Talk:Relation:network
How this page was created
- Copied from User talk:U30303020
Hello U30303020,
You just deleted a lot of information about network relations. However, this is still the correct way to group the routes and nodes of a junction network, at least in the Netherlands and Belgium.
Relations are indeed not to be used for a category of things, like cycleways in London, but this is not the case for junction node networks. You just 'deprecated' the tag without discussion on the forum. I restored some text on the inline skating place. Discussion is now taking place on the Dutch forum. Please have a look there before deleting more information.
Best regards, A67-A67 (talk) 18:31, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
- Hello A67-A67,
- thank you for notifying me.
- I felt obligated to do these edits as there was someone new to the wiki promoting network relations for public transport (not in Benelux). The fact is that network-relations in PT have to be updated regularly (at least once a year) which usually does not happen. In addition, there is the network=*-Tag. This combination justifies a classification as a "Category"-Relation for me (the relation contains all bus/tram/... lines with operator=XYZ or network=XYZ).
- After using the talk page of this person, I wondered how she/he came up with this idea. I found numerous pages relating to network-relations (most of them regarding Public transport). I purposely only used the ambox template on the dutch pages as I already had the feeling that you probably actively use network relations (should have probably used talk pages instead).
- Most of my changes related to one page and their numerous translations. There was a discussion on a talk page the mentioned articles link to (Talk:Relations/Proposed/Network) back in 2014. I basically checked the pages linking to this article.
- Just for my personal interest and to understand you: Why do you need a relation like this 2567359
2567359? Would it not be the same as querying Overpass Turbo for "all nodes with rcn_ref=*" or is that a misunderstanding?
- What would be useful is proper documentation, perhaps a Relation:network page (similar to Relation:route) that documents non-category use. --Andrew (talk) 07:31, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
- I think you misunderstood the discussion about category-relations. Indeed a category-relation like 'cycleways in London' or 'bus lines by Connexxion in South-Holland' shouldn't be used. However there are actual networks, that are not just a category, but a comprehensive spatial network.
- In the last decade consensus about network relations has been reached in the Dutch community about at least the following cases:
- * A network of junction nodes. Hiking, cycling, skating, horse riding, paddling and motorboat networks exist. These network relations consist of the routes and junction nodes in such a network. There are a lot of these networks in the Benelux. An example is Fietsnetwerk Midden-Delfland.
- * A public transport concession. This is not a category like 'bus lines by Connexxion in South-Holland', but a comprehensive network of bus, tram or metro lines that are sold to one operator for a couple of years. An example is Haaglanden Streek.
- Both network relation are approved by the Dutch community. Discussion has been present in the forum and before that in the old-fashioned mailing list.
- The use of these kinds of network relations is approved, because of the easy maintenance. Information about the network itself is in the network relation and not on every single route or node. In the Netherlands these kind of relations are well-maintained and updated almost immediately after they change in real life. The network relations is also used to make this validation easier. The validation tool Knooppuntnet uses them for validation junction node networks.
- Actually the operator-tags on bus stops in my region are often outdated, while the network relations and the line relations are up to date.
- I hope this makes the actual use of network relations for non-categories more clear. For categories the network relation should of course not be used. So I think it is better to add this distinction to the page instead of deleting information and just deprecating a vastly used tag.
- Best regards, A67-A67 (talk) 10:24, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
Thank you for the explanations.
I did some research about this. Looking over the border to Germany, there seems to be a slightly different approach:
- Networks of Junction-Nodes
- Discussed in heated debates in 2015 [1], ended up with mappers ignoring each other, some map this as relations/networks, others map other things and do not care. In some provinces they are mapped like in Nordrhein-Westfalen, in others partially only, most of them do not have such networks as someone in the mailing list pointed out. They do have hiking networks apparently.
- Public Transport Concessions
- The idea of such relations was doomed on the mailing list as they change regularly and have no relevance for the users. A proposed relation schema of the operators themselves is marked as outdated in the English version (not by me). The current situation seems to be that everything is mapped in the route=* or route_master=* relations and network relations are abandoned [2] and ignored [3] (examples: 66263 66263 missing underground line 4, 2664636 2664636 with note=divide, divide, divide). This is contrary to the Dutch approach.
Seen from a more general perspective, there have been some problems with this approach:
- Relations become huge and unmanageable: official biking network (ca. 5000 members, > 1000 versions). Solved apparently with superrelations such as 33216 33216 which contains relations like "all bike routes in city xyz".
- Mappers repeatedly do not understand where to add their relations (some simply place them in the master relations).
- Newly created objects are not added to this schema.
This has lead to the passive ignoring mentioned above where some care and create and others do (deliberately ?) state not to update the relations (referring here to PT in specific).
Apparently there is a broader view on this point as I have thought, but also more than what you (A67-A67) said.
We should take all of this into account, create the new article as suggested, and I will fix my changes. Ok?
U30303020 (talk) 17:22, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
I just created the page as Wynndale suggested: Relation:network. Please feel free to improve it. --U30303020 (talk) 22:07, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
Bad page
Hello,
I'm trying to read the english version of this page from an American perspective. However, I can't get any useful information on what this is supposed to represent in terms of cycling/hiking routes.
Right now I'm mapping National Recreation Trail designated trails in the United States, and some designations apply to groups of trails instead of individual trails. I wanted to know if this would be a more applicable tagging for these, but this page is uselessly unclear.
Please reach out if you can tell me what this relation is supposed to represent in this context.
Thanks, SherbetS.
- This page was started by people opposing this tag, so that would explain the lack of clarity. I've added a How to Map section and examples. I don't know enough about the US National Recreation Trail system to way whether network relations would be useful there. Maybe the designations you mention can be mapped with tags on the relations themselves without grouping routes with a certain designation into a network relation. A67-A67 (talk) 13:04, 20 May 2022 (UTC)