2017-10-12 7:50 GMT+02:00 Nzara <nzaraosm@gmail.com>:

OSM relies verifiability. That means everything can be proven true or false on the ground. (http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Verifiability). IMHO mapping logical or virtual ways contradict this basis concept. Such a way would lack of observable features and because of this it would be always somewhat arbitrary.

I assume, these ways have been mapped to overcome routing deficiencies. In such a case, I see it as <mapping for the router>. (The router did not produce a nice route over an area, therefore someone added ways to make it happen).

My preferred option is: Do not introduce any tagging without observable features. Let the dev team of the router enhance there engine to resolve its short comings (Maybe you want to push them a little).

Verifiability is a fair point and actually an argument for deleting these features now. But these ways already exist quite often. If you don't want to delete them, then you could argue that the new tag would actually be the only verifiable information for this object (because I can observe on the ground that a specific way does not correspond to an actual path).

Meanwhile, we have the problem that the virtual ways clutter the map renderer. I agree that therefor the new tag could be seen as <mapping for the renderer>. But I still would propose to introduce a new tag as long as these logical ways need to exist - the added information is verifiable. And regarding the timeframre: There are more than one router engine and probably some will rely on these ways in the foreseeable future.

Thanks again for all the input

Stephan