Talk:Key:landform

Use in OSM

There is some use of the key 'landform' in OSM. I shall start a table of values with some information. Warin61 (talk) 23:33, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Natural

Some of the values would be more suitable for the natural=*, which is the established tag for landform features (e.g. natural=dune). --Dieterdreist (talk) 14:46, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Problems with the natural=*; it is for both 'natural' and 'unnatural' things, it has both land form and land cover as values. This makes it a confusing key as some do not like to use it for 'unnatural' things, some find it hard to distinguish if the tag is a land cover or a land form e.g. natural=rock could be either a land cover or a land form, you have to have more information than just the tag to tell. Warin61 (talk) 22:32, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

No need to move the wiki page

There is no need to move this page. Create a duplicate if you want? Warin61 (talk) 22:37, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

I agree with moving to proposed features. Most of the uses of this key are from imports, and the only other use is from a proposal for landcover=dune which duplicates the existing tag natural=dune; all uses of this key are duplicates of natural=* which is used for most types of landforms, including peaks, saddles, ridges, valleys, cliffs, mesas, etc. - while it's fine to make new wiki pages for new tagging ideas, proposals to deprecate an existing key and replace it with a new one should go through the proposal process. --Jeisenbe (talk) 02:56, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

This is a proposal to deprecate natural=*

Recently added: "some object to the natural=* as it is for both 'natural and 'unnatural land covers, land forms and climates. Using different keys for these different features enhances the understanding of the tagging system"

This sounds like a proposal to replace tags like natural=dune, natural=beach, natural=ridge and natural=cliff with landform=dune/beach/ridge/cliff. If so, I believe it would be more appropriate to move this content to Proposed_features.

Otherwise we can remove the statement above and document this key factually, removing opinions about what "some mappers" think another key means. This would mean focusing on the fact that this key originates from the CanVec import and that it is much less common than alternatives for all the values, so that mappers will be aware that this is not a key that has consensus support from mappers and database users. --Jeisenbe (talk) 06:32, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Factual information: The key landform=* was almost always added to features with natural=landform, mainly areas mapped as closed ways in Canada. There are slightly under 7000 uses of landform=* in this way, as of 9/2019 (Overpass-turbo link). Rarely landform=* has used by itself. There are 57 uses without natural=* as of 9/2019. (Overpass-turbo link) I suspect only a handful of mappers have been using this tag since 2016, when the CanVec imports mostly stopped: (taghistory link - compare natural=landform with landform=*, note that almost all features were added together by mid-2016.) --Jeisenbe (talk) 06:55, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

I had also a talk with Warin61 about dunes, because dunes are not always 'natural' = as found in nature and not involving anything made or done by people , but also artificial(man made) -> Parentheses(round brackets) in OSM values allowed or not ? and also on the forum --Henke54 (talk) 07:45, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

The key natural=* does not imply lack of human intervention. It is used for features like canals natural=water + water=canal and lines of trees planted by humans with natural=tree_row, and natural=beach is used for all types of beaches. Just think "natural is for physical geography features like landcover, landforms and vegetation" if it's helpful. In fact, it's hard to think of any feature that isn't affected by humans: natural=glaciers are all melting because of human-caused global warming, even the most natural=wood in Siberia or the Amazon has been cut for firewood and burned for hunting grounds by the native peoples. I find it helpful to remember that humans are mainly natural, not super-natural. ;-)

"The natural key is used to describe wide variety of physical geography, geological and landcover features, including ones that have been modified by humans." Key:natural

It sounds like you also thought that landform=* was meant to replace natural=*? This should be a proposal and would need to be discussed and voted on. I would be opposed. --Jeisenbe (talk) 08:04, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

You just 'recently' added including ones that have been modified by humans.(and that is 'contradicting' isn't it ? ;-) ) at the key:natural, because several people 'objected' about the 'logic' and 'use' of that 'natural'. Also, you said yourself, that there are almost no 'natural things' anymore ... ;-) --Henke54 (talk) 08:23, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Yes, it's not a contradiction that many (most) natural features in the environment have been modified by humans during the past 10,000 years. But if you wish to deprecate the key natural=*, there is a Proposal process which you can use to propose new uses for existing keys like landform=* - which has already been used in a particular way almost 7000 times, as a subtag for natural=landform - or to create a new key that isn't already documented. However, I expect that most OSM mappers and users will not want to change a key like natural which has been used 37 million times. --Jeisenbe (talk) 13:16, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

I am not 'necessarily' wishing to deprecate anything (as you often seems to have the 'privilege' to do), but landform=* and landcover=* can maybe 'exist in parallel' with other tags ...isn't it? --Henke54 (talk) 16:27, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Note that the page "Any_tags_you_like" says that you can create new tgs, but you should check first if there are existing tags for the same thing. If you find natural=dune in Taginfo and documented in the wiki, then use that instead of creating a new tag. Of course if the existing tag has problems (like landuse=farm) it can be deprecated and changed to another tag, after discussion. That's what the Proposal_process is for. Creating tags that are duplicates of existing tags isn't helpful for other mappers or data consumers. There are thousands of duplicate keys and tags in the database, mostly typos and mistakes due to confusion, and mappers need to be able to change these to documented tags when they find them. --Jeisenbe (talk) 21:39, 5 September 2019 (UTC)