User talk:Ben/Tracks

I mostly agree on all clauses. Few comments, anyway:

• Track has been used in other countries for, well, tracks open to public as we might not have a concept of any roads "not open to all" - it's free to use unless it's in the immediate vicinity of someones home or blocked by a fence (unless you're hauling logs from the wood and might damage the road). For example Finland has about three times as many kilometers of such tracks as there are "real" highways - and they're mostly used very little since it's faster to take some detours of tens of kilometers on good roads. Which leads to more
• A track (i.e. of enough width and has at some point been meant for vehicular traffic as is still allowed for such) which would be "impassable" for wheeled vehicles because of lack of maintenance - the original proposal discussion included a mention that a user just might be able to pass (really slow) a track with one class lower than what's "guaranteed" by the value, yet none really commented on that. Such could have been surveyed by interpolation or on foot. To me tagging it as a footway would be loosing some information, probably. I'm personally still thinking if there'd be a better way than one tag to convey most of the limiting factors but without going to tagging wheel sizes or such.
• At some point voting is somewhat necessary, when there are different ways to include the relevant information and the limitations and advantages of both or all ways have been found out - just an indication of which way is the suggested way, unless overwhelmed by use of the other scheme. Which probably wasn't with the smoothness, as is common with all or most proposals - few know which new proposals pick off sufficiently to even get to voting and many skip commenting on the proposals they think are likely to die out.
• Much ado might have been avoided by first defining the values of surface=* and their implications more extensively, than what was available some months ago. Alv 07:44, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Previously about the only thing deducible was that a surface=unpaved or surface=cobblestone is unsuitable for roller blades and maybe racing bikes. If there were intuitive and distinct surface names for the various example bumpy, grassy, bushy and muddy paths they might suffice to tell "you can't drive there with a car but a Jeep can go" and the like. Likely there aren't such words so people are making up schemes of various tags to convey all the relevant aspects... Alv 11:18, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

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Hi Alv, responding in the same order as the above is laid out.

• Tracks are probably public in ‘most’ countries by default; I don’t think this would make it part of the highway, although I agree that public could be assumed by default, where as in some places it can’t be as highway= tag would be taken into consideration in planning a route without any indication of it’s actual ‘access rights’. This probably has little impact on people mapping areas where the land is generally open to the public, but it’s not that helpful if that’s not so. The changes, that I map based on, allow data to be represented correctly (well, as best as I can think of doing so currently) in the UK, and would still be correct in places such as Finland I assume.
• OK cool...so an impassable track would realistically be a track that is really only suitable for foot…not even a tank. Not literally impassable, only impassable to the vehicles stated in the more accessible gradings of smoothness. Bit of a confusing with wording there, but I see it’s intention, thanks.
• True, it is sometimes needed. I just had a bit of a go at it, because tag proposals seem to centre around this event often, frequently resulting in tags going through which work for some but leave problems for others. Genuine problems rather than just word choice objections.
• Sorry, not clear on what you mean here. Ben 20:14, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

• It is true that there were a lack of surface values, but this is 1 of 3 issues addressed. 1. Tracktype freed up the highway:key for it's other uses. 2. Surface is more than 1 material. It's a collection of many, which in them selves are varied by heavy usage. Ben 14:24, 10 December 2008 (UTC)