[Tagging] destination:symbol tag: country-specific symbols

[Minh Nguyen]

Vào lúc 09:26 2022-02-21, David Marchal via Tagging đã viết:
> Maybe some of these ideograms have international equivalents; I'll only 
> be sure by checking them one by one and there are a few 
> (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id%C3%A9ogramme_routier_en_France 
> <https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id%C3%A9ogramme_routier_en_France>). My 
> question was of general order: when, after verification, I'm unable to 
> find international equivalents to the features represented by the 
> symbol, which value should I propose/document? I intend to create a 
> documentation for these symbols, precisely to not obtain 77237373737 
> different values by letting each mapper choose his/her own value, which 
> is more likely to happen if no list of corresponding destination:symbol 
> values is documented.
> 
> As for using English, I'm not opposed, but find it weird to use an 
> English value for a France-specific feature, especially if I use some 
> sort of FR:xyz value.

The codes you suggest proposed are a great fit for the traffic_sign=* 
key, which already allows for either human-readable keywords or cryptic 
sign codes. Consider mapping the sign whenever it's something that's 
difficult to express in more universal terms.

Although these particular symbols are specific to France, the problem 
you bring up is common to many countries. Every time I browse photos of 
guide signs in Mexico, a Vienna Convention country, I can't help but 
notice the attractive but very diverse set of destination symbols they 
use on guide signs.

In the U.S., some states have a variety of ideosyncratic destination 
symbols, such as:

* California's distinct symbols for the offices of police, sheriff [1], 
and state highway patrol
* Special signs for a dozen kinds of alternative fuels [2]
* Logo signs [3] that distinguish between a KFC and KFC with a drive-through

We could come up with a classification system for these signs, but it 
would duplicate the existing sign code systems for little practical 
benefit. For mappers' benefit, these sign codes and suggested tagging 
should be documented in a table somewhere on the wiki, as we've done for 
the U.S. [4]

[1] Very different than a British English sheriff!
[2] 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Diagrams_of_U.S._General_Service_Sign_Panels
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_sign
[4] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/MUTCD/D

-- 
minh at nguyen.cincinnati.oh.us