Is surface=pebblestone what photos below show?
This taken on a forestry track. Administrative GIS says, “Gravel compacted” usable by “Traktor”.
Personally, I would call it gravel, as I don’t think they’re all smooth / rounded enough to be called pebbles?
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Based on the image above, I would have chosen compacted. Pebblestone is much finer for me and is more commonly used as fall protection in playgrounds or perhaps on park paths intended only for pedestrians.
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I would call that gravel. It may have started life as compacted, but has weathered to the point where it is no longer has the necessary cohesion and uniformity. Eg. from the wiki File:Eroded road - compacted surface reveals inner rough gravel.jpg - OpenStreetMap Wiki
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That is how I see that too 
It is too rough for compacted, the mixture of coarse and fine particles out of balance. Would like to tag this the answer, but have more questions. Will wait a bit. See next post.
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I also ask, because I see that surface tagged quite a few times on tracks e.g. Looking at what StreetComplete shows, according to source code, looks not at all what the Wiki shows: File:Dscf1829-800.jpg - OpenStreetMap Wiki but like my picture above.
And how about this one? Also rocks eroded by water, therefore rounded, as typically found in riverbeds e.g: Anything more pebbly, like in the documentation, will make this unsuitable for highways?
File:Kiesweg.jpg - Wikimedia Commons
A bit I think, pebblestone almost always wrong on highways? Fine though for beaches and shingle areas?
I don’t know about always wrong? You can certainly have pebble footpaths, driveways & car parks (although usually private, rather than public) but I don’t think you’d have “pebble” roads as such?
The current picture in the wiki documentation looks like taken from an advertisement for a commercial offer for pebbles, and at that, a pile of pebbles stacking all the way down to the centre of the Earth Good luck riding a bike there, or even walking, or driving a car.
@westnordost I observed surface=pebblestones tagged a lot here by SC users. The picture of SC up to date? Do you think there is a middle-ground?
The first, I’d tag as surface=gravel, but if someone has tagged it as surface=pebblestones, I wouldn’t change it. The second, I’d tag as surface=pebblestones, but if someone has tagged it as surface=gravel, I wouldn’t change it.
The pebblestones image from the wiki shows more clearly that the stones should be rounded than the one used by SC. In the Dutch translation of the text going with the pebbles pciture on SC, I added (rounded) to stress that that’s how they should look like. Maybe this should be added to the German translation too?
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Usually with footpaths, something like this likely started as gravel but compacted to its present condition.
When the documentation was first instantiated, the picture there looks like from an area that serves human traffic, at least I know forestry tracks that look like that in close up view:
I do not know how long that picture stayed there, but it certainly is a long go from here to what currently is on display:
Mighty different for e.g. a consumer that creates itineraries for pedal cyclists.
Executive Summary 
Timeline:
- 09-01-02 - Surface pebblestone gets documented with image
- 25-03-25 - 16yr old poster image gets changed to sth. radically different, no comment, no change in wording
- 25-08-06 - This topic here opened
- 25-08-15 - StreetComplete Issue opened
- 25-08-20 - StreetComplete image updated nice picture BTW
- 26-01-31 - Combination with highway=track questioned as erroneous in other topic
State of the map
- 32% of the use of surface=pebblestone is on tracks
- in Austria it is more than half its use (Geofabrik taginfo still shows the 2009 image)
Taginfo shows a slight decline in fresh use. Same in Austria, but perhaps due to time of year (January always little track surface mapping? Snow not a valid value.) When will we start to see the much expected decline in total use?
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Wow, I had completely misinterpreted how that table works in the history of surface. Sorry for adding to the confusion.
I now think that the images for pebblestone should be reverted. The values fine_gravel, pebblestone and gravel could be seen to work as a scale of loose rock surfaces, but obviously this isn’t ideal.
Today happened over this cycleway/track:
I’d say it matches very closely what the picture in the documentation a year ago did advocate to class as surface=pebblestone. Meanwhile the picture in the Wiki changed and the current one looks like an image from a boutique, something nobody ever will see in the wild.
All the while, that way runs close to a river and the stones in the picture are found on location en masse. So yes, it may not look the same, but it likely might be the same – unless the Wiki picture shows machine rounded pebbles – with the obvious dirt/detritus added in.
Said that, I rather not advocate to tag pebblestone as a surface there. Cycle-routers avoid that like the pest. And you would not want to deprive their users of riding that way, do you?
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I’d tag that surface=ground (because its composition seems to be the same as the nearby topsoil, and contains stones) or maybe surface=compacted (if work has been done to smoothen it by rolling) because the pebblestones form only a small fraction of the surface.
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