea to make these roads visible on the map, it must be a good idea to have an "official" tag for them so there is at least a choice - at the moment, most people seem to add such roads as highway=unclassified since there really is no other good way to do it. However, as I mentioned above, I do think that whilst some mappers don't want the roads rendered at all, I strongly suspect that most _users_ do want these roads visible

-- Steve Hill 15:06, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea (I incorrectly tagged many things as secondary before discovering the proper way of finding out roads' status). I'm sure someone will suggest making ways with nothing but car=yes, but the highway=road seems much more understandable. Ojw 20:40, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Just leave a GPS trace without tagging

The OSM community is getting larger by the day, nearly 35000 members now. I don't see any issue with just leaving a GPS trace without tagging the road. Someone is bound to actually survey it properly sooner or later. Having the extra GPS trace is useful for averaging out any errors. There's no particular need for it to be tagged up as a road immediately. I've always found that when I've surveyed an area where someone has just traced stuff, that I've needed to do a large number of modifications that it was almost as quick just to draw it from scratch. Richard B 21:21, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

This might be true in town. In countryside tracing is the most time consuming part of job and you don't usually need to modify traced roads.

Anyway, no matter what you think about just tracing/sketching over yahoo, people will do it. Having highway=road will at least keep them from using highway=unclassified or guessing the road classification --Jttt 07:45, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I think it would be quite wrong to assume that there are plenty of users in every location. I live in a city and there are only 8 users within a 15Km radius of me - the city centre is well mapped, but you only have to go a couple of Km and the mapping gets very sparse, with just a few well mapped pockets near each user and a handful of roads tagged as "unclassified" between them (these aren't really unclassified roads - if this gets approved I will be changing the whole lot of highway=road). Someone probably will survey it properly at some point, but at the rate mapping is being done here, that probably won't be for a few years - anything to speed up the process can only be a Good Thing. With only 35000 users, we each have to survey about 4255Km^2 of land to get a complete map of the planet. :) -- Steve Hill 08:38, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, but compare the UK now with a UK from, say, 18 months ago. 18 months ago there were only about 5000 users. When I joined 18 months ago, I was the only user in my area for about 30km. I've now got several within 10-15km (some less active than others...). I'm sure that your trace will get surveyed sooner or later, even if there aren't many active users in your immediate area.

My issue though is, perhaps if a road has been traced from NPE, for example - (look at Anglesey, *every* road has been traced from NPE with no names at all) - then they will need to be re-aligned to the GPS traces. That's the time consuming bit - realigning and making sense of what's already been put into the database. Richard B 19:26, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Traces from NPE are a separate problem - in many cases you probably do know the road classification since NPE does document A-roads, etc. They should have source=NPE, and would thus be easily identifiable.

I'm sure many traces will get surveyed eventually, but if there is a choice between having potentially useful unsurveyed roads on the map now, or having to wait until they get surveyed in 3 or 4 years time, I would choose to have them visible now. -- Steve Hill 19:53, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

highway=yes?

Or just highway=yes? That would fit in with building=yes, bridge=yes and others as a Don't Know / Don't Care value. It avoids any connotation, the way may actually be someone's driveway. I also have a vested interest in that I sometimes rode national cycleways at speed - no time to make notes - and end up with stretches where it changed from road to cycleway somewhere along the way but I don't know where. --MikeCollinson 07:45, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

See comments on highway=unknown, below. -- Steve Hill 08:12, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

highway=unknown?

Why not use highway=unknown instead? It will need to be visited to properly classify it anyway. It doesn't need to be followed in order to be classified, so having it accessible by car isn't very important.--Hawke 20:45, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

The highway tag covers a number of non-road features, such as footways, bridleways, etc. Specifying highway=unknown doesn't tell you what the way is - if you know it is a road, then why not tag it as a road. I certainly care more about whether I can drive down a highway than whether it is primary, secondary or tertiary, so would like to know that a way is a road, even if the contributor didn't know the classification. -- Steve Hill 08:32, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

The problem I see with highway=road is that it looks like a good tag to use when mapping and I can see new mappers come in and tagging things with that instead of highway=unclassified. It gives no hint that it should only be used when you really don't know, and something like highway=unknown_road would be better IMHO.
But then again, people doing just satellite tracing for roads already do classify between primary/secondary/tertiary/residential/unclassified, so I don't know why there's real need for a generic tag (but then again, in Belgium the classification is arbitrary most of the times anyway). --Eimai 11:12, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I think the highway=road looks more precise than highway=unclassified, it would give more confusion --PhilippeP 10:00, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I think having new mappers coming in and using highway=road rather than highway=unclassified is probably a Good Thing because at that stage they probably don't understand what highway=unclassified actually means. I would support highway=unknown_road instead though, if thats what people want. -- Steve Hill 17:02, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

'best guess' classification + fixme

Silly question, but what's wrong with simply using a 'best guess' classification (which would often be 'unclassified'), and adding a fixme=check road classification tag? That way there is no need to add any new rendering rules, and you've got an easily searchable fixme=* tag. --Southglos 12:48, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

The problem frequently raised is that some mappers don't like non-surveyed roads to appear identical to surveyed roads on the maps because it gives a false impression of completeness. -- Steve Hill 17:05, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Maplint layer highlights any way with fixme (as not-in-map-features) so the distinction is possible. If it will be a routing-worthy-road even after the corrected classification it is of some use as it is. Alv 13:24, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Maplint marks half of fricking london as "not-in-mapfeatures" -- it's not really very useful. What is does do is mark unnamed residential roads in red -- this is more useful. If it marks the highway=road in red too then that's just as useful. Randomjunk 13:59, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

The advantage of this suggestion is that it fits well with the way some people are sketching. For better or worse (and despite the instructions) people are having a guess at what the highway classification is. We would just need to go around slapping fixme=check road classification on these sketched areas, but then... what would that acheive? We can't base rendering behaviour on this fixme tag in any reliable way.

