OpenStreetMap
No, seriously, c’mon!
I had to check on OSM.org to see if my Opensnowmap has a problem. No, it’s perfectly fine. But fine for who ?
It’s not like there is no mapper in the US, as at least one of them made something like this a very long time ago (6 years). Is there anybody in the US using OSM? Is there any US-based company using OSM? It seems a bit stupid to do so at first sight, isn’t it?
Discussion
په 17 February 2017 په 00:42 باندې د Carnildo تبصره
I’m not seeing the alleged joke.
If you’re referring to the grid pattern in the forest, it’s real: the Pacific Railroad Acts granted alternating square miles of land extending to the sides of the track to the companies building the transcontinental railroads. In rural areas of the western United States, much of this ownership pattern still exists.
په 17 February 2017 په 10:00 باندې د SomeoneElse تبصره
It’s perhaps worth adding that what you’re seeing is “landuse=forest” in the sense of timber production - imported ways such as osm.org/way/64298415 . It doesn’t correspond to “trees on the ground here and only here” (as the underlying imagery shows, there’s a light covering of trees all over). There’s a bit of background about the ways that people map forest/woodland/trees in OSM here - unfortunately it’s quite complicated. See also here for part of the discussion in OSM’s “standard” style about how to map forest/woodland/trees.
په 17 February 2017 په 10:59 باندې د Baloo Uriza تبصره
I, too, am missing what is wrong with this picture, and I’ve been to the area in question.
په 17 February 2017 په 11:43 باندې د ff5722 تبصره
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=89541&src=iotdrsscontent
په 17 February 2017 په 11:47 باندې د SomeoneElse تبصره
… which for the curious is here in OSM.
په 17 February 2017 په 11:51 باندې د SK53 تبصره
The issue is that US mappers have used landuse=forest to map administrative areas owned and managed by the Federal US Forest Service (mainly National Forests). In virtually all the National Forest areas much of the land is actually used for other purposes: for instance in Summit County Colorado many of the main ski resorts are situated within the National Forest.
Unfortunately, although the topic is discussed from time to time on talk-us, no real consensus has been reached to use this tag in ways closer to how the rest of the world uses it. Recent discussions do suggest some viable alternative tagging approaches, but I’m not holding my breath.
په 17 February 2017 په 17:08 باندې د Circeus تبصره
@SomeoneElse
Actually, it’s located here.
په 17 February 2017 په 19:05 باندې د BushmanK تبصره
@SK53, what you’ve described (tagging a territory that is only called “a forest”) is an example of a literal tag name interpretation. That is an obvious mistake since documentation implies a presence of wooded vegetation. But local communities could often be quite stubborn in their misuse of tags.
په 17 February 2017 په 19:32 باندې د SK53 تبصره
@BushmanK I dont rely on the documentation as this is often misleading and not infrequently an interpretation of one person, or a small group of people. I’d far rather that the wiki described HOW people used tags than saying how they SHOULD use tags. As fo descriptive and prescriptive grammars the former does not preclude tags being wrong: anyone tagging a lake highway=motorway is indubitably wrong.
On the other hand the US interpretation of landuse=forest (and a few other tags leisure=recreation_ground, place=hamlet, highway=residential etc) is very far removed from usage anywhere else. So even if it is consensus tagging in the US it is not on a worldwide basis.
@Circeus: that looks like individual townships of national forest land have also been tagged forest even though the landuse tag has gone from the large polygon (national or state forest).
په 17 February 2017 په 20:20 باندې د BushmanK تبصره
@SK53,
Indeed, sometimes, documentation is misleading. However, without shifting from descriptive to prescriptive, it is nearly impossible to maintain any consistency of tagging. Eventually, a certain tag could get a hundred different interpretations. Descriptive and prescriptive parts could easily coexist, describing a certain practice for data consumers and prescribing one (not necessarily the same) to mappers. And I don’t see it as an issue of opinion against another opinion. At least, because opinion with no reason except “I want” or “I’m used to that” has very little value, as well as tagging for a renderer, for example (that is a form of very self-willed tag interpretation).