[Tagging] no:XX versus not:XX for non-existing objects

Jan Michel jan at mueschelsoft.de
Sun Sep 19 08:21:22 UTC 2021


Dear all,
we currently have two different prefixes for things that are not what
they seem to be or might have been:

no:XX
	- 200 uses with 20 different keys
	- https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:no:
	- https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/search?q=no%3A

not:XX
	- 20k uses with 200 different keys
	- https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:not:
	- https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/search?q=not%3A

Both Wiki pages read almost identical, with slightly different
stress on objects that don't exist any more but are still visible on
images versus objects that never existed but could be assumed to be
there.

I think the current situation with two almost identical tags is a bit
unfortunate and should be resolved.
I see two possible options here:

- define the different scopes of the two tags more clearly and stress
   the differences on both Wiki pages.

- mark the less used 'no:' prefix as deprecated and favor the quite
   common 'not:' prefix instead.



Jan




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