It would be better to add something like surveyed=no, a more solid water-tight well defined tag, which could then be used to change rendering. I was thinking we could make faded out pale coloured roads, for those which are not surveyed. Cosmetically I imagine that might work rather well. We see different coloured roads, but they're kind of ghost of a map in areas where people haven't done the hard work of proper surveying.

In addition we could allow people to just set highway=road (and perhaps this might default to surveyed=no)

-- Harry Wood 13:43, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

untagged ways

Since we're blurting out all the alternative ideas on this page. Here's the idea I've discuess elsewhere. Support sketching in untagged ways. When I say "support", I mean change the renderers to show untagged ways as sketchy grey lines. This is tackling the same problem (People want to sketch, but other people don't want these sketches shown with equal prominence) Some advantages over tagging highway=road (or other tagging suggestions)

• Untagged ways are quick and easy to slap in, which fits well with the sketching mentality, and the idea of making maximal use of aerial imagery to map in large swathes of city quickly. Dont set any tag. Just sketch away.
• They show up green instead of blue in JOSM wireframe view. Easy to see what's not surveyed, even while editing.
• Easy to convert a sketched road into a proper road (after surveying). Just add tags. No need to make sure any tags are removed.

highway=road tag has the advantage that you are encoding the fact that it is a road, and not a railway for example. 'best guess' classification + surveyed=no tag has the advantage that you can get your map looking more finished, e.g. with blue motorways, based entirely on a aerial imagery. Maybe there's no ideal system, but untagged ways do have advantages.

-- Harry Wood 14:00, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

highway=path

I just see this after the highway=path proposal (Proposed_features/Path). Then, between highway=unclassified, highway=road and highway=path, I'm afraid that many users will be... at least confused. But I think that the concept is good, maybe with another value. Pieren 20:59, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Voting

Please read the talk page before voting. Voting opened on 22 May 2008.

Voting has now closed - the results are 17 approvals out of 27 total votes, so the feature has been approved.

• I approve this proposal. -- Steve Hill 12:06, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. --PerroVerd 12:19, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. --SlowRider 12:25, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. --Franc 12:27, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
• I oppose this proposal. I approve the principle behind this tag, but the name chosen for it doesn't tell what it means. I would completely approve this proposal if highway=unknown_road (or something like it) was used. --Cartinus 12:29, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. --spaetz 12:31, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. unknown_road is special type of road, which is unknown, simple word road is much more generic:)--Walley 12:33, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
• I oppose this proposal. I support the idea, but the tag itself isn't well chosen and will create confusion. highway=unknown_road is better IMHO On second thought, I don't support the idea anymore either, let the user guess a classification and perhaps add a surveyed=no tag optionally. When surveying, the user still has to guess a classification as well, so I don't see the point anymore. --Eimai 12:40, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
• I oppose this proposal. +1 with Cartinus. Why not highway=unknown_road_type ? --Pieren 13:36, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. However I would be equally OK with highway=unknown_road --Deelkar (talk) 12:44, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. --Jttt 12:53, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
• I oppose this proposal. I approve the rationale, but i would prefer something like highway=unsurveyed. --EdoM (lets talk about it) 12:56, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. --Jannis 13:12, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. But would prefer highway=unknown_road or similar. --Cohort 13:14, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
• I oppose this proposal. I approve the idea, but I would prefer another tag name. --OlivierB 13:23, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
• I oppose this proposal. It just add more confusion --PhilippeP 13:42, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. I think unknown_road is also good. Robx 13:49, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. I was leaning towards highway=yes however the talk page convinced me otherwise. Rorym 14:02, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
• I oppose this proposal. I agree with Cartinus, The idea is good, tag name should be different like highway=unknown_road. Rendering sounds very much like highway=living_street, maybe a narrow grey line? --Rene A 16:44, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
• I oppose this proposal. I would approve highway=unknown_road, but highway=road is too generic. It should be obvious that this is not a valid/complete highway type. Alexrudd 19:20, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. I see highway=road as a nice tempting tag for the beginner; when they find out it's a bit amateurish they'll want to do it better. --DrMark 19:35, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
• I oppose this proposal. It just add more confusion Gustavf 22:49, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
• I oppose this proposal. I agree with the idea, but it should be "unknown_road" or a similar clearer term. --Amillar 05:22, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. --Lakeyboy 06:34, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. I approve the idea, however another tagname, as mentioned by others might be helpfull --MapperOG 20:59, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. --Chrischan 21:37, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. I think the idea of a tag to be used when the road type is unknown is good, but I think simply "unknown" would be a better value. Changed my mind. --Hawke 23:07, 29 May 2008 (UTC)