[Tagging] pastry and confectionery

Murry McEntire murry.mcentire at gmail.com
Thu Jun 6 20:34:55 UTC 2013


Given the split in opinions, I started thinking harder on an American
usages page and wondered what other countries might use it. Now I'm
wondering who wrote the features pages descriptions and got them wrong. I
speculate that it was not an English-speaking country native.

Using the Toronto Canada business directories as a source and visiting
many  business and reviews webpages:
Under the Bakeries listings - shops that carry cakes, cookies, or pastries
outnumber the shops that carry bread, cakes, cookies, and pastries. Very
few shops specialize in bread only.
Subcategory listings Pastry Shops, Cookies.
Canadians seem comfortable putting cakes in the Pastry category but not
cookies. Many webpages did distinguish between cakes and  pastries. It was
very clear that pastries and confections are considered different things.
Businesses with "Bakery" in the name followed the same split as the
business listings - places that sold bread only were a small minority.

Using the Sydney Australia business pages and visiting many business and
reviews webpages:
The listing is typically Bakers (not Bakeries).
Baker shops with cake and pastries outnumber those with bread, cake and
pastries, which outnumber those selling bread alone.
Subcategory listings "Cake and Pastry Shops", Pizzas, "Pies, Pasties and
Sausage Rolls".
The directories also allowed businesses to advertise product types.
Pastry and cakes are distinct. Meat pies are very popular. Banana bread is
popular enough to earn a products listing.
Confections and pastries are different things.
Businesses that used "Bakery" in the name were more likely not to sell
bread, and those selling only bread were a small minority.

Using the United Kingdom and  London business directories and a number of
business and reviews webpages.
The listing in some is Retail Bakers, in others it is Bakery..
Baker shops featuring cakes, baker shops featuring sandwiches, and baker
shops featuring bread and other products far outnumber the bread only shops.
Subcategory listings "Birthday Cakes", "Wedding Cakes", Cupcakes,
Sandwiches, "Christening Cakes"
Webpages took more work as it was less common for a listed business to have
its own webpage than in the previous countries or the U.S. though reviews
of a business were common.
"Bakery" is very commonly used in business names, but is a poor indicator
of where to buy bread. They are more likely to be a cake or sandwich shop.
(Sweet) Pastries are often a subcategory of cakes. When not a subcategory
of cakes, they most often have meat in them. Confections and (sweet)
pastries are different things. The term favours sometimes included
confections and was used in its place

It was interesting I did not encounter the subcategory listing "Bread". I
speculate it may be missing because the bread-only specializing bakeries
are so few. Bread was sometimes used in the names of bread specializing
bakeries in the other countries, but not nearly as much as in the U.S.

So, based on the way retail bakeries in the United Kingdom, Canada,
Australia, and the United States categorize themselves, advertise
themselves, name themselves and the way locals review and search for them;
the OSM features webpage should be changed in two ways:
1) Pastries should definitely not be listed as a product of
shop=confectionery.
2) A more correct definition for shop=bakery is "selling cakes, pastries,
pies and bread"
 -- or tongue in cheek: "selling cakes, pastries, pies and sometimes bread,
but rarely bread alone"

Since we currently have the state where the shop=bakery and
shop=confectionery descriptions are ill suited for many of the English
Speaking countries and their resident taggers and users I would advocate
for changes in the description of shop=confectionery and shop=bakery as
above and the introduction of subcategories of bakery. Since shop=bakery is
clearly a better choice for a cake shop or pastry shop or one that sells
many bakery product types, I wonder if Bakery_good:bread=yes or bread=yes
added to shop=bakery would be less disruptive than shop=bread.  I would
expect taggers from the the mentioned countries to quickly use shop=bread
for their local bread bakeries and change any previously entered
shop=bakery for such shops. I know I would.Then the success of a European
visiting these countries in finding artisan bread by visiting a shop=bakery
icon becomes zero; as opposed to a possible, but small, chance of success
now or if bread=yes is brought into use.

Question: I've seen subtags of style bread=yes and bakery_good:bread=yes,
but have found no guidance on which is preferred when. Is there any
guidance or is it just the preference of the one proposing it?

Murry
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