Some questions about Srpskian objects

Cross-posted from a PM:

That is asphalt road connecting settlement to state highway.

Were those hiking trail posts or bicycle route posts? What was the name you removed?

I understand, but it is a one-lane smoothness=unbearable backside road, and my question was whether it is tertiary in any administrative sense or just some local mapper thinks it’s important?

I am not familar with Serbian OSM customs but here around Hungary we only classify roads to elevated levels (tertiary/secondary/primary) if they are either administratively defined as such or they carry significant traffic. This road visibly does neither, and I would definitely not recommend anyone from abroad (=tourists) to use it between the state highway and Zlatibor.

it is tempting to just copy official classification in general but I would at least remember that sometimes official classification mismatches actual importance and should be ignored

I am talking about a highway tagged as tertiary which is lane=1, smoothness=bad, lit=no and would expect to lead to a farmyard in the middle of nowhere. I would retag highway=unclassified in a flash were it not in a foreign country. If there were a tag telling people not to go there it would be appropriate. Google street view car did not dare to go there either, and they’re usually pretty brave. :grin:

Well, highway=trunk can be unpaved if infrastructure in a given area/country is bad enough.

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Serbia isn’t that bad. :laughing:

I came through from Hungary to Montenegro and all roads were normal quality (at least according to my tastes).

I see that Zlatibor is rebuilt from ashes (half of the place seems to be under perpetual construction, including a new (real) tertiary road with roundabout and stuff), but this backside road doesn’t seem to be “normal quality” for the last decade, apart from its possible historical interest. :wink:

The problem is obviously that navigation works from data, and data is misleading. As I said: this road is not fit for normal traffic. I cannot show pictures because it was dark and I was fighting for my survival anyway. :slight_smile:

We had lots of discussion about tagging roads and opinions are divided.

Issue is that there are two main criteria for deciding how to tag road: purpose and quality. Both are equally important but OSM does not provide great way to handle it.

Agreed point of view we use is that we primarily tag roads according to the purpose, not by quality.

In short: it means road would be tagged as tertiary if that is its purpose even if it is in horrible state (or even unpaved), not appropriate for that class of road.

Quality may be to some degree described by additional tags but most of the renderers do not take those tags in account. Thus we end up with some roads that are bad displayed as good.

This specific way sits right in between. It is not 100% tertiary road but it is not residential road either. Officially it is a street even if there are no houses or other objects there.

It is narrow but it is not one-lane. Once it was main road, but it lost that purpose once new road was built that goes around settlement. Now it just servers as attachment to the main road, but it does serve as entrance and exit from the settlement.

Once I had similar experience. I was lead by navigation via some road declared as residential, which turned out to be real off road experience (no trace of pavement). When I pointed out an issue I got the same explaantion: that is residential road by purpose - quality is secondary.

To make things worse, OSM by default assumes road is paved if it is not specified otherwise, and by default, pavement is not specified. So go figure what trouble that causes to people.

You did not answer to my question about trail posts.

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:highway%3Dunclassified ? (yes, it is badly named)

It is for minor roads linking settlements or non-residential roads more important than service

I would say that we have plenty of tags, just that support for them is often lacking among data consumers. Many will happily route cars through highway=residential surface=sand smoothness=very_horrible without any warning

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Am not defending current tagging for that road, just explaining how we do things, and trying to describe road, as by coincidence I live in that area.

I am always reluctant to tag roads and if there is doubt I let Serbian Microsoft Team to resolve it. They are the most experienced in such kind of tagging. Even if I disagree on some of their tagging decisions I do respect their expertise.

Thank you for sharing your opinions; I hope others will share theirs.

I disagree with you (your interpretation is not supported by the wiki) and I do not see that we would getting any closer to a common point. You seem to realise that the road “have lost its purpose” yet you do not seem to reach the conclusion that it’s tagging have done the same.

This road would not be tagged as such in most parts of the world, but maybe that’s normal in Serbia, I hope other local editors chime in and agree or disagree. It is definitely harmful for navigation, since nav programs prefer tertiary to unclassified or tracks, so they try to enter Zlatibor using this glorified once-great… track. I would definitely not used it if it wasn’t pitch dark.

On purpose, since my guessing is that you are not emotionally impartial in the matter and I do not want to steer the conversation towards emotions. I prefer other editors to help to form my opinion, and keep the peace.

If you wanted to avoid emotional issues then you would not use etiquetting like this.

Pissing on other’s work always causes emotional reactions.

I asked simple questions: “Were those hiking trail posts or bicycle route posts? What was the name you removed?”

I do not see how that could go emotional. I just asked you to be more specific so that we can be precise in further discussion. I was involved in setting up some posts but I do not know are you talking about those or some posts set by others. For posts I was involved in setting up I can provide full info on used methodology.

