Thoughts on waterway=waterfall on waterslide?

ablevi202 · 2024-02-10T18:59:57.847Z

Hey everyone,

In an amusement park near me (Valleyfair) there are chutes/spouts of water tagged as waterway=waterfall in a raft water ride (Thunder Canyon). I don’t think they should be tagged as waterfalls, they are more of a spout of water to get riders wet rather than as a waterfall. While it is obviously falling water, waterway=waterfall to me implies a natural waterfall in a stream. The wiki page for the tag says twice that it should be only on a stream or river Tag:waterway=waterfall - OpenStreetMap Wiki. However, even though I think they shouldn’t have this tag, I could see someone making a case for the opposite so I want the general community’s opinion.

Here is the note I left at the place Note: 4104384 | OpenStreetMap. I’ve been on this ride many times and looked at it waiting in line for the nearby roller coaster even more so I know what it looks like, but for those that don’t here is a random youtube video I found of the ride https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeWG7KJEwrs. You can see what I’m talking about at 0:31 to 0:50 and 1:40 to 1:46.

watmildon · 2024-02-11T05:09:50.144Z

This doesn’t bother me specifically but the tagging for amusement park and water park features could really use a lot of attention. If you want to come up with a different, sensible tag for these things I would support that.

Kovoschiz · 2024-02-10T21:56:47.501Z

Maybe it can be seen as a =fountain ? Mostly commonly decorative “waterfalls” indoors, especially a curtain-like “water wall”. Some outdoors.
15 =fountain + https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/tags/fountain=waterfall somehow. There’s ~170 fountain=nozzle used alone to show each discharge point of a =fountain , if you see each “rock formation” as 1 “fountain” with water coming down from each side.

sbre · 2024-02-10T23:15:16.350Z

I think classifying waterslides as waterfalls, fountains or anything like that would just muddy the meaning of those tags. A waterslide is a very distinct thing, and should be =waterslide for whatever top level tag is used. Maybe playground=waterslide? Tho waterway=waterslide seems reasonable as well.