<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><p dir="ltr" class=""> Maybe in Japan a convenience store doesn't have food in it.</p></div></blockquote></div>Japan has the nicest "conbinis" you can find - you could actually eat a real (premade) lunch every day from a convenience store here, rather than getting food poisoning from a hot dog at one in the US. <div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">However - to them Fast food iconography might be a bowl of noodles - Ramen shops, soba shops, Udon shops - or a takeout of Fried cutlet, fried octopus balls, or other quick fried food (fried chicken, etc) - but mostly noodles. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">While McDonalds are prevalent, the category of fast food in Japan is not represented by a burger - or a knife & fork. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Categories are easy - as long as we decide on how we structure the tags - are the categories flat, with a few distinctions - and let the taggers decide; or do we make everything very hierarchical and make everything fit into ever narrower sub-categories? I think flat is the way to go, just like amenity=* is full of stuff. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I think the iconography is arguably more important - having some regional icons for common food - a Mexican food icon won’t get much use in Japan, just as a noodle bowl icon would be similarly disused in the US - but both are equally necessary in their home country. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Trying to make standard rules for fast_food vs restaurant is a losing battle - unless you you visit the place (or it’s a chain), you’d probably know. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Leave it to the taggers to figure out.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">What we need to do is make the cuisine tags set about 100 times bigger - and get some regional differences represented in the tags so when someone searches for “ラーメン” - a ridiculously common search for fast food here in Japan - it doesn’t populate the screen with burger icons. I imagine fixing that starts with tagging. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Gas stations with conbini’s is easy - tag them both. no one complains when there is more than one tag at a mall - the same goes for a gas station with a connivence store. I believe there is a tag for a small pay booth or cashier’s office, if the gas station isn’t a convenience store, right?</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Javbw</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">PS:Basic categories of restaurants in Japan</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">- Ramen, soba, udon</div><div class="">- cutlet</div><div class="">- Steak</div><div class="">- Italian</div><div class="">- Indian</div><div class=""><div class="">- “Family” restaurant (denny’s, etc)</div><div class="">- Sushi / traditional Japanese </div></div><div class="">- Chinese</div><div class="">- takoyaki (octopus balls)</div><div class="">- karaage (Japanese style fried chicen)</div><div class="">- conveyor belt sushi</div><div class="">- bakery</div><div class="">- Burger</div><div class="">- Izakaiya (pub). </div><div class="">- Snack (bar)</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">This covers about 99% of restaurants in Japan - the first 6 cover about 80% </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div></body></html>