Talk:Key:signed direction

Which direction?

How can you know in which direction the route is signed? This is not an issue on the ground when you just walk a roundtrip, but when planning a trip I often consider direction regarding to wind, elevation, current (for boating), sun direction. And I often use parts of waymarked routes as parts of a more complicated trip. --Peter Elderson (talk) 19:44, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

This was explained/discussed in the referenced tagging list discussion, a summary is here --Hufkratzer (talk) 20:19, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

The text suggests that the reference is only about the use of oneway= for this purpose. My issue is mentioned but not clearly answered. Maybe an instruction could be added to make sure the relation members are ordered according to the signed_direction. I wopuld not mention ambiguity. Suggesting to use forward and backward roles is not a good idea, because thise roles are already defined differently in route relations especially bicycle routes. I would not forbid anything.

Btw, I think with two ways in the relation the direction is defined, if the relation is ordered correctly. You might mention that the direction can not be determined if the relation is unsorted or contains only one way.

--Peter Elderson (talk) 21:50, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

Yes, you are right. At first, there was some confusion on the mailinglist about what we were trying to achieve. Therefore, some people spoke about oneway=, but that's not relevant when taking about route relations. Also forward/backward shouldn't be used for the reasons you mention. In the past, direction was shown using 'clockwise' 'counterclockwise' values in different tags. Kevin Kenny has explained well on the mailinglist that it does not lead to unambiguous data. For example, the direction of a figure eight route cannot be explained using clockwise/counterclockwise. At the end of the discussion, the only method that remained was ordering the members of the relation. Critique was that this easily breaks. But it's the best option we have. So Peter, I'm okay with adding that in the text. --S8evq (talk) 08:03, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

In a roundtrip route with only two ways the order of the ways can not indicate the direction of the route.--Hufkratzer (talk) 09:08, 30 May 2021 (UTC)