Dustin C,

“Some of the tension…”
There is no tension from me. I have a different opinion and that is as far as it goes.
I’m not trying to complicate anything. I am expressing my opinion. I am leaving the action to you. Make the path whatever you feel is appropriate for OSM and is also what the local community wishes it to be. Again, I have commented on your changeset so that there is a historical record of my opinion and that is the only reason I have done so.

As to what channels I am reachable on, they are the changesets, OSM User Diaries, and directly through my OSM profile and I regularly read the mailing list archive. Since the IRC and (I think) forums are official, I should follow them as well but at the moment don’t. OSMF just started paying for Mastodon, so I might rejoin that as well. We will see. I left Mastodon years ago because of a OSMF member.

With respect,
Ben C.

Dustin C

I agree that the loop around Green Lake isn’t a “bicycle_road” but I don’t agree that it is a “highway=footway” instead of a “highway=cycleway”. As a user of that path, I would be surprised to find out that ½ of the path is dedicated to wheeled vehicles if it was tagged as “highway=footway + bicycle=yes”. My conviction in this matter is not strong enough to get into a edit war with you. I have spoken my piece and I leave the final action up to you. Whatever you do I will support.

>concede that tags are based on what is legal.
Great, we agree.
>This is also where my concerns about safety fall in - they are accounted for in the law, not the OSM guidelines.
I strongly disagree. The law could care less about safety. Some laws might be created out of a concern for safety or (more commonly) from a concern for liability but the law itself is indifferent to safety. The legal system is exclusively interested in rights.
I am also concerned with representing safety. I believe that consistency in tagging aids in that goal.
>I myself have ridden in unsafe & unlawful areas because of cavalier OSM edits, so I know this happens.
OK. I am sorry to hear that you have been a victim of incorrect tagging. I hope most users of OSM data understand that maps are tools for navigation but are not navigation itself.
>I have determined that it is likelier-than-not
>it was inconsistent with the law.
It is our responsibility to determine what is “consistent” with the law. We have both admitted to being ignorant of the law, regarding bicycles and stairs. The original mapper may have been familiar with the law. Until we know either the law/rule or the original mapper’s knowledge, it is inappropriate (not in the spirit of OSM) to change it.
>"Bicycle=no" or "Bicycle=dismount" would be fine alternatives, though both would also have subjectivity baked in.
Like my very first response said, I wouldn’t fight a change to “Bicycle=dismount”.
>Perhaps leaving the stairs untagged may, weirdly, be the most accurate option
If you, I, or the original mapper doesn’t know the actual legal status, then I agree that untagged is the most accurate option.

@Friendly_Ghost
> The mailing list is the agreed upon final community discussion location. Just because you've isolated yourself with like-minded people, on discord, does not make it an appropriate alternative to the mailing list.
I find it funny that you think I have “isolated myself with like-minded people”, because it shows your lack of familiarity with the Discord server. You’re very welcome to join it and participate in discussions and chatter.
I’m absolutely not bringing every tag change I make to the mailing lists. What’s the threshold for contacting them? Ten changes, a hundred, a thousand? Getting bogged down in bureaucracy would mean that none of us will have any time left to just map. I’m sure you wouldn’t mail them for a tag change from highway=Residental to highway=residential, I’m doing exactly the same except I’m doing it on a larger scale.
> My point that you do not know if there are OSM editors whom prefer to tag with color instead.
I don’t need to know that. What you, I and all other mappers need to know is that color and colour mean 100% exactly the same, that OSM has a guideline to choose British over American English, that colour is many times as popular as color and that data/map users find our data more useful if it is consistent. I contributed to that in this changeset and others and you're very welcome.

“...it shows your lack of familiarity with the Discord…”
“... join it and participate…”
My discord personal history with Discord in general and OSM discord servers in particular is irreverent. Though, it is clear that you don’t know who I am and have no idea if I’m already there or even how long ago I joined. I am aware of you though.

