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

[Paul Allen]

On Sat, 27 Feb 2021 at 20:39, Georg <georg2016 at nurfuerspam.de> wrote:

>
> 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.
>

As far as I know, Yodel only handles parcels.  Other companies, such as
Whistl https://www.whistl.co.uk/about-us do letters and parcels (please
don't ask me to explain Whistl's corporate marketing blurb, I can't
decipher it myself).


> 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.


But it's also true in Germany.  You point out that German mappers are
reluctant to call these places post offices.  Would you call one of
these places a post office if it was a shop within a shop?  Would you
call it a post office if it occupied the entire building and sold no
items/services unrelated to letters, parcels, etc?

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,
>

Sometimes wikipedia over-simplifies.  In the past couriers were
more expensive but offered some additional features.  These days
some couriers compete on price rather than features.

If you want an alternative term (but also more ambiguous) there is
"carrier."  Too ambiguous for my liking.

There is also "logistics" perhaps combined with other words.  I
don't like that because transporting military supplies is also
logistics.  It's not restricted to letters/parcels.  Any sort of
supply transport is logistics.  The company that delivers
beer to my local pub is a logistics company (DHL) that
also delivers parcels.

So what other, less misleading wording could we use? Logistics, Delivery
> services, Messengers etc.
>

Looking through various wikipedia articles, I found that "mail" refers
to a system of physically transporting postcards, letters and parcels.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail  Wikipedia considers mail to be
synonymous with "post."

I haven't pondered it deeply, but (right now) "mail" seems like a good
prefix.  Unlike "post" there is no implicit confusion with "post office."
Yes, the delivery arm of our official postal service is called "Royal
Mail" but they don't have shops you can walk into (although larger
towns will have a sorting office you can collect parcels from if
they can't be delivered).

>
> First, we did set as basic rule that we do not map for renderers.
>

The rule is not to TAG for renderers.  Some of us think that the
rule is badly worded and we shouldn't mistag for renderers.
Don't map a residential road as a motorway because you want it
rendered as a thicker, different-coloured line on the map.  But you
do expect a residential road to render in some manner at higher
resolutions on non-specialized carto.  If you expect that data
consumers would want to be able to look at a map to find X
then it is helpful if X is rendered.  If you don't expect people to
look for it, why map 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.
>

I'm looking at the OSM map right now.  There's an input box to search for
names, nothing to search for post offices.  I can find post offices that
are named "Post Office" but there are a lot of those (the first result I
got was in Nigeria).  Is there a feature on the standard map I'm
unaware of?

-- 
Paul
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