User talk:Diacritic

Naming of pages regarding Australia

Hi! It would be helpful if you would follow the page naming convention of this wiki when creating pages and categories. Thanks. --Tigerfell  (Let's talk) 10:32, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

Hey @Tigerfell:. Apologies for the discrepancy. I had originally tried to keep aligned with the page naming convention but at some point I have misremembered the page without referring back to it. I'll refresh my memory and move some of the offending pages to the right convention. Diacritic (talk) 22:53, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

Removal of public transport in Victoria guide?

Hi Diacritic, I noticed you removed all content from the guide "Public Transport in Victoria (Australia)" and replaced it with a redirect: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Public_transport_in_Victoria_(Australia)&diff=2321295&oldid=2280079 On the new page, most of the details are lost, including the discussion page. What was the reason for this? I may have missed a discussion somewhere else. It would be great if the lost details could be restored. Thanks, Travaudat (talk) 12:58, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

Hey @Travaudat:. Hope you are well!

The changes that I made to the Public transport in Victoria (Australia) page were part of the broader Australian Wiki Cleanup this year in an effort to reduce the number of duplicated pages, conflicting guidelines and outdated advice. As part of this, I consolidated multiple different guidelines pages into fewer, longer pages. This page clearly took a lot of effort to produce and maintain, and I was really keen to ensure that the efforts were kept.

The Public transport in Victoria (Australia) contained both guidelines and recommendations, and a list of routes and their OSM relations. After I moved the entire page content into the Victoria, Australia routes/Public transport, I took the entire guidelines section and incorporated/merged it into the Australian Public transport tagging guidelines page, so that the entire country could benefit from the work. I tried to retain all the content that was previously there and ensure that there was a corresponding guideline to each of the points. I did remove some content that duplicated tagging guidelines on other parts of the wiki, or was an unimplemented proposal that conflicted with interstate and local practice.

I overlooked the talk page in the move; I have moved all the content now to Talk:Australian Tagging Guidelines/Transportation, which is the most applicable space for the conversations that were there.

I hope this has addressed some of your concerns. There were a few changes or points that I discussed on the OpenStreetMap World Discord #oceania channel, and I'm happy to continue the conversation either here or there if you like.

Dian Diacritic (talk) 22:24, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Diacritic: Thanks for your fast reply and for the work you put into consolidating many different and conflicting pages. Thanks also for copying the discussion page to the new location.

The original guide had multiple purposes:

1. One page for any mapper who quickly wants to add or update public transport elements in Victoria with clear examples. That resulted in some duplication from Public transport, but this page is massive for new mappers and doesn't go into details for conventions in specific regions (for example differences in IDs used at bus stops, on tram stops and on the PTV website).

2. Documenting common public transport tagging conventions in Victoria to identify conflicting approaches, with the hope that it makes it easier to come to a common agreement (for example what parts the name of a bus or tram stop contains).

3. Proposing additions to public transport tagging in Victoria (for example the free tram zone in Melbourne).

Unfortunately, most of this got lost in the new page. When I have some time, I'll try to add this back into the new page, while building on your contributions. Hopefully everything combined will make the new page even more useful.

Thanks for your work and have a great day. Travaudat (talk) 08:32, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

Hey @Travaudat:,

I've seen some of the additions that you have made to the page. There are a few things that I wanted to bring to your attention.

The first isn't related to the content of the page, but the way that it was put together. When the pages were assembled I was reaching out to the mailing list and discord to review (and essentially, approve) the draft before I placed it into the main space. While it wasn't technically necessary, it did ensure that the content was reflective of current practices and consensus on how things "should" be tagged.

I'm not sure that your readdition of stop name and stop numbering is accurately describing best practice.

The ref=* values for bus stops seem out of sync with correct practice. I don't think ref:ptv=* is/should be used in place of ref=*, and my preference would be that only a single, generally agreed standard is applied. Similarly, I don't think `ID.` should be included in the ID field; this too is inconsistent with other states for no apparent reason.

The stop names don't line up with what was previously on the Tagging Guidelines page, actual usage, or the street signage. I don't know what the correct answer is, hence why the section previously read "keep consistent with the local area", ie, look around where you are mapping and follow the concention.

My last point is about the Ferries section. Are the Spirit of Tasmania and the commercial transit operators "public transport"? In comparison to other states, these don't appear to be integrated into the public transport network at all. Diacritic (talk) 08:29, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Diacritic:

I agree with you on ref:ptv=*. I always use ref=*. I also agree that only one standard should be applied. However, some mappers use ref:ptv=* and if a commonly agreed standard is not mentioned in the guide, other mappers will continue to use ref:ptv=* if they just follow local conventions they observe in the map data. Also for some context, there was a discussion about those two tags on this changeset [1]. By the way, there was already a reference to both tags on the new guide in the "Multiple reference numbers" section before my additions.

The "ID." prefix for bus stop IDs is always included at the bus stop sign (as shown in the example image I added to the guide). It also avoids confusion with bus route numbers, and with other identifiers (for example the tram tracker ids, or numbers in the URLs on the PTV website). There was a discussion with pros/cons on including the prefix or not on the same changeset [2]. This could be done either way. However, this is a good example why I think detailed explanations and examples on how to map public transport elements are important on the regional level: for example, if we agree to remove the "ID." prefix, then it should be mentioned on the guide.

On the bus stop names: it would be great to find an agreement on how to tag them consistently. Different approaches are possible and are in use. My description captures the two most common usages I observed during mapping for buses and the most common usage for tram stops (both in Victoria). So they do reflect actual usage. They also reflect the newest design of the bus stop signs), except that "on" (or "new line" for older designs and tram stops) is represented by a "/". Also, this is the format (at least for bus stops) used on the PTV website. Again, this is a good example why specific explanations and example tags are important, otherwise mappers will follow different conventions. I think, naming could be made more consistent between bus and tram stops, but one approach I have in mind would result in a big change for tram stops, so I would first put that into the discussion section.

Another point for discussion would be where to put the reference of bus bay numbers, for example (Bay 5), either in the name (as I added it) or in local_ref (or both?). The first case is used frequently in Melbourne (also because I tagged it that way and because there were no other guidelines at that time). This can be changed, but I think should be discussed first.

On the ferries: according to PTV, those ferries are part of the public transport: "We oversee three ferry services that operate in Victoria"([3]). The Spirit of Tasmania wasn't listed there, so I removed it. The format how I added can be improved. In the best case the ferry routes are updated or added to the map, but for now, I think the exhaustive list for Victoria is useful.

I hope this addressed your points. If you think it is better to first move my additions on stop names and ref/IDs to the discussion page, I'm also fine with it. Travaudat (talk) 12:23, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

I like the way you're thinking @Travaudat:. There is definitely a strong case to be made for the reference/name formatting, but more feedback is definitely a useful thing to get. I'll reformat some of the content tonight to make it flow better with the page (ie, the ferries section etc), and I'll try to send something out to the mailing list/discord to settle this. I'm not fussed either way, but I think we'd both be happier with a clearer consensus. :) Diacritic (talk) 01:41, 23 August 2022 (UTC)