On OSM Carto, blockfield currently is rendered as a default forested area. Some kind of rocky surface would be much more apt to visualise such areas on the map.
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposal:Look_of_areas_tagged_as_blockfield_on_the_map
Please discuss this proposal on its wiki talk page.
Sorry if this isn’t the right way to ask for this change. It’s my first time asking an edit to a tag.
Hi, welcome to OSM!
Yeah, no worries, but this is correct. If you’d like to change the appearance of objects in a particular map (Carto), you need to raise the issue with them: GitHub - gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto: A general-purpose OpenStreetMap mapnik style, in CartoCSS
It would also help to see the object you are concerned about. Is it actually tagged as a blockfield? If the tags only say “generic forest”, then there is nothing any renderer can do.
Though from looking at other examples, natural=blockfield just doesn’t get rendered at all, so the underlying forest gets shown instead.
The Proposal process is more for clarifying what a tag is supposed to mean and how it is to be used/interpreted. Stylistic choices are left to the data consumers.
Oh, alright. Thank you. I’ll go and ask about this in the appropriate channel then. How should I go about closing this proposal and thread?
It’s also worth noting that blockfields are rendered on a map on the osm.org home page, Tracestrack Topo:
I’ve canceled the proposal for you (set status to “Canceled”)
The thread can’t be closed, though some subforums allow a solution to be selected.
I’ll remove the [RFC] from the title, as that’s not relevant anymore
An OSM-Carto PR to render natural=blockfield AS natural=scree was rejected, which is understandable because it is confusing to render two top-level tags identically.
Personally I would be happy that Tracestack Topo does choose to render natural=blockfield and take the win.
As a non-geologist, my reading of the rejection is somewhat different. natural=blockfield seems to be intended as a description of the geology of an area, whereas natural=scree just describes what the surface looks like.
Regardless of the reason, the particular idea wasn’t a great solution. Doesn’t mean that there is no way it could be rendered at all. And in any case, that’s the decision of the Carto maintainers.
I agree, I think this is just a different aspect of the problem where you have two top-level tags that overlap in meaning and usage. Is “scree” an area of loose rock as opposed to natural=bare_rock or is loose rock that has arisen from “wastage”?
I think it’s unlikely that Carto will render it because of the conflict / overlap of the top-level tagging. It would be easier if were natural=loose_rock with scree and blockfield as subtypes. But we are where we are.
Speaking as a geologist…the differentiating aspects between bare_rock, blockfield and scree are as follows:
Bare_rock is large, foundational exposed rock (basement in some cases) that is in-place and attached.
Blockfield is large detatched pieces of rock that are local to the area, they have not been transported, just detached from the base bare_rock. They can be cover in some cases. Using a nerd word they are autochthonous
Scree is transported material, usually by mass wasting that has eroded from the native rock. Typically found at the base of slopes and smaller in size than blocks resulting from erosion and transport. Nerd word - the material is allochthonous. Scree implies a steeper slope, loose material of varying size and poorly sorted.