[Tagging] Feature Proposal - RFC - shop as post-partner

[Minh Nguyen]

Vào lúc 12:37 2021-02-27, Georg đã viết:
> 
> Am 2021-02-16 um 14:40 schrieb Paul Allen:
> 
>> What you describe in terms of function does not sound like a post office
>> to me.
> 
> Exactly that's why the proposal is here and exactly that's the point why
> so many Germans hesitate to tag them as amenity=post_office! But we have
> no other, well matching tag, i.e. we can either have them not mapped at
> all or mapped as amenity=post_office. That's why the proposal is here.
> 
>> What you describe in terms of function sounds very much like
>> https://www.collectplus.yodel.co.uk/click-and-collect
>> <https://www.collectplus.yodel.co.uk/click-and-collect>
>> Shops offering those services are not considered post offices in the UK.
> 
> Neither in Germany - see above.
> 
> As fas as I saw on yodel's website, they do only offer to pick up
> parcels - this is just a fraction of the services that are commonly
> offered by the post/courier/logistics/whateverYouCallThem partner shops
> in DE, SE etc.
> 
>> Either these are post offices or they are not.  If they are post offices
>> then map them as such.  If they are not post offices then find some
>> different tag name that does not have "post" or "postal,"
> 
> I understood that you "just" reject that the word "post" is part of the
> key name because that word's British English meaning does not describe
> that thing we want to descibe/tag, and British English is the reference
> for OSM. Please help to find a better wording, see also below.

 From a U.S. perspective, the term "post office" in everyday speech is 
associated with official USPS post offices and, to some extent, 
USPS-branded approved postal providers. Perhaps it would've been 
intuitive to reserve amenity=post_office for only these branch 
locations. But U.S. mappers have been using the tag more broadly because 
industry distinctions have blurred so much over the past few decades.

In addition to the USPS, there has long been a variety of other kinds of 
shipping-related facilities: letter courier offices with or without 
storefronts, logistics companies that specialize in shipping parcels, 
money transfer services. At one point, if I'm not mistaken, the USPS 
held a monopoly on postal matter but other services could deliver parcels.

Meanwhile, a shop could be a USPS Approved Postal Provider, with varying 
levels of branding. I've seen some that try their darndest to look like 
USPS post office branches and others that are just a window at a general 
store or do-it-yourself store. It's also possible for private entities 
to offer private mail boxes as an alternative to the USPS's P.O. boxes 
for receiving postal matter. Near me, a religious charity operates 
private mail boxes for the homeless at an outreach center.

In the '90s, Mail Boxes Etc. was a nationwide chain of pack-and-ship 
stores that emphasized their private mail boxes. Each location mimicked 
the look and feel of a post office, with a staffed desk on one side and 
two walls lined with private boxes. UPS acquired this chain's North 
America locations to expand the retail footprint of its parcel services. 
FedEx followed suit, acquiring the Kinko's copy shop chain. The UPS 
Store now offers print and copy services at many locations too.

So now we have copy shops that double as parcel delivery/pickup 
locations and sometimes triple as unofficial or semi-official post 
offices. One of these locations can even be inside a stationery store, 
as a store-within-a-store format. In the face of all this ambiguity, I 
think mappers could be forgiven for bending the definition of 
amenity=post_office and relying on operator:type to distinguish USPS 
locations from others. But if we're creating a new secondary tag, then 
maybe a more generic term would be helpful.

>> Those partners will merely be couriers.
> 
> English is not my mother tongue (just like for others involved in thr
> proposal), hence, I don't know the fine differences between "post" and
> "courier". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courier explains
>  > Couriers are distinguished from ordinary mail services by features
>  > such as speed, security, tracking, signature, specialization and
>  > individualization of express services, and swift delivery times,
>  > which are optional for most everyday mail services. As a premium
>  > service, couriers are usually more expensive than standard mail
>  > services,
> 
> So the "service providers" we are talking about (Hermes, DPD,
> arriva,...) are definitely less (!) courier service providers than
> DHL/DeutschePost, as most of them are cheaper, offer less additional
> services, offer at least not shorter delivery times, etc.
> 
> So what other, less misleading wording could we use? Logistics, Delivery
> services, Messengers etc. Please let's keep a _short and consolidated_
> list in
> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Proposed_features/shop_as_post-partner#Term_post_or_other_terms 

This is a good idea, but I'm not sure there is a very satisfying term 
that encompasses every kind of business that sends or receives objects 
primarily in a business-to-business customer relationship.

>> That said, your insistence that these things be mapped as
>> attributes rather than POIs baffles me.  The information will
>> not be visible to most data consumers so may as well not be
>> there.  If I can't see it on the map, it doesn't exist as far as
>> I'm concerned because I'll never know it's there.
> 
> First, we did set as basic rule that we do not map for renderers.
> 
> Second, we have the same issue for other things as well, e.g. cross
> country pistes are not rendered by default in most maps, but _only_ the
> summer use as a meadow or forestry track. And we have solutions to this:
> 
> Third, many data consumers like maps.me, OsmAnd, Locus,... offer
> multiple themes dedicated for specific purposes, e.g. summer outdoor
> sports, winter, city,... And there are many websites dedicated for
> specific purposes. So you can see it.
> 
> Last, many data consumers like maps.me, OsmAnd, Locus,... but also OSM
> map website are able to search + filter for tags, so you can find it.

In the U.S., a copy shop could contract with multiple parcel delivery 
services without a store-within-a-store format, much like in the 
original European examples in the proposal. [1] I suppose tags on the 
main shop POI would be appropriate in this case, but it feels to me 
rather like other ancillary brand tagging:

* Tagging a foreign-car auto body shop with the brands they specialize 
in repairing
* Tagging an insurance agent with the many 
home/auto/motorcycle/life/vacation/pet insurance providers they contract 
with
* Tagging a musical instrument store with the guitar brands they 
advertise on the front window

To me, it doesn't seem particularly important that a general-purpose OSM 
geocoder would be able to surface these ancillary brands in search 
results for a single-box query. Rather, surfacing this information might 
be better suited for a brand-specific store locator webpage, in which 
case maybe we need a more generic tagging scheme anyways, like 
sells:brand=* or service:*:brand=*.

[1] For example: https://usps-approved-postal-provider.business.site/

-- 
minh at nguyen.cincinnati.oh.us