[Tagging] University accommodation (was Re: Future proposal - RFC - amenity=dormitory)

[Dan S]

2014-09-19 15:52 GMT+01:00 Tobias Knerr <osm at tobias-knerr.de>:
> On 19.09.2014 14:22 Dan S wrote:
>>  for buildings:   building=residential + residential=university + operator=*
>>         OR
>>  for sites:   landuse=residential + residential=university + operator=*
>>
>> Note that the same scheme seems to me to work well for building and for landuse.
>>
>> I thought this had been discussed on tagging recently, but I can't
>> find it, all I can find is the RFC for amenity=dormitory, currently
>> used 263 times. (I will add that "dormitory" is certainly a little odd
>> from a British English point of view, notwithstanding the comments
>> already made to the RFC.)
>
> That proposal now suggests amenity=student_accommodation, precisely
> because of the oddness involved with the term "dormitory".

Ah yes, thanks. So now it assumes the occupants are students and not
lecturers ;)

(I'm just being cheeky. I know of universities in which lecturers do
stay in similar accommodation blocks, but that point is not important
enough to argue about...)

> Personally, I prefer using the amenity key rather than building or
> landuse. Landuse lacks the implication that this is one distinct
> facility

OK. I understand why you'd prefer amenity for tagging the usage. If
that tag gets accepted I guess I should use that instead of landuse,
and I understand your arguments there. I feel differently, because I
feel the analogy between a "housing estate" and a multi-building
"student halls" site is quite a strong analogy, neatly represented by
a named area of landuse=residential. But there we go.

> and building values are not supposed to represent usage, but how the building is built.

This week I stayed in university accommodation (even though I'm not a
student ;), and the buildings were purpose-built student halls, so it
would be nice to tag the building appropriately. Alternatives include:
(a) "building=residential" (without subtagging), which is fine if vague;
(b) "building=apartments", which is tolerable but not quite appropriate;
(c) "building=dormitory" which is in use, but it's US English, and to
my Brit English mind just feels wrong. Sorry to moan about the US/UK
difference, but it is indeed a difference:
<http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/dormitory>,
<http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/dormitory>
(d) "building=residential + residential=university", the approach I
was using recently. Not as widely used. It has an advantage of
graceful fallback (meaning data-users can understand the objects as
building=residential even if they ignore the subtag).

I still prefer (d) though if building=dormitory becomes widely
accepted then I guess I shall have to swallow that loss for British
english!

Cheers
Dan