Openstreetmap-carto: Dog park is too prominent

Created on 29 Jan 2018 · 16Comments · Source: gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto

Dog park was added in #2216, with colour changed to playground in #2268, with discussions in #341, #2250 and other places.

Currently is works reasonably with small, single-function parks.
For larger areas, the pattern symbol 'paw' is very strong, it is more like lots of icons.

When dog park is an additional function to another area, commonly a forest or a park, it becomes problematic. In the forest case, the patterns interfere badly, and the leisure colour prevails over the main colour of the basic feature:
dog_over_forest

People started to remove the tags because the prominence annoyed them.

For the small features, a single icon would be sufficient. For the larger ones they would be candidates for an outline, however a single icon would be lost when zooming in.

Or maybe a lighter pattern but no fill at all, so the pattern shows on whatever land the feature is on. For the forest case, would it be possible to sync the paw and the tree patterns?

landcover

Source

polarbearing

Most helpful comment

I think the outline could be in the current color for other leisure areas.

I'm not sure if dropping the fill just because it can be second purpose is the proper reason - how do we tag the primary role in general? We don't, we just use two or more relevant tags. Nothing forbids adding such details for filled areas and it's done in reality (sport centers, playgrounds) - it can be even tree area, of course.

I realize that it's the Grunewald look that pushes us to find something suitable. But if we drop the dog park pattern, we would see leisure area with trees (not clashing with other symbols), which is exactly what it is. Are there more such places where it can be not nice visually? If we want to break the system, it would be good to have more reasons than just one case.

kocio-pl on 3 Feb 2018

👍4

All 16 comments

I believe tagging significant or all parts of an area like the Grunewald
forest is abusing the tag. Just because dogs can (supposedly) be unleashed,
this isn't a dog park. Compare to the sahara, should we tag this all as dog
park because you can let your unleashed dogs play?

dieterdreist on 29 Jan 2018

Accidentally I was talking about this specific area about 2 months ago and for me a sign in German was enough to leave a dog park tag.

It seems to me that even big dog park would look OK, the problem is mixing with trees. I don't know how to solve this.

kocio-pl on 29 Jan 2018

Agree that the screenshot is not pretty. Is this a dog park problem, though? Or is there a general problem of overlapping pattern symbols? (What about cemetery and trees?)

meased on 30 Jan 2018

Single icon such as playground, and outline instead of fill. There is no reason why kids get just one icon, and dogs the pattern all over ;-) The dogs are not growing there like in an orchard.
Icon appearing depending on way_size.

Before:
dogs_tempelhof

After:
dogs_tempelhof_outline

z13_dogs_grunewald

polarbearing on 30 Jan 2018

👍3

Just the icon makes sense for me, but why did you remove the leisure background? The new outline is similar to nature reserves - especially once you zoom out to z15 and lower, where the icon is not rendered:

https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/blob/d56f1a7ff4f608c1101218905619e9a1ce3941e1/landcover.mss#L264-L276

kocio-pl on 30 Jan 2018

The outline was just a 60-second-draft to show the concept. It would need to be compared with other outlines in #3045.
The icon can be shown, based on way_size, earlier than z15. In the Grunewald example above it is shown at z13.
The fill was dropped, since the feature can be single-purpose (the small fenced area on Tempelhofer Feld) or secondary purpose (the clearly defined boundaries in Grunewald being primarily a forest). So the natural environment would be visible: sand, grass, forest...

polarbearing on 30 Jan 2018

I think the outline could be in the current color for other leisure areas.

kocio-pl on 3 Feb 2018

👍4

the dog usage is a specific designation of a variety of grounds. I'm still in favour of indicating that usage with the outline, and leave the fill for what covers the ground.

polarbearing on 26 Feb 2018

OK, we might go this way, since it's a corner case and it's alway possible to add leisure/landuse, but we need a good outline anyway. Could you provide it (and PR if possible)?

kocio-pl on 26 Feb 2018

In my opinion new rendering is far too close to nature reserves.

I think that optimizing for highly unusual and rare case is not the best idea.

matkoniecz on 19 Apr 2018

I realize that it's the Grunewald look that pushes us to find something suitable. But if we drop the dog park pattern, we would see leisure area with trees (not clashing with other symbols), which is exactly what it is. Are there more such places where it can be not nice visually? If we want to break the system, it would be good to have more reasons than just one case.

Can anybody provide more examples where entire forest was designated as a dog park ("designated area, with or without a fenced boundary, where dog-owners are permitted to exercise their pets unrestrained")?

matkoniecz on 19 Apr 2018

I agree the definition is too inclusive. By that, we could tag the whole of
Antarctica as leisure=dog_park.
On the other hand, knowing the area fairly well, I could agree with the Grunewald example being tagged as dog park (I literally used to call it dog park, although they claim it is a forest), the probability to step into dog poo there is much higher as in any other dog park to which I have been (because people in the smaller ones usually collect the feces). But it is an exception.

dieterdreist on 19 Apr 2018

I guess it's not designated area - Grunewald has special plates, Antarctica probably doesn't.

kocio-pl on 19 Apr 2018

Here are other examples where dog park is conflicting with grass and forest:
https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=17/50.98569/6.86244&layers=N