“Getting bogged down in bureaucracy would mean that none of us will have any time left to just map.”
The fact that you refer to the larger communities’ request to be included in significant changes to the date base as “bureaucracy” is why your behavior here is objectively grotesque. The whole of the community owns the data set not just you and your friends. To intentionally exclude the community because it inconveniences you is the definition of self-centered. This orientation is obnoxious in life but destructive when in a group setting (such as OSM).

“ highway=Residental to highway=residential”
Your “borrowed” example is not analogous to what you’ve done. It’s also irreverent. The complaints are about your actions and not the inclusion or exclusion of the letter “u”. Further complaints are in regard to your behavior to the communities’ complaints.

“I don’t need to know that.”
“ What you, I and all other mappers need to know…”
“ you're very welcome”
Honestly, I was going to defend you when another OSM editor called you arrogant. Was.

@Korgi1
(I understood your sarcasm)
Please don't gaslight anyone. It's not about the spelling.

“How (else) would you interpret it?”
I know that you are quite aware, the warning specifically and clearly puts a limit on what actions mappers can take. “interpret” color as “deprecated” all day long but “Under no circumstances should you (semi-)automatically change “deprecated” tags…”

You’re a very disingenuous person. You do not interact with the community in good faith. You constantly ask questions that you have no interest in the answers to. You dismiss people’s concerns like a horse swats flies. You and the few that are like you destroy the very foundation of this project. It may sound like hyperbole yet a group project, like OSM, requires that members of the group value and respect the opinions and concerns of the other project members. This whole thing is very disheartening.

"Can you point me toward the OSM wiki or other documentation citation showing that tags are indeed solely based in legality?"

Honestly, this request scared me a bit. I was sure, that after all this, my support was going to be a handful of mailing list posts from 2 or more years ago. I'd never find those.

OK, so here are two OSM wiki pages related to the access key, that explicitly state the intended usage.

1) osm.wiki/Key:access
"Access values describe legal permissions/restrictions and should follow ground truth e.g. signage or legal ruling and not introduce guesswork. It does not describe common or typical use, even if signage is generally ignored."

2) osm.wiki/OSM_tags_for_routing/Access_restrictions
"The access restrictions, or allowance if no restriction is implied, concern the legal access and not the practical access in terms of convenience. When legal access exists, but practical access is not, this can either be solved by adding surface, gradient and smoothness tags. This to advise e.g. wheelchairs, racing bikes etc. and routing algorithms not to use bad, unpaved, soft and steep paths."

The mailing list is the agreed upon final community discussion location. Just because you've isolated yourself with like-minded people, on discord, does not make it an appropriate alternative to the mailing list. You are welcome to bring this point up to the mailing list and state your logic for using discord instead. As of now, contrary to your wishes, Discord and other side channels are inappropriate.

My point that you do not know if there are OSM editors whom prefer to tag with color instead. If it is not a "typo" then it's a valid tag...even if heavily discouraged. I wish to emphasise that you have not done due diligence with the larger community and may have just blindly robed another OSM editor of their right to make reasonable tagging choices, especially if those choices differ from the community as a whole.

This whole thing smells a lot like "it's better to ask for forgiveness than approval". I don't think you've made these large changes out of ignorance of the community standards. I get a strong feeling that you are very aware of your actions.
If I am correct, then I find your destain for the larger OSM community to be reprehensible.

“...the hill you're going to die on?”
Do not get this twisted. You are the one refusing to tag in a way that conforms to the OSM community wishes.

“But as pedantry must be met with pedantry...” I don’t care for you to like me. I don’t care that you don’t agree with me. I don’t care that you argue passive-aggressively. Counter to your assertion, I care about following the spirit of the project and the agreed upon tag definitions. I do not care about being pedantic (unless you mean acting like a male schoolteacher.) I do care and insist that you grant other members of this project a minimum level of respect. I insist that when you are confronted with an edit that running foul of the communities wishes, that you have the humility to accept your mistake or the patience to take the conflict to the OSM mailing list and attempt to come to a new community consensus. So then we can move forward with a mutual understanding and even better a mutually agreed upon standard. This, I feel, is core to OSM being and continuing to be a successful project.

