Block attachment of landuse nodes to anything but other landuse

[lectrician1]

Landuse is often connected to roads or other ways and is extremely annoying to disconnect.
It is also considered a conceptual feature that doesn't have any physical presence (so it should not be connected to anything).

I've been thinking about this for awhile and since something similar was brought up in #8262 , I've posted the issue.
I also would like to help implement this. I'm still figuring out the different types of D3 geo elements there are and I'm not sure how hard it might be.

I'm thinking of making the behavior similar to how you can't attach things to Custom Data ways. You can hover over it, but it can't connect.

[Jsfasdf250]

I think you could just hide roads and non-landuse features in the Features menu. This will effectively disable snapping landuse to roads.

[1ec5]

Previous discussion in #6631. Also, note that the wiki’s editing standards page hedges a bit, but of course the wiki isn’t 100% authoritative.

so it should not be connected to anything

I’m not sure everyone who argues for keeping landuse areas separate from roads would go quite that far. Would it apply to landuse-like tags like natural=water, leisure=park, and amenity=school? If so:

• Would it still be possible to connect a natural=water water=reservoir area to a waterway=dam or highway=service leisure=slipway way?
• It seems ironic that it would become impossible to connect a power=substation or leisure=dog_park area to a barrier=fence way, but it would remain possible to double-tag power=substation barrier=fence or leisure=dog_park barrier=fence (an actual headache for data consumers).
• In areas that have been thoroughly micromapped, should it be possible to connect a landuse area to an area:highway or highway=pedestrian area or a barrier=kerb way?

In these examples, it would be cleaner to be able to keep the two features partially or completely connected than to eyeball an alignment between them. I wonder if fixing #2225 or #1239 would mitigate enough of the awkwardness around connected ways that we wouldn’t need to go through the trouble of making it impossible to connect landuse areas but then having to deal with a steady drip of special cases like the ones above.

[jjiglesiasg]

I support any practical way or method that allow to quickly disconnect areas (landuse, place) from ways/waterways/borders, or visceversa, including Boundaries and administrative borders from ways/waterways... to make them unable to be connected could be a very welcome feature...

[greenycat]

Maps are meant for graphical data approximation. Due to such disconnect one can expect huge amount of blank land slices with no practical meaning. Even worse, it will obscure close-up images. I strongly support such connection for minor and middle roads.

[ttomasz]

I think you could just hide roads and non-landuse features in the Features menu. This will effectively disable snapping landuse to roads.

That is not the point. Current behaviour is suggesting to new users that this snapping is encouraged while this is arguable since maintenance of such areas is much more difficult.

Maps are meant for graphical data approximation. Due to such disconnect one can expect huge amount of blank land slices with no practical meaning. Even worse, it will obscure close-up images. I strongly support such connection for minor and middle roads.

Maintenance (editing) of such data is much more difficult. If you want to be precise and avoid "blank land" you should map road areas as area:highway instead of connecting landuse to roads.

[syntex1]

As ttomasz said, gluing landuse to roads (sometimes even to waterways or boundaries) makes the data extremely difficult and tiring to edit. Many iD users who have no previous experience with OSM at all and start with the iD have a false impression that merging every object with something is good and even recommended, because the iD makes everything too easy to merge. Worse, they can start in an area where many objects are already merged! So they create bad habits right from the start! There is no warning in tutorial about this, neither in the warnings during the editing. I've seen places edited like this: every single piece of landuse is merged with roads, waterways and boundaries. As a consequence, this particular area is frozen in time, because nobody wants to fix it - there is too much work to do. Nonetheless, I think that blocking this option entirely is not the proper solution. The proper solution is: information about it in the tutorial and of course, more warnings during the editing.

Here is my example of a well made landuse: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=18/52.14936/21.03317&layers=N

[greenycat]

Maintenance (editing) of such data is much more difficult. If you want to be precise and avoid "blank land" you should map road areas as area:highway instead of connecting landuse to roads.

I use graphic tablet & it is more convenient to update one dot than a bundle. Merging & unbinding is also not a problem. Dont draw with mouse & you'll be happy.

[1ec5]

The proper solution is: information about it in the tutorial and of course, more warnings during the editing.

For starters, if there’s a consensus to that effect, the wiki should say so.

[ttomasz]

Maintenance (editing) of such data is much more difficult. If you want to be precise and avoid "blank land" you should map road areas as area:highway instead of connecting landuse to roads.

I use graphic tablet & it is more convenient to update one dot than a bundle. Merging & unbinding is also not a problem. Dont draw with mouse & you'll be happy.

What % of users use tablet vs mouse? We are talking about setting some good defaults for new users. Saying "Don't draw with mouse & you'll be happy." just misses the point.