[RFC] Feature Proposal - Add strolling to sac_scale and some further refinements

Following the preliminary discussion here: Adding T0/strolling to sac_scale

I am now formally proposing to add “strolling” to sac_scale and modify sac_scale slightly to

  1. reflect current usage better
  2. clarify it slightly

The wiki page is here: Proposal:Add strolling to sac scale and some further refinements - OpenStreetMap Wiki

Could somebody please notify the tagging mailing list?

I am curious about feedback.

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Done!

https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/tagging/2024-October/068003.html

Wow, & that says something about the Tagging list - 4th October & this is the first message posted to it for the month! :hushed:

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When browsing incoming mail some days ago I read this as “Add trolling to sac_scale”. Not that I want to say something about the endeavour, but maybe something about sac_scale? Maybe it also was just because of the “Add T…”

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I like this proposal in concept, for me it’s a helpful way to say this is a walking path in the away from the urban environment (ie a trail rather than a footpath), but it’s one that most people with no hiking experience can do. It’s considered a walk not a hike.

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It would definitely be a tag value I would look for when deciding where to take my blind mother for a walk. Maybe suitability for blind people could be mentioned?

I’m in favour of renaming the tag (to foot_scale, in honour of @erutan) and the tag values, but this can come later. The Swiss community could then decide to use sac_scale (or preferably a slightly different name, such as sac_rate) to tag how ways have been rated by the SAC itself.

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Mentioned now, I do think that fits strolling well. I added that they would need a guide still, as for them orientation might not be that straighforward.

I also in principle agree something neutral and world-wide could be created (on the wiki in talk pages, using hiking_scale namespace was suggested which would make the systematic me happy) but I do not see this in conflict. And anyway, that would be a much more major effort then this proposal.

I don’t think the proposal says anything about being away from an urban environment?

I’d worry that making this distinction would eventually lead to yet another step on the scale (minus one?) for paths that are not considered trails.

I think it’s important to be clear if the expanded scale is intended to be like tracktype: every highway=track falls somewhere on the tracktype scale, so if you survey a bunch of tracks of differing standard, you can tag them all and the situation is clear for the future.

Or is the intention that (as you interpret it here) that some footways and paths fall below even the lowest level so would not be tagged. Then there is no way to say in the tagging “I surveyed this and decided it falls outside sac_scale”.

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Well, I think that would need the clarification of the highway=path mess:-). Anyway, in a urban setting, I assume strolling (in most places in the world) by default. The tag is most useful for hiking trails and those are indeed usually(!) out of the city. However, I see no wrong if paths/footways in a urban setting get tagged with sac_scale=strolling.

sac_grade would be nice to have for the actual SAC scale as it is one of the standardised hiking scales. I also think that OSM contributed a lot to its popularity.

Thanks for the proposal.

I think there’s a lot of mappers who have been using sac_scale=hiking to mean all hiking trails that are easy, no matter how easy.

From that perspective, the proposal addresses a real downside of the SAC scale, that the lowest category is too wide (58% of all ways tagged sac_scale are =hiking). What do we do with existing ways tagged sac_scale=hiking though? =hiking is currently the lowest of six difficulty categories, with the proposal accepted it would become the second lowest of seven. The ways tagged =hiking will need resurveying to check if they are still =hiking or =strolling.

Some numbers to show that I am not the only one who has been using it like that: there are, for example, 6,967 highway=unclassified, 5,817 residential and 2,105 tertiary with sac_scale=hiking. Looking at examples, a common use case is for ways that are roads but also part of hiking route relations (i.e. where a signposted hiking route requires hikers to walk on or alongside a road for a while). Some of them might really be harder than strolling and still fit the definition of =hiking, but many of them will probably need retagging to =strolling if the proposal is accepted. Another example, there are 1,261 ways with sac_scale=hiking and smoothness=excellent and 3,017 with smoothness=good. I would think that all or almost all of them should meet the definition of =strolling. Is the plan just to re-tag over the next couple of years as we re-survey them?

