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<p>On 2016-01-16 00:12, Warin wrote:</p>
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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 16/01/2016 8:35 AM, Colin Smale wrote:</div>
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<p>How would you translate or apply these tags in e.g. the UK or the Netherlands (my home countries)? What is a "state government"? What is a "local government seat"? These things will mean different things to different people.</p>
<p>Although this is phrased a bit rhetorically, I do think we should be aware that a description in one person's vernacular is not necessarily clear to a diverse audience. A "town hall" is (to me) a bit archaic, but I think many people would be able to answer the question "where is the town hall?" for their home municipality. It will often be a historic building, and may or may not be where the council chamber is, or where the "mayor" or the head of the council has their office. So how do you decide if a building is a/the Town Hall?</p>
<p>And what would be an example of "<span>an office of a local administrative authority, not related to the state government"? I cannot imagine, maybe someone can jog my brain in the right direction.</span></p>
<p><span>As for building=public, well, words fail me. What is a "public building"? A building to which the public has access? That's not an attribute of the building, that needs an access=* tag.</span></p>
<p><span>This kind of unclear semantics is exactly why I will vote to discourage amenity=public_building. Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water and suggest a replacement which is just as bad, if not worse.</span></p>
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<br /> These tags and the descriptions are already on the wiki. <br /> If they should be improved .. or discouraged .. then do that as separate issues.</blockquote>
<p>If you want to fix a problem, don't replace it with another one. The proposal is one step forwards, and one step back. The recommended replacement tagging is just as bad (if not worse). The core of the proposal (deprecating public_building) is a definite step in the right direction, but we shouldn't jump out of the frying pan into the fire. The examples of alternative tagging need tightening up, or possibly removing if we cannot improve them sufficiently.<br /><br /><br /> ----------------<br /> Town Halls... <br /> England ... <br /><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.thsh.co.uk/town-hall/">https://www.thsh.co.uk/town-hall/</a><br /><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.leeds.gov.uk/townhall/Pages/default.aspx">http://www.leeds.gov.uk/townhall/Pages/default.aspx</a><br /><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.cheltenhamtownhall.org.uk/">http://www.cheltenhamtownhall.org.uk/</a><br /><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.loughboroughtownhall.co.uk/">https://www.loughboroughtownhall.co.uk/</a><br /><br /> and a few more...</p>
<p>We are not short of examples, everyone can give an example of something they call a town hall. It's a definition we need here. When is a building a "town hall"?</p>
<p>Where I live in NL three municipalities merged a couple of years ago. Each had their own town hall. Now there is only one council. The former town halls are still council offices. Everybody knows them as the town halls, and they are still used for weddings etc but not normally open to the public. But the council meeting itself is too big for any of them, and now meets elsewhere. Which building(s) are the town hall(s)? Does a town, or a council, necessarily have to have one?</p>
<blockquote type="cite" style="padding: 0 0.4em; border-left: #1010ff 2px solid; margin: 0"><br /> ---<br /> "<span>an office of a local administrative authority, not related to the state government" <br /><br /> Errr some names ? local council, shire council, county council... </span></blockquote>
<p>These (depending on the context) could be three names for the same type of entity - one is official, one is generic, one is archaic. It seems for the UK you suggest the "state" is the UK, and anything else is a "local administrative authority". What about a federal system such as Germany? You have government on so many levels... What is the "state"? The EU? Germany? Or the Bundeslaender? What about private companies carrying out outsourced government duties? Or municipalities carrying out non-core functions such as their own public transport? Someone who works in a large company may even consider their own HR department as "office=administrative". We can't tag it all in the same way.</p>
<p>Anyway, "administrative" could mean just about anything, government-related or not. Office=government might help here, for an office (from part of a building up to a campus of multiple buildings?) where generic government things take place. This can cover both office=administrative and office=public. The level of government, or the organisation, can be indicated by a different tag such as operator=* (although that specific tag might conflict with the operator of the building as a whole). Office implies (to my mind) not normally open to the public, i.e. not the walk-in facilities with waiting rooms and counters, but that is a different can of worms to be discussed in the context of the "office" tag.</p>
<p><span><br /> ---<br /> building=public .. already done this. I do agree that it is not 'good'. But someone put it up. And it can be discussed .. on the wiki or as a separate thread. <br /></span></p>
<p>//colin</p>
<p>On 2016-01-15 22:13, Warin wrote:</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 16/01/2016 7:03 AM, Matthijs Melissen wrote:</div>
<pre>Hi all,
Based on the discussion arising from my previous message, it seems
that there is support to discourage the tag amenity=public_building.
I have therefore created a proposal page to explicitly mark this tag
as discouraged in the wiki:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/Discourage_amenity%3Dpublic_building">http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/Discourage_amenity%3Dpublic_building</a>
Please let me know what you think.</pre>
<p><br /> There should be a mention of tagging a feature as well as a function.<br /><br /> So I would separate up the tags thus;<br /><br /> ..."Some examples: <br /><br /> To tag a function;</p>
<ul>
<li><tt dir="ltr" style="background: #DDE; white-space: nowrap;"><a title="Key:office" href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:office">office</a>=<a title="Tag:office=government" href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:office%3Dgovernment">public</a></tt> for an office of an agency or department of the national/state government.</li>
<li><tt dir="ltr" style="background: #DDE; white-space: nowrap;"><a title="Key:office" href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:office">office</a>=<a title="Tag:office=administrative" href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:office%3Dadministrative">administrative</a></tt> for an office of a local administrative authority, not related to the state government.</li>
<li><tt dir="ltr" style="background: #DDE; white-space: nowrap;"><a title="Key:amenity" href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:amenity">amenity</a>=<a title="Tag:amenity=townhall" href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:amenity%3Dtownhall">townhall</a></tt> for a local government seat.</li>
</ul>
<p>To tag a feature;</p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li><tt dir="ltr" style="background: #DDE; white-space: nowrap;"><a title="Key:office" href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:office">building</a>=<a title="Tag:office=government" href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:office%3Dgovernment">public</a></tt> for a public building.</li>
<li><tt dir="ltr" style="background: #DDE; white-space: nowrap;"><a title="Key:office" href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:office">building</a>=<a title="Tag:office=administrative" href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:office%3Dadministrative">school</a></tt> for a school.</li>
</ul>
<p>"<br /><br /> ?<br /><br /></p>
<pre>-- Matthijs
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