[Tagging] Charity tagging

[Laurence Penney]

The whole point of the social_facility, as described on the wiki, is clearly around helping people at that place. Charity shops such as Oxfam and British Heart Foundation - even if they have broad aims of "social justice" - just don't fit into this at all. And RSPCA shops? They explicitly have nothing to do with helping people, yet seem to call for very similar tagging as the other kinds of charity shop.

I accept that my suggestion about suppliers is more appealing to the taxonomist than for the average user, so... how about this for an Oxfam bookshop?

shop=books
shop:charity=yes

- or for an RSPCA general second hand shop:

shop=second_hand
shop:charity=yes

- L

On 5 Dec 2010, at 02:26, Sean Horgan wrote:

> Good discussion.
> 
> I'm not sure I follow you WRT non-commercial/state run.  Social facility doesn't imply non-commercial, there are plenty of private organizations that deliver social services.  In the case of a social facility run by the state, I would consider this an act of charity: the giving of help to those in need.  In this case, the state is a proxy through which the residents provide the services/goods.  
> 
> I definitely agree that social_facility doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, especially in the context of charity.  There is little likelihood that an average user would type "social facility" into a search box when looking for a charity. As much as I'd like to consolidate related entities into the same tagging scheme, I know that it can't be forced.
> 
> Is there a way to mark tags as equivalent, e.g. social_facility=shop <=> charity=shop, or more broadly social_facility <=> charity?
> 
> I like your thinking on supplier=donation but I think it falls into same bucket of social_facility=shop: nice for the taxonomy but not the average user.  I prefer a simple donation=yes approach.
> 
> Sean