Proposal talk:Reservoir (2007)

• I've tagged four large reservoirs that are used for drinking water. None of them are waterways, but they do use a lot of land. --Cartinus 06:25, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

the first problem is the name of the top-level tag - it needs changing really to 'water', but that's another proposal. the second point is the abuse of the landuse tag, which has become a dumping ground for all sorts of ill-thought out ideas. landuse fits well for residential, industrial, retail, etc. - all groups where we have to map a large number of properties at one go. it is totally inappropriate for single properties that have a known name. Myfanwy 07:36, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

If there is a problem with the top level tag, then you should fix that first, before you go for step two: Using the top level tag as if it was fixed. If what you think of fixing the top level tag gets canned by others, then you'll end up with something even more broken. --Cartinus 11:40, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

cartinus: in what way are reservoirs not waterways exactly? plus, national parks use a lot of land also, does that mean we should change them to landuse tags? we are aiming for logical, consistent tags, this promotion/demarcation that i am proposing is a part of thatMyfanwy 03:32, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

A waterway is something water or a boat can travel along. The only way water gets into a reservoir here in the Netherlands, is if it gets pumped into it. The only way to get a boat into it, is sneaking in your canoe. But then you'll probably get arrested for trespassing. These man-made "lakes" are not designed for recreation: You don't want anybody defecating in your drinking water.

National parks are not recognisable by any physical entities (except a signpost here and there). We have a nice category where we store tags like that. Until the waterway tag becomes the water tag, we don't have one for all water related things. --Cartinus 11:40, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

ok, fair point although i'm sure there are reservoirs used for recreation in england...but i may be wrong. it's been there at the back of my mind to change waterway to water for some time, but i wanted to avoid any large changes to major tags until there was some semblance of order in the tagging scheme. maybe we should change waterway to water first, or this is going to develop in to a chicken and egg problem? Myfanwy 18:35, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

• landuse=reservoir is already there and widely used. Let's stick with it. The names and values of tags don't really matter that much, so long as we all use the same ones, and it means work in all the renderers and editors to change it, for no useful gain. David.earl 11:04, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Unless all our editors hide the actual tags behind some sort of GUI, our mappers have to learn - and more importantly remember - the tags. Learning a confusing/inconsistent/unlogical set of tags is a hassle - for no useful gain - so tags do matter. -- Ulfl 00:11, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Again: It only becomes more logical if waterway changes into water first. As it stands now, you only change something widely used, but not completely logical, into something new and still not logical. --Cartinus 11:46, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

• • David: neither of those are great reasons - google maps is widely used, does that mean we should cease trying to make anything better? the names of tags *do* matter - a consistent set of tags becomes much easier to learn and use, as ulf suggested, and more importantly, it makes it easier to produce custom maps. e.g. if i wanted a map of water features in a given area, it is much easier to say 'map everything under the top-level tag called water' than to trawl through *all* (there are a lot) of the tags, to find ones that fit. Myfanwy 03:32, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

• I like the idea. it will make the situation "river/stream enters/leaves a reservoir/lake/etc." much more logical --Cbm 16:23, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

How about simply using natural=water? Despite the fact that the existence of the body of water is un-natural, the water itself is. And the reason for the body of water's existence has little effect as far as the map goes. Not using natural=water is about like distinguishing between bridge/viaduct (which practice was recently stopped) --Hawke 23:04, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

How does man_made=reservoir_covered fit into all this? IMO, man_made=reservoir fits better than either of the other two options. --Dean Earley 11:58, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I just tagged a natural (not artificial) lake near Reykjavík, Iceland as a reservoir. Please don't add a tag like has been proposed here with too narrow a meaning, not all reservoirs are artificial, nor are they always waterways. --Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 02:43, 27 July 2008 (UTC)