Pipeline markers type

[martinum4]

General

Affected tag(s) to be modified/added: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:pipeline%3Dmarker https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:marker Question asked: What kind of Pipeline Marker is this?

Checklist

Checklist for quest suggestions (see guidelines):

• [✔️] 🚧 To be added tag is established and has a useful purpose
  • The marker-scheme is approved
• [✔️] 🤔 Any answer the user can give must have an equivalent tagging (Quest should not reappear to other users when solved by one)
• [✔️] 🐿️ Easily answerable by everyone from the outside but a survey is necessary
  • In the most places of the world the imagery is not good enough to confidently tag pipeline markers.
• [✔️ ] 💤 Not an overwhelming percentage of elements have the same answer (No spam)
  • Currently a lot of markers are either using a deprecated tagging style without any information .
• [✔️] 🕓 Applies to a reasonable number of elements (Worth the effort)
  • Current Taginfo: pipeline=marker 33k nodes and ~500 marker=yes

Ideas for implementation

Tag user-selected marker=* type based on wiki or allow note-creation and remove old discouraged tags.

Element selection: Overpass-Query-parts:

node["pipeline"="marker"]["support"!~".*"]["marker"!~".*"]({{bbox}}); //Grab all pipeline markers without defined support types or double-tagged markers
node["marker"="yes"]({{bbox}}); //Get all marker=yes because these need further refinement

Metadata needed: No

Proposed GUI: Images, see Wiki -> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:marker Other Effects: Might get more people interested in infrastructure.

[martinum4]

If this gets accepted i'll write more quests-feature-requests for marker colour and substance.

[westnordost]

What is the useful purpose of this information?

[martinum4]

To Map the exact locations of pipelines, which would be much harder without them. These markers usually include all important parameters of the pipeline, operator, diameter, substance and they can all be surveyed locally, pipeline operators are quite reluctant in that regard.

Should i start writing the other quest-suggestions so you get the big picture of the situation?

[westnordost]

I meant, for what use case would it be necessary to know the type of pipeline marker? Is there any application or website that uses this data? Who would want to use this data?

[martinum4]

Everyone who wants information about any markers in the area has to filter for marker=*. There is no appropriate "higher" tag-combination that could be used instead.

It's a little bit hard to describe for me but i'll try with a comparison to bicycle-parking:

We don't use amenity=parking, combined with amenity:parking=car/bike/motorbike, we use amenity=bicycle_parking and amenity=motorcycle_parking for these purposes. The pipeline=marker and marker=yes can be compared to an unspecific amenity=parking, it does not contain the defining vehicle of the parking space, all other tags depend on it.

[westnordost]

Ok, so I understand that one reason to ask for the type of marker is to get rid of a deprecated tag, pipeline=marker. Though, after reading the wiki article, I did not understand why it is deprecated. If one converts pipeline=marker to marker=X, isn't the information lost that it is a marker for a pipeline?

But anyway, the question from my last comment remains. If there is no use case for this data, there is no reason to "fix" it.

[martinum4]

That is where the other quests would come in... If one is at such a marker anyway the appropriate tags (operator, colour, utility and maybe even a ref) could be added.

Right now there are about 400 pipelines with source containing pipeline and marker, so there are definitely some mappers who will use the markers.

[westnordost]

Ok, but how will they use this data? What for would the data be used, or better, is currently used? Is there any application or website that uses or shows this data?

[martinum4]

As an example i used marker data myself to further refine the mapping of a gas pipeline, see https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/821260189 i had the markers https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/1995543564 and https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/1965407064 instead of just connecting both endpoints of existing infrastructure. A rough outline is better than none, IMHO...

I am not aware of a direct consumer of the utility markers. some markers=stone are used for historic boundarys, but i have no clue on that.

[westnordost]

Ok, but how is the pipeline data used or useful?

[martinum4]

OpenInfraMap is one application that renders pipelines that are underground, the normal OSM slippy map renders all overground pipelines.

https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=18/51.68049/7.93806 https://openinframap.org/#10.3/51.1947/6.7718/L,O (One can even click on the pipelines and get information)

[westnordost]

Okay, fair enough. Though, this quest would have a very low priority, somewhere near the "power pole material" quest. In other words, I won't implement it but I am open to a PR.

One thing though, regarding the tagging and loss of information. I understand that pipeline=marker should be replaced by marker=X+ utility=Y while Y is something that moves within a pipeline (so for example, not power, not telecom etc.) this means that if within one quest, pipeline=marker is replaced with marker=X, information is lost. So this is why this quest shall not replace pipeline=marker but only add marker=X. pipeline=marker can be removed in the utility=X quest.