[Tagging] It seems that opening_hours:covid19=* tag is a bad idea, right?

[Kevin Kenny]

On Mon, Feb 14, 2022 at 1:28 PM Paul Johnson <baloo at ursamundi.org> wrote:

> On Mon, Feb 14, 2022 at 10:16 AM Andy Townsend <ajt1047 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 14/02/2022 15:48, Mateusz Konieczny via Tagging wrote:
>> > At this point it seems clear that COVID19 is not going to disappear
>> > soon (if ever)
>> Some nuance is needed here.  You seem very sure about what will happen
>> in the future and what's happening right now around the world; in
>> practice no-one knows the answer to the first part and the second part
>> is hugely variable.  Even in the small part of the world within an hour
>> or so of my house there are still places that have special rules in
>> place "for covid".
>>
>> Does it make sense to make this tagging suggestion less prominent?
>> Sure.  Removing it as a suggested field whenever "opening hours" are
>> added?  Quite possibly.  Overall, is this tagging "a poor idea" in all
>> cases?  No, not if it's still valid.
>
>
>  I think it's a little shortsighted to think that this is clearing up fast
> enough for it to be a relevant subtag compared to just using the regular
> opening hours tag for this.
>

Let us observe that (a) the Global Pandemonium has been going on for nigh
on two years, with no definitive end in sight; (b) the restrictions on
businesses' opening hours and hygiene practices have been volatile, and (c)
the economic dislocations that have resulted from the Pandemonium mean that
rather than "returning to normal", businesses are highly likely to "find a
new normal."  Given all that, I don't think that pre-Pandemonium opening
hours are likely at this point to be highly relevant, so I guess I agree
with Paul and Mateusz.  Even if the business states that there are special
rules in place "for CoViD-19", that doesn't mean that the "regular" rules
will return soon, or indeed, ever.

Moreover, I don't think that very many data consumers are likely to be
aware of `opening_hours:covid` as a key that should be interpreted as
overriding the ordinary `opening_hours`. I suppose that could be a useful
piece of information for mappers wanting to do a quick edit to announce
"this business has resumed its 'normal' hours," and to that extent, Andy is
right.

I don't expect data consumers to be able to make much use of it in either
case, and a data consumer that's ignorant of 'opening_hours:decorated' but
is aware of plain 'opening_hours' will return the most useful result if the
result shows what they are under the business's current practice. That's
surely more relevant to most users than the business's aspirations to
return to "normal hours" at some indefinite time in a post-Pandemonium
future.

-- 
73 de ke9tv/2, Kevin
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