[Tagging] "Feature Proposal - RFC - (office=courier)"

[Tobias Wrede]

Am 15.04.2017 um 20:04 schrieb Marc Gemis:
> As I wrote before, it is not because something does not exists in one
> country, that one has to vote against a proposal. One has to try to
> understand that different countries with different traditions and
> tagging needs.

Exactly, but these proposals do no help in that respect, either.

> So in case there would be a office of one of those couriers where one
> can only bring parcels, it would be nice to have a different key.
>
> I also do not understand why people do not want that there are 2
> different "top" level tags for those two concepts. If you need to use
> the data, you can still merge the 2 features. That is much easier than
> trying to split them, especially since the proposed tagging is
> amenity=post_office and amenity=post_office + courier=yes. Which means
> that the current data consumers will make no difference between the
> two.
>
> We have different words for the two concepts in many languages, so why
> can't we use those two words in mapping/tagging ?
Ten years ago I would have agreed. Today there are not two (2) concepts 
anymore but there is a wide range of different marketing channels used 
offering the discussed services to varying degrees. It has been noted 
several times in this thread what people would point to if asked for the 
nearest post office. I must admit I would really have to think hard 
where to find the nearest "traditional" one.

In my area in Germany only the big main "Deutsche Post" offices of a 
city have survived. All the rural and suburban offices have been closed 
and their services are now carried out in so called Deutsche Post 
branches by tobacco shops, bakeries, laundries, kiosks, you name it. I 
guess most of them offer letter and parcel related services but not all 
of them offer banking related services, none have PO boxes. Then there 
are parcel shops of Deutsche Post located in the same kind of amenities 
that focus more on the parcel business but some of them also sell stamps 
for letters (but you would fail to leave a registered mailing there). 
Poste restante for letters and parcels is possible in some but not in 
others.

Then there are several competitors of Deutsche Post in the latter 
business, many only operating in certain regions. They have offices, 
too. Are these post offices? But many (all?) of those do not offer 
parcel services let alone banking services.

The couriers also operate via parcel shops like Deutsche Post. I haven't 
seen a real UPS or other brand's outlet around here but thy might exist.

Stamps can be bought and sometimes letters can be mailed in many 
souvenir and tobacco shops, too, without any affiliation to a post office

So, disapproving of amenity/office=courier does not mean I ignore other 
countries' traditions and tagging needs. I disapprove because this pair 
of post_office and courier would polarize the services where there is no 
clear differentiation anymore in many places. Keeping post_office and 
courier as two distinct amenities/offices would in the same way ignore 
some countries' traditions and tagging needs.

Rather than having this new proposal for a courier office tweaked and 
pressed through I would prefer a generally revised tagging scheme in 
that context.

Tobi