“you argue that this is UW property, and their rules and not the city's rules apply”
I don’t argue that. The University argues that.

This riding down stairs is a side point that I didn’t even argue. I mentioned that there does not seem to be a legal restriction to riding down stairs and the access tags are related to legal rights. Therefore, bike=yes should be left alone until you (or someone else) can demonstrate that it is illegal.

“we do not have an OSM tag for "bicycle=spotters required".”
Propose it. My first and only post to the mailing list will be in support of this tag.

“In summary, please do not label any further stairs with a bicycle=yes tag”
That tag was added 14 years ago by someone else. I do not recall tagging “bicycle=yes” on any stairs but I will do so if I feel it is the correct tag. I will not tag incorrectly just because you demand it of others.

“bicycle=yes tag unless there is bike-specific infrastructure on the stairs”
This, right here, is the entire reason this “conversation” has occurred. Access tags, such as “bicycle=yes” is for legal access and is independent of the features of the stairs. Bike infrastructure does not speak to legal access and legal access does not speak to bike infrastructure. You are tagging in a way that is not congruent with the way the OSM community requests editors to tag in.

“Riding bicycles on stairs, except in rare situations, is likely illegal...”
If you do not know the legal restrictions then do not change the access tag. We are not the arbiter of legal rights and this project isn’t the place to have that conversation. If you wish to see riding bikes on stairs ruled as illegal then petition the University, the City, the County, and/or the State.

"Yeah, that's an opinion, for sure."
Don't be an asshole.

highway=unclassified clearly states it is for public road ways. UW (like all public schools) is semi-public land. The roads, including this one, are not technically public. The University is well within it's rights to bar all non-university traffic.
Unclassified is intended for roads that are below tertiary yet above residential and survice roads. They often linking road ways such as city centers. In a urban setting they are sometimes used for linking roads in industrial or commercial areas. This road is very much an end of destination road.

"And of course...has nothing to do.."
I agree with your words. I disagree with your passive aggressive intent. I'm dumbfounded by your incredibly incorrect interpenetration of what I was saying. I assumed you could deduce on your own, that my observation has been, more road traffic is for the sports complex then the light rail station. (not just the stadium, during game day...what do you think all those other facilities are for? gyms / pools / tracks / courts / rowing house / and many others.)

Thank you for changing it back to a service road. Please, leave the disrespect, arrogance, and dismissive attitude out of this project.

I respect you and anyone that enjoys the community side channels. With all due respect, those are not official OSM channels and the final discussion needed to occur on the mailing list and OSM wiki. It gets very frustrating when folks conflate the many OSM community side channel with appropriate, community agreed upon OSM discussion methods/sites.
For those interested, here is the first mailing list conversation, I have found, related to this user's changesets.
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/2021-July/086817.html

I find your mass change of one tag to another troublesome. Since both spellings (color/colour) are correct, I assume your changes are based only on forcing uniformity. As much as that is a useful goal, the OSM community has for a long time expressed that it values flexibility and mutability of the tags over the perfect conformity of the tags.
Without communicating with the OSM community at large, it is not possible to know if the “color” tags were tagging mistakes or a user’s preferred tagging scheme. If they were a preferred tagging scheme, then a conversation among the OSM community needs to occur to decide if we live with both spellings or if, as a group, we override the few editors, who prefer “color”, and force the change to “colour” only. Your actions make it appear that you have misinterpreted “depreciated” and “discouraged”, which is used as heavy social pressure and not to mean “these are mistakes that no one has yet taken the time to fix”.

The wiki for building:roof:shape very explicitly asks you not to do what you've done here (and with other tags).

Here is a link to the page:
osm.wiki/Key:building:roof:shape?uselang=en

Here is the warning:
"Under no circumstances should you (semi-)automatically change “deprecated” tags to something else in the database on a large scale without conforming to the Automated Edits code of conduct. Any such change will be reverted."

