[Tagging] Wiki Edit War on using/avoiding semicolon lists

[moltonel 3x Combo]

On 22/01/2015, Charles Basenga Kiyanda <personal at charleskiyanda.com> wrote:
> I have to add fuel to a heated discussion, but in the whole exchange on
> whether or not semicolon lists should be allowed/used, the most obvious
> example (to me) that requires semicolon lists was not mentionned,
> namely: opening hours.

That's probably because opening_hours is arguably *not* a
multiple-values field, so it's not very interesting to bring it into
this discussion. A bit like seamark colors, providing only part of the
information is barely usefull (which indeed makes the idea of spliting
opening_hours into multiple keys silly).

Opening_hours is complex enough that it needs its own specific parser.
You can't treat it as a generic multiple-values field. It wouldn't
make any difference if the opening_hours spec was using '&' instead of
';' for example.


> Substituting
>
> opening_hours = Mo-We 08:00-17:00; Th-Fr 08:00-21:00
>
> to
>
> opening_hours:Mo-We 08:00-17:00 = yes
> opening_hours:Th-Fr 08:00-21:00 = yes
>
> would in my opinion lead to an inordinate number of subkeys.

Yes, that's definitely out. Using the key to convey multiple values is
only advisable if the value is standardised. As was said earlyer,
nobody is suggesting "name:Main Street=yes" either.