Proposal talk:Maxheight:legal

Deletion

This tag was rejected on Proposed features/clearance. Why was this page created after it was rejected? Gnonthgol 16:56, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

As far as I know the voting process was designed to decide whether a tag ends up on the Map features page. If you want to use a tag that is not in Map features, there should be no barriers to document what you are doing. Why people are for or against this tag is documented on Proposed_features/clearance. Repeating that discussion is not very productive. Moving this page back to [1] and adding a disclaimer that not everybody sees the need for this tag would be more useful IMHO. Then in a while the numbers for used tags can speak for themselves. --Cartinus 19:52, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Why this tag?

Who thought this tag was a good idea? We already have one for legal maximum height: it's maxheight=*. Fine if you want an extra tag for maximum physical height, but don't add extra tags with the same meaning as existing tags please. --Eimai 18:05, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree. This tag is an unnecessary duplication of maxheight=*. (Shouldn't that be apparent from the fact that the same image is used for illustration?)

@Skippern: I understand that you wanted to wait for the outcome of your proposal. However, the proposal's result was that a majority considered maxheight=* appropriate for legal maxheights. So why this page? --Tordanik 22:35, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

There has been nothing in the description of maxheight to limit it to legal height limits only - and it's known to be used for purely physical height limits in places - the sane interpretation is that it is the minimum of legal and physical maxheight, where they differ, as that's what limits route planning for any normal traffic. Documentation should just advocate always using plain maxheight in addition to either of :legal or :physical. Alv 23:10, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I believe the note on the description page mentions to use it together with maxheight=* as Alv mentions, anyway I have decided to use this tag as other would only be confusing when maxheight:physical=* is in use. In the discussion about the voting process somebody have said that people should stop voting about tag and just document tags that they use. I actually entered this in the voting process, and maxheight:physical passed, so for me it was logical to add this tag as well. --Skippern 23:20, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it's true that "use the tag and document it" is a valid approach, even though doing so only after a vote failed to provide a favorable outcome is probably not the best way to go. Nevertheless, I'm fine with this tag being documented here and linked to from the maxheight page.

What I find absolutely annoying, however, is that attempts to clarify the definition of maxheight are constantly being reverted. I have personally written that so-called "original definition" on Key:maxheight back in June. Until then, the maxheight page had linked to Key:access for its definition, and Key:access clearly stated its purpose as "describing the legal accessibility of an element". Yes, I forgot to explicitly mention that it was considered a legal restriction - this was corrected the month after that. Even during that month, the site displayed a sign for a legal height restriction.

Considering all this, the legal interpretation of maxspeed is on perfectly solid ground. If a small minority of mappers used it for physical maxheights in contradiction to the documentation, that's hardly relevant for the meaning of the tag maxheight. It's not much of a problem either, because they will quickly be able to switch to maxspeed:physical anyway, especially as it's mostly a local phenomenon. --Tordanik 01:37, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

First of all, I added maxheight:legal as a logical page for the accepted maxheight:physical, for me it absolutely doesn't make sense to not have maxheight:legal when maxheight:physical is accepted.

Second, many countries have used maxheight even though it is not a legal restriction sign used in the particular country, but warning signs of some sort. There are probably only a few countries that use both the legal and the physical version. Nobody are forcing you to use maxheight:legal or maxheight:physical, and both of these pages advices you to use them together with maxheight. My point is that you break the actual meaning of the tag to add the word legal to maxheight. --Skippern 01:45, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

First: Please stop using the "accepted" maxheight:physical as an argument if you don't acknowledge the rejection of maxheight:legal. By the way, the result does make sense if you accept that maxheight has a legal meaning: maxheight:physical is useful because there had been no tag for physical height restrictions, but maxheight:legal is unnecessary, as legal height restrictions could already be tagged.

Second: My point is that you break the actual meaning by removing the word legal from maxheight.

So what now? Fight an edit war? Take it to (tagging) ML again? --Tordanik 02:13, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

(I'm using this discussion page as it seems the most active in this matter, for now.) Key:access was modified to read "legal accessibility" (previously "General access permission") only on 10 July 2008; Maxheight description up to that date was, from 2006: "restricted headroom limit" (Key:access) and "height limit" (Map_features). But refering to what was and when seems unimportant.

The question to ask is rather: what is the most important value? Most of the time, law-abiding people want to know "can and may I drive through?". For highways in most parts of the world that is the legal, signposted limit, as that is the same (with safety margin) as the physical limit, and where it isn't signposted, the physical limit. Special uses can then deduce whichever value their interested in. In other words the Key:maxheight should read "The minimum of the legal height limit and the physical limit, where their values differ". Alv 10:37, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

That definition doesn't seem practical, though. If I see a legal limit, then I shouldn't be required to set more than one tag for it, the one for "legal maxheight" - whatever the key (same for physical maxheight, of course). I won't add both "legal maxheight" and "minimum of legal and physical maxheight", as it wouldn't add any additional information - it's not that hard for software to apply a min(x,y) function after all. Therefore, using this definition is equivalent to making the "maxheight" key obsolete. --Tordanik 14:37, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

