[Tagging] Removal of "amenity" from OSM tagging

[John Willis]

The real question is:

At what scale is the "Amenity" an amenity of something?

This variable answer is the source of he confusion. 

At the beginning, it was the amenity of the town. Amenity=school and amenity=hospital is a great example. 

But tagging complexity quickly grew in some objects (and not others), so town amenities still exist, but newer schemes to tag other town level objects (like shops) are under different tags. This creates confusion. Those amenities got a top level tag to refine them, but they don't control the object's definition (ie school=university) 

Then newer amenity tags described location level information (like a building's amenities).  But again, other tagging schemes were made for more complex items at that level, so some are in amenity and some aren't. 

Now we're tagging sub-location level tags - sidewalks and trees and covers and clocks and doors - and the amenity tag again has a few amenities (I think) at this level as well, and other tag schemes that have more specified data (like clock=*), but are still tied to amenity.  

The trick is to murder the town level amenity tags, letting the amenity tag to focus (at least) location level amenities, if not smaller.

Amenity=school should be landuse=school, for example. 

This refocus would help people understand that we are talking about location level amenities (at least), not town level ones (as there is no amenity=shop) 

This should help change the feeling that  everything should be an amenity tag with a subtag to sort out its details. 

Amenity= was probably a great solution at first, but it's too scattershot now. 

Javbw.