Enhance some horse related search results

[Hufkratzer]

It seems that a lot of Riding Arenas are mapped as Horseback Riding Facilities. This may be because some horse related searches don't list Riding Arenas.

I don't know how the feature search exactly works. Therefore, I list here some horse related search results and explain what I think is missing or is wrong with them and how it can possibly be improved:

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horseback riding

search result (en)

What is wrong?

• Riding Arena is missing, see also more general description

How to fix? (assumption)

• Add alias Horseback Riding Arena to presets/leisure/pitch/equestrian.json (already contains terms horseback and riding but this doesn't seem to be enough to get it listed when searching for horseback riding)

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horse riding

search result (same for en and en-GB)

What is wrong?

1. Riding Arena is missing, see also more general description
2. Horse Racing Track shouldn't be listed here; at least it shouldn't be listed before Riding Arena or Horseback Riding Facility.

How to fix? (assumption)

1. Add alias Horseback Riding Arena to presets/leisure/pitch/equestrian.json (already contains terms horse and riding but this doesn't seem to be enough to get it listed when searching for horse riding). (Horseback Riding Arena has to be translated to Horse Riding Arena for en-GB.)
2. Don't know why Horse Racing Track is listed here, see presets/leisure/track/horse_racing.json. Perhaps adding alias Horseback Riding Arena (see point 1) can help to move if below Riding Arena, I am not sure.

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horse

search result

What is wrong?

• Riding Arena is only at 9th position, should rather be listed near or before Horseback Riding Facility

How to fix? (assumption)

• Addng alias Horseback Riding Arena to presets/leisure/pitch/equestrian.json may improve this, I am not sure.

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horse racing

search result

What is wrong?

• Horseback Riding Facility shouldn't be listed here, but at least Horce Racing Track is listed before Horseback Riding Facility, so this may still be accepable.

How to fix? (assumption)

• Don't know, horse racing isn't in presets/leisure/horse_riding.json

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horseback

search result

What is wrong?

• Horse Racing Track shouldn't be listed here
• Motocross Racetrack shouldn't be listed here
• Motorsport Racetrack shouldn't be listed here

How to fix? (assumption)

• Don't know why these racetracks are listed here

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riding

search result

What is wrong?

• Nothing 🥇

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EDIT / ADDITION

horse stable

search result

What is wrong?

• Stable (presets/building/stable.json) not listed, see also more general description

How to fix? (assumption)

• Add alias Horse Stable to preset Stable

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barn & shed

search result

(similar for shed)

What is wrong?

• Stable (for horses) not listed. It seems that in the US they sometimes call a horse stable "barn" or "shed", see websites: here and here

How to fix? (assumption)

• Add terms horse barn and horse shed to presets/building/stable.json, compare presets/building/cowshed.json and presets/building/sty.json

[tyrasd]

I think your suggestions are good, thanks for that. But I also think that at least part of the issue is that we don't consistently use only one of the three possible terms Horseback Riding, Horse Riding and Riding in these presets. I think the search results would be improved if we stuck with one of these options:

tag	horseback *	horse *	*
leisure=pitch + sport=equestrian	Horseback Riding Arena	Horse Riding Arena	Riding Arena
leisure=horse_riding	Horseback Riding Facility	Horse Riding Facility	Riding Facility
leisure=track + sport=horse_racing	Horseback Racing Track	Horse Racing Track	Racing Track

Does anything speak against just consistently using the versions with Horse Riding (middle column above)? Since I'm not a native speaker, I don't know whether there exist (subtle) differences or nuances between the different versions…

[Hufkratzer]

AFAIK, it is Horse Riding in British English, Horseback Riding in US English and Horse Racing in both, British and US English (see also wikipedia: horse racing). But I'm not a native English speaker either.

Please also note:

• The preset for type=route+ route=horse is currently named Horse Riding Route. (Until Dec 2020 it was just Ridng Route.) Maybe it should be Horseback Riding Route in US English, compare webpage; but I am not sure.
• In related issue Enhance preset for leisure=horse_riding iD#9118 I suggest using the name Horseback Riding Center instead of Horseback Riding Facility because Facility is too general and ambiguous (e.g. a riding arena can also be seen as a facility), and this probably contributed to many mistaggings.

In summary, if you want to use the long versions of the names, I would suggest:

tag	US English	British English
leisure=pitch + sport=equestrian	Horseback Riding Arena	Horse Riding Arena
leisure=horse_riding	Horseback Riding Center	Horse Riding Centre
type=route+ route=horse	Horseback Riding Route	Horse Riding Route
leisure=track + sport=horse_racing	Horse Racing Track	unchanged

Maybe using the British names as aliases in the presets can improve the search results in case someone searches just for "horse" (instead of "horseback"). I don't know.

[1ec5]

leisure=pitch sport=equestrian is one of these outdoor enclosures, right? I think “(horseback) riding ring” or “pen” is the more common term for those in American English, at least among laypeople. “Riding arena” isn’t wrong. However, if a user unfamiliar with equestrian sports sees “arena” and “center” options, I’m not sure they could distinguish between them. They might associate “arena” with a large indoor facility. That said, equestrianism has its own lingo so maybe it’s best to stick to that.

