Highway _links are whiny about refs

[zyphlar]

Only 6% of motorway_links have a ref and the wiki is very unclear about what exactly that ref value should be. (There are at least three possible "IDs" involved in a US interstate onramp/offramp: the ref of the motorway so the link is part of the "network", the name ref of the other road (may overlap with destination:ref or destination:street) and the identifier of the ramp itself (in USA, usually the exit number.)

In previous GitHub issues the developer seems to be of the opinion that all or most links should have a ref, but it's been awhile and the OSM database and wiki doesn't appear to agree with that. I've been filling in link refs like a madman with my own interpretation of the best thing to do, but then I realized I'm not in good company there: Vespucci is making me think something is critical when nobody else in the world seems to agree.

Vespucci's opinions aside, are there any authoritative ideas about what's best here, and can we make Vespucci in alignment with that?

Vespucci Version

16.1.0

Download source

Google play store

Device (Manufacturer and Model)

Samsung Galaxy S21

Android Version

11 stock

Behaviour/Symptoms

Vespucci validation errors don't seem to reflect a consensus in the wiki or other validators like iD and JOSM

Expected Behaviour

Even if there isn't "one right way" to tag in OSM, validation errors in the GUI should probably only appear for items where a consensus has been reached that the current tagging or geometry is quite wrong, and where clear guidelines are documented in the wiki for proper usage.

For example, it appears that a motorway_junction that is not attached to a way with a destination tag is far more problematic than a motorway_link without a ref tag, but one gets a magenta highlight and the other is treated by Vespucci as fine.

How to recreate

• Go to any of the 94% of motorway_link highways in the world, and note the magenta coloring in Vespucci advising that a ref is required
• Go to highway:motorway_link and ref and Highway link and try to figure out what the right value for ref should be

[zyphlar]

Somewhat related: ref is usually important for power=line but not power=minor_line yet Vespucci alerts on that as well.

[matkoniecz]

In Poland _links often have no assigned ref - not sure is applying noref=yes to all of them is useful.