[Tagging] vending= How to handle food & drinks

[Andreas Goss]

Usually it is pretty obvious when you should make a new value and when 
not, but with food and drinks it is endless:
http://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/vending#values

If you use vending=milk instead of vending=drinks+drink:milk=yes where 
do you draw the line? Does vending=drinks assume soft drinks? Or does 
that get its own tag? What happens when OSM gets more popular in other 
parts of the word where different products are popular? What about bbq 
meat (had that discussion on the DE mailing list). Also what about 
sweets? According to the wiki should have been used for the small ones 
for children, not the big ones at the train station where you can get a 
Mars or Snickers. (Those Gumball vending machines are actually the other 
big issue on their own)

After long consideration I think the best solution is to use drinks & 
food for everything as umbrella term and then require the use of 
drink:/food: tags to be more specific.

The main advantages I see:
1. vending= drinks, food and drinks;food would cover most cases (if 
including "sweets")
2. No different definitions/interpretations about what drinks/food on 
their own stand for
3. drink: / food: is universally and can be combined with other tags 
(bars, restaurants...) - less documentation
4. One system and not some arbitrary line where it changes (e.g. from 
vending=abc to vending=drinks+drink:abc=yes)
5. Allows for more specific tagging that is easier to consume 
(vending=drinks+drink:soft_drink=yes+drink:water=yes+drink:coca-cola=yes 
instead of vending=drinks/soft_drinks;water+... or something like that)
6. No redundant tagging possible (like vending=water+drink:water=yes)

What do you think?

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:amenity%3Dvending_machine
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