OpenStreetMap
I’m wondering about what looks like multiple tag schemas existing in parallel. Apart from the general tags developed, I understand, from a European/western perspective, there seem to also exist highway Africa schema which evolved from Mali-specific schema, as well as East Africa guidelines. There are probably more. I can’t help but imagine the western tagging schema growing and swallowing up the whole continent, while the eastern coast holds out with its own schema, and then they, presumably, have a line of contact somewhere, where the tagging differences need to be reconciled.
However, all the systems seem to me to largely say the same thing: “function rather than surface matters for classification, don’t tag for the renderer.” So - is it helpful to have these parallel schemas? What are the issues we’d all encounter if we were to apply the main tagging schema in Africa? Isn’t having multiple definitions for the same tags existing in the OSM database too high price to pay for whatever advantages we gain?
I’m sure this discussion has been had over and over, I just can’t seem to find it. Thanks to anyone who can point me in the right direction.
Discussion
Comment from Sanderd17 on 27 August 2020 at 10:56
IMO, the African schema is just a clarification of the European schema but for African roads.
If a European maps african roads, he’s often inclined to map everything that isn’t paved as track. Because in Europe, most unpaved roads are actually mainly for agricultural use.
But the tagging just implies the function: tertiary roads connect villages, secondary roads connect towns, primary roads connect cities, and trunk or motorway roads are just special primary roads (with special rights).
Then you have residential roads for accessing houses, and unclassified roads for any roads in between.
It seems all pretty simple to me. Of course there are cases where you can doubt between two classes. But just pick one and carry on.