For leisure=track sport=horse_racing, “horse racing track” is perfectly understandable, though “horse racetrack” is the more common term.

[tyrasd]

Thank you for the clarifications.

if you want to use the long versions of the names

My main intention was to use the a single "prefix" for all horse riding related presets, because it would solve at least some of the sorting issues listed above: A partial match on a preset name will otherwise always be preferred over a match of one of the preset terms.

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Would the following make sense?

tag	preset name (US English)	preset alias(es) (US English)	additional preset terms
leisure=pitch + sport=equestrian	Horseback Riding Ring	Horseback Riding Arena	[round] pen, [horse] riding ring/arena
leisure=horse_riding	Horseback Riding Center	Equestrian Facility?	[horse] riding facility
type=route+ route=horse	Horseback Riding Route	/	[horse] riding route
leisure=track + sport=horse_racing	Horse Racetrack	Horse Racing Track	[horse] raceway, [horse] racecourse

[Hufkratzer]

Some change / enhancement requests for the new table:

• leisure=pitch + sport=equestrian
  • I would swap name and alias (name=Arena, alias=Ring) because
    • this article (linked above by @1ec5 ) correctly says: "Arena This is the most universal term for the location where people ride horses."
    • according to Google Trends the term "riding arena" is searched for on average about twice as often as "riding ring", not only worldwide but also in the US (in most regiones)
    • wikipedia calls them mainly "arenas" (or "pens"), EDIT/ADDITION: Compare corresponding wikipedia discussion
    • the OSM wiki calls them riding arenas, and this cannot be changed to "ring" because British English is used there
    • all websites which I have listed in Enhance preset for leisure=horse_riding iD#9118 call them "arenas" and not "ring", see also here (already mentioned above)
    • in the search results name Horseback Riding Arena will probably be listed before Horseback Riding Center while Horseback Riding Ring would probably be listed after Horseback Riding Center (A before C before R), which may help avoid mistaggings, since mostly riding arenas are mapped
    • it is easier for British translators to translate Horseback Riding Arena to Horse Riding Arena than to translate Horseback Riding Ring to Horse Riding Arena
  • possible additional terms: longeing, jumping/dressage arena/ring
• leisure=horse_riding
  • I wouldn't use Facility anymore because it is too general (explained in Enhance preset for leisure=horse_riding iD#9118)
  • better aliases or search terms may be
    • riding stable / stables
    • horse farm/ranch/park
• type=route + route=horse
  • possible terms: "horse trail", "trail riding" (compare mtb)

[1ec5]

I’m not an expert at equestrian sports, so I would be happy to defer to someone who is. The article I linked equates arenas with rings, but the two words are different in other sports, hence my hesitation. There probably isn’t a 100% perfect way to accommodate both experts and laypeople, so either way is fine by me.

The article also distinguishes round pens from arenas, but it’s unclear to me if OSM does. I’ve seen them both mapped as leisure=pitch sport=equestrian – is that correct?

in the search results name Horseback Riding Arena will probably be listed before Horseback Riding Center while Horseback Riding Ring would probably be listed after Horseback Riding Center (A before C before R), which may help avoid mistaggings, since mostly riding arenas are mapped

(Maybe in some regions, but there’s a lot of room for improvement in North America. I probably skip over dozens of unmapped round pens every week for lack of time.)

Preset search results are ranked by edit distance (that is, similarity to the search term) and would only be alphabetized in the event of a tie.

[Hufkratzer]

The article I linked equates arenas with rings, but the two words are different in other sports, hence my hesitation.

I admit that this is a problem. But when I looked around the web, I always had the impression that "arena" is used more often than "ring", example page. And I would not make the less used word the main name in iD. (But maybe this was selective perception).

The article also distinguishes round pens from arenas, but it’s unclear to me if OSM does. I’ve seen them both mapped as leisure=pitch sport=equestrian – is that correct?

There is a proposal for leisure=practice_pitch which could be used for [round] pens, but it isn't used for any of them yet (in combination wirh sport=equestrian).

[tyrasd]

I've now included the proposed name changes (including the suggestions from #413 (comment)). As far as I can tell, this fixes all the issued listed in the original post, except for the racetrack presets showing up when searching for horseback. I'm not 100% sure why exactly these show up (I would assume because they share enough letters to be classified as a partial match), but fixing that would need to be done in iD's code.

[Hufkratzer]

Thanks.

id-tagging-schema/data/presets/leisure/horse_riding.json

Line 32 in 2be67fd

"horse stables",

should actually be "riding stables". It could also be moved to the aliases as "Horseback Riding Stables".

What I do not understand is that for en_GB "Horse Riding Stables" was added as an alias, but the preset is still not listed when searching for "riding stables":

Why is that?

[1ec5]

Support for searching by an alias was added very recently, after the latest v2.20.4 release: openstreetmap/iD@8796a41. openstreetmap/iD#6139 remains open to track displaying the alias as the name of the matching search result.