You'd set only the maxheight tag, as the legal limit is then the lower value everywhere where legal limits are present, at least as far as has been presented. Alv 20:21, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

And if there only was a physical, but no (explicit) legal limit, which tag(s) would I use then? --Tordanik 20:30, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Then preferably both maxheight and maxheight:physical. Just as you could enter also the exact physical limit even when a legal limit, which (at least in most countries) includes a safety margin, is present. Alv 20:53, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

As both physical and legal limits exists, both should be tagged accordingly in the database. Where only one of the limit is applicable, maxheight can cover it with no problem, bot some countries operates with the two values, and to differ between a physical and a legal limit in those countries this tag is needed. IMO both maxheight:legal=* and maxheight:physical=* should be tagged together with maxheight=*. For most european countries, maxheight=* is more than enough, but please leave the word legal out of the description. Both maxheight:legal and maxheight:physical is added to be less ambigous versions of maxheight without the need of changing the meaning of maxheigth. Up until I posted my proposal, the word legal was not a part of the description maxheight even though many people read it into it. If you don't agree in the usage of this tag, don't use it. --Skippern 22:22, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

The fact is that maxheight:legal=* was rejected by votes. If you want a new discussion about the meaning of maxheight=* and a revote on maxheight:legal=* based on new arguments you are free to do so. But you can not create standards on rejected tags. I propose that this discussion is moved to a separate page and that key:maxheight:legal be removed until this discussion have come to an agreement. Gnonthgol 20:53, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

You can discuss for ages which wiki edit at what date changed the exact definition of maxheight, but that doesn't mean anything all. Until Skippern proposed to differentiate between legal and physical maxheight, there was only one tag mentioned in either the wiki or the presets of any of the editors. In other words the average mapper will have used that one tag whether it was a legal or a physical restriction. Even now that maxheight:physical is approved in the wiki you simply can't assume that maxheight is only used for the legal maxheight, because none of the editors have changed their presets. Even if they change their presets now, you don't know if all the data entered before is about legal or physical restrictions. I'll repeat once more: You can fiddle definitions in the wiki all you want, but only clear tag names (with editor support) will work. --Cartinus 19:07, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

New RFC

Gnonthgol have decided that this tag should be voted again, I think that there is no need for making a new draft, so just open this on RFC, since Gnonthgol have taken the initiative, maybe he should drop the post on the mailing list as well. I do not see that it will change much other than maybe a slightly more positive vote output. --Skippern 19:52, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

"irrelevant argument"

From page:

• Fits with established max* tags (maxspeed=*!) that have legal meaning without :legal suffix ( <- irrelevant argument, could indicate different legal maxheight for different vehicle groups (i.e. maxspeed:hgv - maxheight:hgv) --Skippern 21:21, 21 October 2009 (UTC))

I don't think it's a good idea to start adding personal comments to a list of arguments. Either we leave them uncommented or we move that list to the talk page.

Also, I honestly don't understand what you are trying to say there. maxspeed is a legal restriction - but we don't call it maxspeed:legal, even if it would be a "Clear definition in the name" and a counterpart to maxspeed:practical. What does this have to do with :hgv or any other condition? --Tordanik 22:19, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

maxspeed is actually short for maxspeed:legal, and since all maxspeeds are legal, than there are no need to use :legal, but it is actually a bit different with maxheight. With maxspeed different values can apply for different types of vehicles on the same road, while this is not the case for maxheight. Using other restrictions as example is irrelevant. You cannot compare a duck to a tree, no matter how natural the two are, conditions apply differently. --Skippern 23:30, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

All maxspeeds are not legal in the same definition as you use for legal maxheight. There are roads without maxspeed signs witch have a practical maxspeed just in the same way that there are bridges and tunnels that just have a practical maxheight. You don't want to be driving on those roads at maximum legal speed limit. The only difference in that Proposed_features/Practical_maxspeed is difficult to judge but the physical maxheight is easier to measure. Gnonthgol 06:52, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Comparing various access and max* tags is a complicated task, and should not be an argument in wether or not a particular max* tag should be accepted or not. For example, how can one determine practical or actual maxweight without an engineering degree and knowledge of the bridge structure? How can you judge practical maxspeed for any type of vehicle, just by judging on your own experiences with a vehicle you know? Does it make sense to add scope to maxwidth? For maxheight it is quite simple to differ between legal (where some form of government have defined a limit) and physical (what can actually be measured, and in some cases also signalized with road signs). Some countries make no difference between these, and some do. Some use one, and some use other. IMO it makes sense to add the scopes :physical and :legal to maxheight, and refferring from using the word legal in the description of maxheight. If you are in a country that only use one of the scopes, than maxheight is the only tag you need, if you are in a country that uses the two, than you can add the scopes to mark wether it is. I would advice the tagging of maxheight (without scope) together with the scope in any usages of the :legal and :physical tags. --Skippern 16:42, 29 November 2009 (UTC)