Since it turned out that it was probably you who made the dubious edits it would be probably beneficial if you would not get yourself involved in discussing it due to your conflict of interest(s).

I have no problem discussing it, and If you think you are able to discuss it without emotions I am open to engage; in my experience a very few people are able to do that so I prefer avoiding direct conflicts with them.

Calling other editors’ work “pissing” is a great example of emotions. Also it won’t work if you don’t start from the stance that others want to make the map better, not worse.

(To be honest I might be wrong assuming/guessing your emotions; I’ve been told that the whole South Europe is a huge Emotional Ball of Yarn, and people may seem emotional to us northerns while they are completely normal and friendly. :smile: I am not sure I interpret your intentions properly, so an apology is delivered here.)

After reviewing my photos and notes it turned out that it was possibly you who were involved with these signs, and inserting your name in the database. I thought it would hurt your feelings to know that the tagging you have used was either outdated (changelog and attribution is done in changeset metadata) or irregular (we do not put editors’ names in the data since the map is edited by huge amount of people; that’s what changelog is for). Turns out it indeed does. I am sorry for that.

As for the specific questions:

  • I do not know what the purpose of the signs are (there seem to be no bike trails in that direction, while there were signs suggesting that there should be). They are blue, usually below the bike sign, contain name, various codes, ele and coordinates (in DMS format, sigh) and a QR code to a website copyrighted by you (mapa.iz.rs). Originally I thought they are describing the place, but after checking the coordinates I am not sure anymore.
  • I have added plenty of guideposts, since almost all of them were missing; I have not added the blue signs since their purpose was unclear. (I have not deleted any of them either, though I believe none of them was present in the DB.)
  • I have updated hiking paths (incuding their tagging). In due course removed attribution tags which are either obsolete for a decade or unnecessary, and added proper source tags. (Since I resurveyed them I should have replaced it to my name :wink:, but it’d be improper anyway.)
  • I almost never remove objects, unless they are 100% surely aren’t there. I have updated the construction road as it was, and obviously removed the paths became highways. Since I update the tagging I may have removed anything which was not needed there (only on objects I update, unless I have accidentally updated nearby something).

(Disclaimer: I knew that you were the editor from Zlatibor; I did not know that you were the one putting your own name in the db. Originally I wanted to ask you about the local updates, but in due course I realised it may not be the best idea. Oh well, it seems nobody’s active here but you.)

Example: “Veliki bor, ZT4, DMS-coordinates, 1413 mnv, ZS-ZLAT, GID: 42MZCUSY, QR-code”

Thank you for your input and help!

Greetings grin, I can completely agree with you, that road is terrible and it is really a horror to go through it during the day and especially at night. I can completely understand how you felt going through this road in the dark. There is no street lighting, the road is of very poor quality and the overall experience is not pleasant for anyone. There are no buildings or people around, only rows of trees. This road has importance and it is tertiary, but there is a reason why it is so neglected, a new road is being built right next to it to replace it, and this one will no longer be in use. There is a logic in reducing the classification and it would not be a mistake to do so, but the new road is almost finished and then the whole area will be probably fixed by local mappers. Your observation is certainly on point as far as this road is concerned.

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Unbelievable!

You managed to post another tirade of insults. Very interesting approach.

You are not even unable to identify purpose of the post signs even if it is obvious, but you have no problem to insult people.

As I said: your emotions are blocking your view. Let others speak: the question was not asked from you, but from the community. I see there are other local editors, unfortunately most people are not present here on Discourse, but it’s okay if the topic lingers for a while.

I also noticed that you have closed the note without fixing the problem, which is detrimental to the project.

I posted link to this topic as here is discussion about issue you raised and you got explanation here.

It is interesting. You offend people, twist what is said or done and then complain when they respond.

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I said, quote:

Your explanation was not related to the solution, you basically linked your own opinions, ignoring mine (and others’). As I said: the road is misclassified, and the current classification is outright harmful since it misdirects navigation. You explaining that you believe this used to be an important road have not resolved this problem, neither that the fact that nobody else chimed in but you.

If you believe I offend “people” (that is you only, basically), then why do not consider my suggestion and stay out of this offending conversation? You find my views offending (and I have even warned you in the beginning that this going to happen, and you have ignored that), I see no point in you arguing with me continuously and telling me that you are offended. I am sorry for that, but I cannot help it; you are involved in a case which we (here in Hungary, and probably most elsewhere as well) usually handle simply by removing all the improper tagging with a bot (or a mass-edit), and it is just natural that you feel offended, almost anyone [mainly inexperienced mappers] would feel like way. In the last few decades I have been corrected numerous times and I had to put lot of energy not to be angry and realise that this is a community project and not a solo act.

Have a nice day!