Whether the barrier is electrified, how many strands of barbed wire it has on it, etc. is the kind of information that have little utility and high potential for political axe-grinding.
My first thought is that we limit our description to the tags listed here: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Barriers
Essentially, just fence vs wall. That’s what OSM mappers have found worth mentioning in non-political contexts.
But if we do that, we expose ourselves to the possibility of vandals changing the entire barrier to “fence” or else to “wall”. As we all know, people get very worked up about the fence/wall issue, insisting it is one or the other. But once somebody does makes this change, the map is factually incorrect. Since the motivation for the change is high, and the gain of marking the barrier one way or the other minimal, I suggest we refrain from marking details at all.
The barrier is mostly a fence and partly a wall.
Therefore, neither the English name “separation wall” nor the Hebrew one “גדר ההפרדה” is accurate.
I suggest changing it to “separation barrier” “מכשול ההפרדה”.
Correct. As long nobody with onground knowledge will take care of it we should call it security barrier (as it is called most of the parts already).
But we have also a definition im osm called barrier=fence or barrier=wall and this is what counts.
I have gone in the last weeks through all new bing satimages and updated the route of the barrier. Main focus was only the route and not the kind of barrier as im not able to check if wall or fence.
Please note that the Bing images are in many places out of date, and that newer sections are missing.
You can find the most up-to-date and best resolution aerials at the Bezeq map site. We probably aren’t allowed to trace those but you should consult them before removing sections you can’t see in Bing.