(It would have been nice if someone who was fluent in English could have made this opinion, but I’m not sure I’ve made myself clear enough. If anything is unclear or lacking in my comments, I’ll add it as I hear from you. If there’s anything in my writing that puzzles you, it’s most likely purely due to my poor English. Please do me a favor and use a plain language. Also, I’ll add in Korean in hopes that it will help.)
Despite my terrible English, I have posted a few questions and asked for opinions.
Only recently did the core of all those questions become clear to me.
It was whether the OSM system of tagging was too complicated, subjective, or abstract.
I believe that someone taking their first steps into OSM should be able to tag easily and that it shouldn’t be a fatal mistake.
However, since the OSM tag system is quite difficult, there are actually many tags that are incorrectly attached, and I think this reduces the value of OSM data.
I think that only a few clear, simple and intuitive elements should be organized systematically, and the rest of the abstract or subjective properties should be selectable.
For example, ‘I’ has a classification system called ‘biological-animal-mammal-human’. This is a relatively objective, systematic, and straightforward classification.
I don’t think attributes like ‘male’ or ‘Korean-born’ or 180cm tall are suitable as central classifications.
Furthermore, things like what color fur is and what color skin is are not objective at all, they are relative and complex.
And, how many years after a building is built does it become a historic building, and who decides if it is a work of art or not?
In addition, I think that OSM editors’ geographical bias leads to cultural bias, which leads to a clash of concepts. (‘Culture’ is an inevitably subjective element.)
I believe that the OSM tagging scheme should be simple, clear, objective and intuitive.
That way even beginners are less likely to make mistakes, and at least there will be fewer mis-tags, if not detailed.
I don’t think this is a problem that can be solved right now.
What I hope is that this discussion deepens and a consensus is formed, and in the meantime, if a good alternative is provided, I think it is a problem that should be attempted someday.
We look forward to your insightful comments.
Thank you.
in Korean…
제 영어 실력이 형편없음에도 불구하고, 저는 그 동안 몇 차례 질문과 의견을 구한 적이 있습니다.
최근에서야 그 모든 의문의 핵심을 분명히 깨달을 수 있었습니다.
그것은 OSM 태그의 체계가 너무 복잡하거나 주관적이거나 추상적이지 않나 하는 것입니다.
OSM에 처음 발걸음을 한 사람도 쉽게 태그를 찾아서 붙일 수 있어야 하며 그것이 결정적인 실수가 아니어야 한다고 생각합니다.
하지만 OSM 태그 체계가 상당히 어렵기 때문에 실제로는 잘못 붙인 태그가 많으며, 이것이 OSM의 데이터로써의 가치를 떨어뜨린다고 생각합니다.
분명하고 단순하며 직관적인 요소 몇 가지만 계통적으로 정리가 되고 나머지 추상적이거나 주관적인 성격은 선택해서 쓸 수 있어야 한다고 생각합니다.
보기를 들어서, 역사적인 건물은 지어진 지 몇 년이 지나야 역사적인 건물이 됩니까? 예술작품인지 아닌지는 누가 결정합니까?
덧붙여, OSM 편집자의 지리적인 편중이 문화적인 편중으로 이어지고, 그것이 개념의 충돌로 이어지고 있다고 생각합니다.('문화’라는 건 주관적일 수 밖에 없는 요소입니다.)
저는 OSM 태그 체계가 간단하고 명료하고 객관적이며 직관적이어야 한다고 생각합니다.
그래야 초보자도 실수할 확률이 낮으며, 세밀하지는 않더라도 적어도 잘못 태그하는 일은 적을 것입니다.
이 문제는 지금 당장 해결할 수 있는 문제는 아니라고 생각합니다.
제가 바라는 것은, 이런 논의가 깊어지고 동감대가 형성이 되며 그러는 가운데 좋은 대안이 마련된다면 언젠가는 시도되어야 할 문제라고 생각합니다.
여러분의 통찰력있는 의견을 기다립니다.
People agree in general with this. The problem is that world described by OpenStreetMap is very often complex, confusing, counterintuitive and mapped by people with various biases, what makes it extremely difficult.
Many things in OSM seemed to be having relatively objective, systematic, and straightforward classification, and then it turned out that it completely fails just few hundreds kilometers away.
+1
Far, far more effort was put into designing tagging schemes handling well objects in Europe than in Asia. It is quite clearly visible in many parts, including documentation, presets and tag use.
That say’s it all. The real world we try to reflect in the OSM database is (not only very often, but in general) very very complex and confusing in many parts. There can be no overall simple tagging scheme covering all physical aspects (+ some none-physical like borders or routes as well) of the real world.
Again the tagging schemes have been developed over the years. There was no masterplan how to tag the world in all details. Errors have been made, duplicate tags developed, tagging schemes changed, tags deprecated and so on.
Additionally there is the problem of documentation. If there would be an experienced team dedicated and empowered to permanently work on writing and reviewing documentation things could be much easier. Such team does not exist and some mappers wouldn’t even like it, there was a recent topic dealing with this issue here.
From that point of view one has to say: as a result this task is not only quite difficult, but impossible.
By the way: Your english text is fine, no problem to understand your point, so don’t worry about that.
Let’s not forget that OSM is a great success despite (or maybe because of?) the issues.
I don’t agree that the tagging scheme is too difficult. It allows a degree of variation and uncertainty, which can be difficult to cope with and which generates friction, but the basic scheme is not that complicated.
how big is your area? Bars to beat carpets are not unseen in Germany and other European countries at least.
Anyway, I agree, we all want a simple system to clearly and unambiguously describe the world, but it is not immediately clear how to achieve it in a way that everybody agrees that it works, the more input there is from various contexts the better, we wouldn’t have developed detailed (?) tags for japanese bathing facility types without the Japanese.
If you feel a lot of things can’t be well represented with common tags then the reason could be there are still a lot of tags to develop. Don’t be shy or overwhelmed, one at a time
Thank you for your comments, everyone.
As you probably already understand, I don’t want the rules of OSM to be perfect (no one should, and they never will be!!!).
They are confusing and difficult to understand for beginners, late comers, or people from certain cultures, so I want to make them simpler, clearer, more intuitive, and more objective. ‘As much as it can be’, ‘a little more’ …
Mixing subjective and relative attributes with objective ones and allowing beginners to pick anything(forced to pick anything) is problematic.
At the very least, objective attributes should come first, and relative and subjective attributes should be secondary.
This is necessary for ease of use(editing), but I also believe that inconsistent conventions reduce the value of OSM as data.
Due to differences in user perception, having different tags for the same kind of feature will only lead to confusion when utilizing the information later.
In some countries, the OSM is being used quite well, but in others, there is a lot of work to be done to improve its use.
It’s hard to increase utilization if the data is not valuable as data.
(Especially in Korea, where there is a lot of government-managed information, there are quality map services that specialize in Korea, so OSM will never have a foothold if the map is just an image.) An unutilized resource is not much different from garbage.
It’s hard to say what that should look like, but I think we should at least have the relatively objective, systematic, and simple attributes as the main focus, and the subjective, relative, and nuanced attributes that can be used for anything as a secondary choice.
If less objective, relative, and localized attributes become the norm, it’s bound to get messy and confusing later on.
Please understand that as I edit OSM, I’m becoming more and more confused as my proficiency increases.
Thank you.
In general I agree - though in many cases improving things may be tricky.
Artworks are really tricky, but we want to mark artworks. Distinguishing streams and rivers is highly useful - but exact border is again tricky. The same goes for road classes and so on.
