In March 2020, some content was added to Key:meadow, including the following descriptions:
meadow=paddock : an area of grass where horses or other animals are kept
meadow=pasture : a pasture for grazing livestock, usually fenced, not used for cutting hay
These descriptions are still present there and I find them confusing because, AFAIK,
the difference between paddocks and pastures is not that paddocks would be for horses and pastures for other grazing animals, but the difference is that paddocks are usually smaller than pastures and most of them are not grassy at all (but the word paddock is used differently in different regions), more details see Talk:Tag:meadow=paddock - OpenStreetMap Wiki
in British English “livestock” does not include horses (in US English it does), so the above description for pasture would not cover horse pastures, but Riding - OpenStreetMap Wiki recommends meadow=pasture for horse pastures since 2012.
Can we change “livestock” to “animals” in the above description for meadow=pasture ? If yes, I wonder why we need tag meadow=paddock at all, because then we already have a tag which is used 18 times as often as meadow=paddock and covers all areas for grazing animals (horses and livestock): meadow=pasture. If someone wants to map grassy paddocks, he can simply map the fences on top of a landuse=meadow + meadow=pasture area. For non-grassy paddocks. the use of landuse=meadow is obviously inappropriate.
If we keep tag meadow=paddock, how could the descriptions for meadow=paddock and meadow=pasture be changed so that they don’t overlap and are less confusing?
The linked wikipedia page seems to be using American examples, rather than the British English normally used in OSM. Here’s the international taginfo page. Using overpass to search for non-grass examples of the top two values animal_keeping:type=paddock and meadow=paddock finds almost none in England. Likewise landuse=paddock. Aerial imagery suggests that the one sand “paddock” example among those is actually a private showjumping / dressage area and not actually a paddock at all.
I wouldn’t tag a sand saddling area at a racetrack as “anything=paddock” in OSM, nor a motor racing circuit’s paddock.
Edit: Looking in taginfo for data consumers finds only the usualsuspect (me), and although I do distinguish paddock and pasture from e.g. farmland and meadow, I don’t distinguish them from each other. In short, I wouldn’t worry too much about paddock vs pasture. Pick whichever you feel happiest with.
When a way to tag something starts depending on how it is understood in British vs, American English, most non-native speakers are lost. Imagine having to translate the wiki to another language… (Stable only for horses?)
Please, let’s keep things simple so that it is understood worldwide.
I actually said “I don’t distinguish them from each other. In short, I wouldn’t worry too much about paddock vs pasture. Pick whichever you feel happiest with”. How is that not “keeping things simple”?
Like @SomeoneElse I think trying to distinguish between them is a mug’s game, and the most useful feature is to add the extraordinary amount of fencing used for horse paddocks. Certainly in my British English, I expect a horse paddock to be grassy, although in local usage they are often just called the “horse field”. Given the wide range of potential meanings I think using it is a no-no anyway. Probably better to just tag the kind of animal and be done with (works for horses, but perhaps not for cows & sheep).
Land used for pasturage of animals already suffers from tagging which is technically incorrect as meadows are not areas of regular pasture, but places used to grow a crop of hay (or straw), and, as it happens, a severely endangered agricultural landuse in most of Europe, which we now have no good way of identifying. At some stage the whole approach to tagging pasture land needs to be revisited.
Stable is a different issue because the meaning is very clear in English, but care was not taken when it was adopted to check for any differences between dictionary meanings in other languages. The added complication is that so far I have not been able to think of a single concise English term as a suitable replacement. One of the things which often does not happen with new tags is a proper check of meaning across languages (including varieties of English).
@SomeoneElse I didn’t mean to address you personally; actually it’s addressed at most native English speakers except you I think we agree that just because English has a specific word to describe a specific map feature, we have to invent a tag to describe it in such detail. Imagine we had picked Inuit instead of English as the tag language: how many tag values would we have instead of just surface=snow? snow=wrong_type_of_snow, etc.
Land used for pasturage of animals already suffers from tagging which is technically incorrect as meadows are not areas of regular pasture, but places used to grow a crop of hay (or straw), and, as it happens, a severely endangered agricultural landuse in most of Europe, which we now have no good way of identifying.
+1
At some stage the whole approach to tagging pasture land needs to be revisited.
I think we agree that just because English has a specific word to describe a specific map feature, we have to invent a tag to describe it in such detail.
You don’t have to describe anything in such detail, building=yes is a valid established tag. But if you decide to use a specific tag such as stable, you should use it appropriately and not for instance for henhouses or sties.
I wonder where the German confusion with stables stems from, as its German page always emphasized that it is for horses: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=DE:Tag:building%3Dstable&oldid=823444
Seems like it would simpler and clear to use landuse=livestock livestock=pigs;chicken;sheep. It become both obvious that the land is for farm animal and then specifically which one. It also reduces a lot of confusion when you don’t have to remember the right landuse used for a particular animal.
I agree with that. I would deprecate meadow=paddock because no grass grows on a paddock (anymore).
The german Wikipedia says:
Er bezeichnet den ausnahmslos graslosen, eingezäunten, zumeist befestigten Auslauf für Pferde.
The way meadow=paddock is currently described in the wiki makes no sense to me. If I understand Wikipedia correctly, paddock is used as a synonym for pasture in Australia, for example.Edit: I was wrong.
However, I have used meadow=paddock for this so far, but will use the following tagging in the future (for german paddocks without grass):
The third one looks like what happens when horses eat all the grass .
The second of them looks more like it’s been created as a small showjumping arena (or perhaps dressage, although it’s missing the lettered boards).
The first one appears to be here in OSM and looks pretty grassy in the Bing imagery. The second is around here and might be woodland in OSM, although the Bing imagery suggests not, and a bit of (but not much) grass. The third one is here and is the only one that is bare in the latest Bing imagery.
I think we agree that just because English has a specific word to describe a specific map feature, we have to invent a tag to describe it in such detail. Imagine we had picked Inuit instead of English as the tag language: how many tag values would we have instead of just 
Now I understand.