[Tagging] Government buildings

[Craig Wallace]

On 07/12/2009 00:43, Steve Bennett wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> How do you tag:
> 1) Local MP (member of parliament)'s office?
> 2) A building belonging to a government department (eg, ministry of 
> transport)
> 3) A building belonging to a service funded by the government (eg, 
> Information Victoria, near me - sells maps and stuff)
> 4) Government funded research organisation that is not a university, 
> (eg Defence Science Technologies Organisation - researches ways to 
> kill people)

I think this shows that an "office=" tag would be useful, per the thread 
on the talk list about lawyers/architects etc. eg for your example 1 
could be office=politician, and 2 and 3 could be office=government or 
similar (maybe plus a shop tag for 3 if it also sells things).
There is also a tag for amenity=public_building, but that's a bit vague IMO.

I'm not sure if there is any tags for research institutions, government 
funded or otherwise. There are various proposals on the wiki, eg: 
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/research_institution or 
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/Science_Park

> I'm particularly curious that there does not appear to be a 
> "government" landuse tag. Residential, commercial, industrial, 
> military...no government?
There was a thread on the newbies list about this a few weeks back. I 
think landuse is what the land is used for, not who owns it.
eg government/council workshops etc could be industrial. And the wiki 
says landuse=commerical is "Predominantly offices, business parks, etc", 
so could include government offices etc.

Also, the landuse tags are usually for the main use of a wider area, so 
a town centre that's mostly shops with a few government offices in it 
can still be landuse=retail etc,

> And related question, how do you tag charities? Op shops, social 
> services, soup kitchens... Again, not really looking for a specific 
> amenity tag, just the general landuse tag. All of the above options 
> seem wrong.
I've been using shop=charity for charity shops (plus tags for operator= 
etc), I don't know about the others.
And as above, aren't they usually part of a wider 
retail/commercial/residential landuse area.

Craig