Pavement

I am just wondering, why is this ‘statement’ saying to avoid the word “pavement” in OSM ? :roll_eyes:
The word ‘pavement’ (all-encompassing) could be used as key for all ‘surfaces’ of roads etc., and then added with a (for example) asphalt=yes.
Or(for example) key:pavement and paving_tiles=yes (and in this case for example) also add brick(tiles)=yes or setts=yes or concrete(tiles)=yes or wood(tiles)=yes or whatever … :wink:

pavement, in British English means sidewalk, in US English. The use of sidewalk in OSM is an exception to the normal British English rule.

EDIT: also, if OSM ‘insists’ of using only British English words, why (for example) is then the (US English) word 'apartment’ then approved , because the British English word for it is ‘flat’ ? :roll_eyes:

The technical word for British English pavement is footway, but most people would not understand that.

footway is footway…nothing to misunderstand that :wink: …but this , i find ‘confusing’ →

the word(s) ‘paved’ should then be ‘replaced’ with ‘covered’ or something, because the word(s) with ‘pave’ (paving/paved/etc.) in it, seems (ONLY in British English) something to do with ‘loose block-elements’, and not (as in American English) with a ‘one-whole-road-cover’, like concrete/asphalt/etc. … :roll_eyes:

The British are sometimes a ‘stubborn tribe’, with their rules, like driving left, or instead of metric standards, still using their ‘ancient’ imperial units … i still get a ‘hassle’ when i want to repare my water-and heatingpipes, with a mix from their inches and cm … see also → NASA lost a $125 million Mars orbiter because one engineering team used metric units while another used English units for a key spacecraft operation :roll_eyes:

Edit : it seems that the Dutch have made a distinction and use the word ‘element hardening’ (in this issue) instead of pavement or surface … smart:stuck_out_tongue:

As a matter of fact, wouldn’t it be better to **making no mention at all of paved/unpaved, but instead using hardened/not hardened **(in that article).
In the section hardened, one can then add 3 categories (concrete / asphalt / tiles), and tiles can have ; cobblestones/setts/bricks/wood planks/metal plates/etc. +eventually for other ‘sub-categories’(=yes), to avoid all this crap ? :stuck_out_tongue:
example 1 ; surface=tiles + tiles=setts
example 2 ; surface=concrete

If you feel you can make a good enough case to change the 7 million surface=paved or unpaved values to something else, then go for it. I expect you won’t get much support, though.

i know, but making an exception (like sidewalk or apartment) of pavement instead of surface (in this case) to the normal British English rule is ‘doable’ , not ? :wink:

If with “doable” you mean technically, then yes.

If you mean that you will get enough support to do it, then no. Besides having to retag 7 million objects (which will have grown by the time you get through the proposal process for the new tag), you demand that data consumers will support 2 schema’s for many years to go.

Until now I don’t see what problem you try to solve by shuffling a few tags. E.g. what is the benefit of replacing paved with hardened ?

All i want to say is ; delete this ; “to avoid the word “pavement” in OSM”, and make “pavement” an exception to the British rule (like sidewalk and apartment) , because as of now, there is no ‘logic sense’ in ‘to avoid pavement’ … something that is ‘paved’, IS a pavement:wink:
Also …a grass_paver is categorised in ‘unpaved’ … ‘not logic’ … because the word ‘paver’ in it … :stuck_out_tongue:

So adapt the wiki page (and perhaps fight with the wiki maintainers about the change).

Something paved is not a pavement to the man in the street in England, unless it is also a footway. The reason for avoiding “pavement” is that it has different common language meanings in the US and UK, but those meaning both relate to roads. I think sidewalk was used because most British English speakers are aware of the meaning, and it has no conflicting meaning in the UK. The British English technical term, footway, is not as familiar to UK residents as sidewalk.

“Apartment” is increasingly being used in British English, so is not exclusively American.

Something paved IS a pavement … nothing more logically as that … British or not British …
Also, ALL roads are ‘paved’, even a path in the jungle, cut through with a jungle knife , is ‘paved’ , because ‘paving’ means ‘originally’ ; making conditions necessary for passing through … so, all roads are paved, but not ‘hardened’ … dilemma…dilemma …

And now i stop with this discussion, because it is to no avail here … :roll_eyes:

IMHO You try to add too much meaning to tags. Just use what it there. I see little of no value in trying to review each and every tag with the help of a dictionary, years after they were introduced and used thousands of times since then.

It’s much more useful to go out and collect data of objects that are not mapped yet. Or to help define tagging schema’s for concepts that cannot be mapped yet.

what do you mean by that ? :expressionless:

Often people ask on the tagging mailing list how they can map a particular object for which there is no tag yet. After some discussion they formulate a proposal which is further discussed, brought to voting and hopefully accepted.

One of the current discussions is about a default:language tag, but there were discussions on power lines, etc in the past

p.s. I do remember you do not like mailing lists, but the place to discuss tagging is the tagging mailing list.

I saw that discussion about ‘language tag’ on that mailing list, but isn’t that ‘problem’ solved with simple adding a wikidata code to boundaries/etc. ,and then there adding all kind of stuff, like languages/etc. ? Even the Dutch people seems to have ‘wikidated’ all streets there ? :stuck_out_tongue:
If there was some kind of WMS-layer-JOSM-plugin , with wikidata codes , wouldn’t that also maybe ‘helpfull’ … ?