While they do give off slightly different feelings I'm thinking for visual purposes we might as well alias. Road seems better I think, to go with road_sign.
Posted under General
I am unsure if these should be aliased or not, and if so which tag should be aliased to.
There is a slightly different meaning between the two (streets are in town, and roads are out of town), but there are no wiki entries and they are often used interchangeably.
Updated by Toks
The difference is that streets are unusually better finished and have a higher population density, sidewalks, etc. Roads usually go through more rural areas and generally don't have the same sort of improvements. City streets vs country roads. Otherwise they serve the same purpose, but if we cared, they could be visually discriminated.
the dictionary seems to offer no significant difference though. same goes for the majority of posts in danbooru. they appear to be synonymous.
imho, the phrases 'city street' and 'country road' (with modifiers) give the 'correct' feel of being associated to urban and rural respectively. but base words like 'street' and 'road' don't have this automatic implication. (e.g. abbey road is a paved street in city of westminster.)
maybe we can also utilize the underused dirt_road for the unpaved thoroughfare which is less ambiguous i guess.
Updated
an alternative to the earlier proposal, how about:
create alias street -> city_street or paved_street
create alias road -> country_road
the antecedents are shorter and easier to type and the consequents offer better clarity. with this, cleaning might come easier.
Updated
Bump. In addition to street and road, we also have path.
Since aliasing them might cause confusion, I say we implicate street and path to road.
Street would be for paved city roads, path would be for beaten paths and such, and road would be the catch-all term.
This fits with their dictionary definitions:
street
1. a public thoroughfare, usually paved, in a village, town, or city, including the sidewalk or sidewalks.
[...]
path
1. a way beaten, formed, or trodden by the feet of persons or animals.
[...]
road
1. a long, narrow stretch with a smoothed or paved surface, made for traveling by motor vehicle, carriage, etc., between two or more points; street or highway.
[...]
Out of those three definitions, road is the most vague.
This is also pretty close to how the tags are already used - most street posts are of paved roads, most path posts are of dirt roads, and road is used for both.