Talk:Tag:highway=road
Unnamed roads (that haven't been surveyed)
Hey folks, I don't know where I got this from, but usually when I draw a street whose name I don't know but very likely has a name, I tag it highway=road instead of tagging it highway=residential, which would be the most likely road type. But I noticed many users simply trace roads from Bing (for instance) and indiscriminately apply the highway=residential tag, without adding any names. Using highway=residential indiscriminately for roads that have been simply traced from Bing has the same effect as using highway=road instead, right?
I am aware that there is a noname=yes tag proposal, but I want to clearly state that in the cases I'm referring to, the roads most likely have names, but haven't been surveyed properly. I am also aware that there is an ITO Map layer which highlights unnamed highways, nonetheless when I tried it, it was outdated by about 2-3 months, plus there was a notice right at the homepage saying 'OpenStreetMap updates are current suspended and will resume as soon as new 'planet' files are published following the recent license change.'.
The problem of adding highway=residential is that the part of the map would look more complete than what it really is, causing neglect by mappers. I saw somewhere in the Wiki a page mentioning exactly that, but I'm not finding it anymore and I can't remember what was commented there, but I remember it was weighing the pros/cons of having more data (at least knowing the highway type) against the hassle it causes for mappers. I reckon that more data is better, even if it is little and imprecise, nonetheless people are using highway=residential the very same way I use highway=road, that is, even if a traced road clearly is a higher grade highway, such as highway=tertiary, they still use 'residential'. So I believe the alleged benefit of having more info is rendered moot, right?
So, I will add just a little paragraph on the page saying that this should also be used when the road very likely has a name, nonetheless it wasn't surveyed properly. Please tell me what you think, I will watch this page.
Cheers, --D4RK-L3G10N 19:28, 30 April 2012 (BST)
highway=road and routing
I have noticed that roads tagged with highway=road is non-routing in some routing applications. This should be warned about in the description of the tag. Usage of this tag is strictly temporary and might not show up on maps or be routable, depending on application. --Skippern (talk) 19:07, 14 February 2015 (UTC)