A fairy tale: I live in the Alps. Rocks fall from the mountain sides (especially where limestone) and gather as scree on the foot of sometimes steep walls. They are then sharp edged. Gravity pulls them further, the edges start showing wear, but only a little. One can still make decorative use of them in the rock garden, sometimes called rubble, sometimes supplemented with crushed rock. Eventually, these rocks, or are those stones then, find themselves in fluvial transport. Edges subject to even more wear and becoming shingle on the sides of riverbeds. After dozens or hundreds or thousands of years they reach the ocean and populate beautiful beaches that are really hard to walk especially when the sea over-nurtured and stones fully covered with slimy organisms. Never mind the ice age glaciers sped up the process considerable, completely supplementing the need for ocean waves.
Curiously, I am not aware of limestone in the beach mix. From what I remember, this mostly metamorphic origin?
Founded in Scotland, sold to Americans about 100 years ago**. I wouldn’t consider it an authority on English usage.
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Encyclopædia_Britannica) contains such gems as “… one of the leading American bootleggers” and “The sale of the Britannica to Americans has left a lingering resentment among some British citizens” (quoting a bit of pearl-clutching in a Guardian publication). I suspect that someone had fun writing that wikipedia article
Collins create their dictionaries by collecting and analyzing actual examples of how native speakers use a word, so it’s heavily biased towards ”what do people normally mean when they say X”. And yes, they do list the geological specialist meaning too, which is the one you’d expect to find in an encyclopedia.
I can’t and won’t try to justify some OSM definitions, but the difference made between pebble and gravel is not random or completely misguided.
Indeed, it makes sense to use surface=pebblestone for a footway covered with uniform-size, decorative pebbles such as this:
I think that even native English speakers would call that “pebbles” rather than “gravel”, which is usually just a natural mixture of pebblestone of varying sizes, something like this road, which seems to be a track or driveway:
And when you split Kies you become gebrochener Kies.
In French graviers=gravel and galets=pebblestone are not the same thing.
But you can roll graviers to make them more round, creating gravier roulé, kind of artificial pebblestone. I’ve would clearly making the separation between round and sharp edges.
It"s a simple as writing aboit 1 line on the subject on wiki entries, non need for a 100 message discussion.
editing wiki does not magically change how people used tag
if you care about documenting actual tag use it is not as simple - as sometimes it has different actual use while trowing out definition due to limited misuses makes no sense
I would suggest not mixing up EN 1176 compliant impact attenuating playground surfacing with highway surface values, or otherwise creating ambiguity between the two. Even when both are made of of ”small gravel”, the design and performance characteristics, as well as user expectations, are quite different.
I guess you mean EN 1177. I am not in possession of a copy, here just what I found in summaries: Regarding fine gravel, it “particularly” talks about how thick the layer must be, regarding composition it says, no clay in the mix. I know, there are commercial offers for “Fallschutzkies” on the market. But the one on the site from the photo certainly is not of that kind. Nevertheless, no clay in the mix. Trust me, it works, from first-hand experience (not this site, but another one with the same material.)
BTW: Do you really expect OSM mappers having copies of EN standards at hand and examining material based on EN 933-1?
Back when fine gravel meant the same as compacted – no that is not what it was, just how somebody perceived of what it meant – it was differentiated by having a topmost layer. I though understand why it was perceived as the same:
EN 1177 describes test methods for implementing that part of EN 1176 series.
Considering I just looked at a photo, no I don’t expect anyone else to do audits either. But I do expect being able distinguish between a surface intended to reduce the risk of injury from falling and a surface intended for travel. Both when mapping and when consuming map data.
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… but in fact german language would definitely be better in the given case.
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Photo shows boot and tyre prints, typical of “loose” surface (hard material, but plastic behaviour.)
