[Tagging] Please fix unnamed square tagging / was: ... description of place=square

[Tom Pfeifer]

Yes there is inconsistent use of place=square, in particular for _unnamed_ objects.
As the place=* key is used to indicate that a particular location is known by a particular name,
a place=* tag without a name is fundamentally wrong.

(As the world is not black and white, there might be exceptions.)

In Germany alone I found >600 such taggings, and all I probed were:

1. not squares as in the definition, but small and insignificant paved surfaces, like a round piece 
of footway in a park, the service yard of a fire station, or similar.

2. they were all added by the iD editor, typically since 2018.

Thus my assumption is that place=square is suggested in an iD preset to unsuitable features.
Could somebody with sufficient iD insight check what that preset suggests, and why it does not ask 
for names?

Further I recommend that everybody checks their area for place=square _without a name_, evaluate 
what it is and adjust the tagging. This can not (!) be done mechanically, besides the issues with 
mechanical edits, because the correct tagging will differ (e.g. highway=service + area=yes; or 
highway=footway + area=yes), or the tag was correct indeed and the name has been forgotten.

Query for unnamed square in a bounding box: https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/ROw

I also suggest to update wiki descriptions of place=* tags, upgrading the "name=*" from "useful 
combination" to "required", and add that to validators.

tom

On 21.03.2020 01:32, Joseph Eisenberg wrote:
> A few of us have been updating the Tag:place=square page, and Square:

> Unfortunately, this tag has been used rather inconsistently around the
> world, often for any feature that includes the word "square" or a
> translation of that word, or which might be considered similar in the
> local language.
> 
> Some poorly mapped examples are shown on github:
> 
> *https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues/4043#issuecomment-593045858
> * https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues/4043#issuecomment-593046473
> * https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues/4043#issuecomment-593046673
> 
> Check if any of the place=square features in your area should instead
> be junction=yes (for a named street intersection or road junction) or
> leisure=park or place=neighborhood.