[Tagging] Hitching posts as a form of parking

[Minh Nguyen]

Two tags are currently being used to indicate the location of one or 
more hitching posts or hitching rails (where a horse can be tied down 
for a short time):

* amenity=hitching_post -- 128 uses
* amenity=horse_parking -- 114 uses, mostly individual rings in Ireland

I think it would be beneficial to coalesce around a single tag for 
hitching posts, making more likely for renderers to support them. Which 
tag should it be?

Both tags have their pros and cons:

* In English, this street furniture is called a "hitching post", even 
when it doesn't take the form of a ring on a post. By contrast, "horse 
parking" or "equestrian parking" normally means a place where you park 
your horse *trailer* so you can go horseback riding. (The horse goes 
with you.) "Hitching post" is far more common in any event. [1]

* Functionally, one "parks" the horse (albeit without the benefit of a 
parking gear). amenity=horse_parking is analogous to 
amenity=bicycle_parking, amenity=motorcycle_parking, etc.

* It is possible to hitch something other than a horse, such as a cow or 
dog, though I think "dog parking" has become a more common term for dogs.

amenity=hitching_post has been documented in German since 2011 [2] and 
in English 2020 [3], while the amenity=horse_parking article was added a 
week ago [4], though it was first introduced some time before that. [5]

[1] 
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=hitching+post%2Chorse+parking
[2] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Special:Diff/615710
[3] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Special:Diff/2045753
[4] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Special:Diff/2377170
[5] 
http://taghistory.raifer.tech/#***/amenity/hitching_post&***/amenity/horse_parking

-- 
minh at nguyen.cincinnati.oh.us