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Yes, I think in the meantime, there is no harm in having some ways tagged as hiking instead of strolling. The difference in meaning is small and onybody prepared for hiking can also cope with strolling :-).

(I would not oppose automatic edit to turn any road with hiking into strolling, I think it would me mostly a safe bet, however I am not proposing it)

You are right there. No way to choose from current tagging.

Could probably do a gross, first-level, check on that based on where they are: urban = strolling while rural = hiking

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I agree that the lowest category is too wide, but I don’t think we should worry too much about a “triangular” distribution - it feels natural given the nature of the tag. Large parts of the earths surface don’t really have the terrain to go beyond the hiking category. And even in mountainous areas, many trails are originally not specifically for recreation and tend to follow the easiest possible route.

Yes I don’t think there is any way around this. But I would interpret “resurvey” loosely - I think a lot of this could be done from imagery, especially by mappers who are reasonably familiar with an area. E.g. there are mountain areas where I know I’ve walked all the best-maintained popular trails. So without ever having walked the other trails, I know they are not strolling and could keep any =hiking tags.

It’s unlucky that the sac_scale value happens to be the same as for route=hiking, but with quite a different meaning. Is there a case for changing that value at the same time as splitting it, to say casual_hiking (or something better that does not come to mind right now)? That might clarify that it is a point on a scale, not a tag that says “people do hiking here”. It would have another advantage, that it would be clear whether a way has been retagged or not, i.e. we would have
sac_scale=hiking: v1 tagging, could be strolling or hiking
sac_scale=strolling: v2 tagging, confirmed as strolling
sac_scale=casual_hiking: v2 tagging, confirmed as a level above strolling.

For example, I always used sac_scale=hiking to mean “this is not for strolling” - I didn’t even know others were using it differently. So there is a whole group of ways that I know should stay at that grade. But if we keep the value “hiking,” I have no way to indicate to others that these trails don’t need to be resurveyed.

(As an aside, I don’t especially like the use of the word hiking in this tag at all. I know it makes sense given its origin in a scale intended for outdoor recreation, but it seems a bit disrespectful to the many people in rural areas who use “unimproved” trails for work and other daily activities. But completely rewording the tags is probably a step too far).

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I think that can be a separate part of the proposal (I sense it would be more controversial than just adding a new key to the scale). I am not sure if two things can be voted on at once with two votes? The original highway=path was voted on like that.

One bad thing about hte scale is that different keys do not start with different letters. demanding/difficult_mountain/alpine_hiking is not easy to put in in JOSM. In ideal world we would have:
strolling
casual_hiking
mountain_hiking
demanding_mountain_hiking
alpine_hiking
hard_alpine_hiking
tough_alpine_hiking

(I think people sometimes mistake the two demanding ones, it has definitely happened to me).

Would it be possible to adapt existing quality assurance tools, or develop a new one if necessary, that highlights ways tagged with sac_scale=hiking for resurvey? At the resurvey, ways that are determined to be easy hiking can then be tagged with sac_scale=strolling while those that still deserve sac_scale=hiking can get a checkdate tag so it will be ignored by QA tools.

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Something like this in Overpass would work. Change the date to “whenever people start using strolling”; that example just uses April 2020 because I copied it from the Overpass examples in the wiki.

The problem with this are that finding the proper date is almost impossible as at least all major editor software have to be updated to include the new value and that we would still miss all cases where the way was modified after the date but the sac_scale=* not checked.

I fear, we also would have problems using check_date=* as yet again sac_scale=* might have been forgotten to check and I am not sure if we should add a check_date:sac_scale=* to all ways with sac_scale=hiking

check_date is most commonly used on POIs, it is quite rare on paths: there are only about 2000 ways with check_date and sac_scale. So I think if someone in the future tags check_date on an sac_scale=hiking path, then we can be relatively confident that they looked at the sac_scale value and it’s accurate.

Checking all the 464,952 ways with sac_scale=hiking will be a monumental task, just look at how slowly the elimination of surface=cobblestone is progressing.

Not saying we shouldn’t do it but it will take a while. Integration into QA tools is probably a good idea to speed things up.