"shall we put a horse=yes tag onto all city stairs too?"
Yes. If it is legal then yes.

The concerns you are expressing appears to be a routing program issue and not an OSM database issues. It is reasonable to expect a trip routing program identifies stairs (independent of legal restrictions) as a way type that a bicycle rider would either want to avoid or would wish to be warned about, ahead of time. A routing program that only routes using access tags is not only a poorly designed program but also dangerous one. The same logic applies to surface types.

When the access tag is used to apply a subjective usability, it becomes impossible for the routing program or the rider to make their own choice on the most appropriate/desired route to take, even when that legal route is difficult, dangerous, or a dismount area. Different riders have different needs. Gravel riders, distance riders, daily riders, etc. all have different routing needs/wants. If a set of stairs, a short gravel path, or a steep grade are legally accessed by bicycles yet is either marked bike=no (or is default no due to way type) then we rob the routing program from accuracy/flexibility and we rob the rider from knowing their legal rights and we steal their personal autonomy.

On a personal note, I use OSMAND and it gives me the following cycle routing options; “no unpaved roads”/”no stairs”/”avoid footways”/”no cobblestone or sett”. Bad access tags directly affects OSMAND’s ability to route me in a way that I’m asking it too.

With all do respect of the deceased, what does Brian Fairweather's accident have to do with access tags in OSM? From my understand, Mr. Fairweather’s accident was the result of not being familiar with the route and low visibility of a set of stairs. I don't know the details, was Mr. Fairweather’s death a result of an erroneously instruction, by a routing program, to ride down the stairs?

You might be correct about the roadway being used primarily for the light rail station, I can only speak from my personal experiance.
What I have noticed, the overwhelming majority of light rail riders access the station from either foot traffic (from the U-District/Montlake) or from the transit depot, across the street.
I believe the use of the sports complex will increase dramatically once UW is fully open and has a full student body on campus.
That's just my opinion though.

Hi Kurt Pattyn,

It looks like you might have gotten confused with the phone number formatting directions, just like I did. Those directions are as clear as mud. This is what I've figured out.

US phone number format is:
[ +1 234 567 8910 ]
(This is the OSM preferred international formatting)

<Below is extra information. Don't let it confuse you>

US numbers can also take the following format:
[ +1-234-567-8910 ]
(This is a valid formatting yet I tend to stick with the other style as it matches the international style).

I don't think the OSM community has decided on the correct way to add extension numbers. However, I often see extensions listed as:
[ +1 234 567 8910 ext11 ]

In the OSM wiki, under "contact:phone", the phone number format is shown as
[ +1 234 567-8910 ].
So, for the moment, it's the third "correct" format. I don't think this format is going to stick around though.

I hope this helps.

I believe what you have indicated as tunnel=building_passage are simply covered=yes. They appear to be extensions of the roof and only have one wall (open on the side opposite the building).

FYI: access tags are for legal access not usability.

As far as I know, the University is O.K. with bicycles along this way/steps. Though, I think it is safe to say that the University isn't O.K. with riding a bike up or down the stairs. Therefore, maybe "access=dismount" might be the appropriate tag.

I disagree with the change from service to unclassified road. Mainly, but not exclusively because of the usage of unclassified, as described in the wiki to be: "highway=unclassified is used for minor public roads". This is not a public road. It is a way managed by the University and not by the City. Additionally, these ways are part of a network of ways which primarily service the parking areas of the University's sports facilities. Service to the light rail station is secondary. Maybe I'm incorrect. What do you think?

I just had a changeset interaction with a German(?) regarding the name:etymology:wikidata tag. They mentioned the same thing you did. So, being a good sport, I looked to see if I could add any map data.

As a matter of fact, I had heard of the project before. I believe, I first heard of the project from the Geochicas talk during the 2018 State of the Map, presented by Celine Jacquin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rl9HZKyKWWE

I’m not a big fan of the project as a whole. That being said, I hope the project achieves the social change that many of the supporters believe it will. Good luck and happy mapping.