[Tagging] Fast food vs. restaurant vs. cafe

[Roy Wallace]

On Mon, May 3, 2010 at 8:41 PM, John Smith <deltafoxtrot256 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Why does it need to be a unifying criteria?
>
> Provide the tags, people will come up with their own criteria based on
> their own cultural background, while they will be similar, there will
> be subtle differences.

I think we can avoid having multiple meanings for identical tags in
the OSM database. (though I realise you disagree, John).

As for cafe vs. restaurant vs. fast_food, to look at the bigger
picture...I'm seriously wondering whether those tags even have
*verifiable* distinctions (of course, this depends on their
definition).

If the value is not verifiable, cafe/restaurant/fast_food tags should
not be used, and instead they should be replaced with amenity=food (or
equivalent). At least that can be verified.