[Tagging] building=kiosk for guard posts?

[Andy Townsend]

On 16/07/2022 13:33, Philip Barnes wrote:
> The term gatehouse is certainly used to describe the buildings where security control access to large factories.
>
There are two bits to this - the "building type" and the function of the 
building.  Here we're talking about building type.

With regard to the building type, wikipedia has this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatehouse#/media/File:Micklegate_Bar,_York,_UK_-_panoramio_(103).jpg

as an example.  That's a pretty good example of that building type, 
although functionally it probably spent far more time being ceremonial 
than preventing people entering the city.

The problem is that small buildings like 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Guard_booth_20190426_135110.jpg 
might also be described as gatehouses - but that's more about the 
function that they perform rather than the building type.  These may be 
portable buildings (this one seems to be) or they may be permanent 
structures like 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:STANTA_guard_post_-_geograph.org.uk_-_3176566.jpg 
.  In many of the factories I've visited over the years the "gatehouse" 
is actually indistinguishable as a building type from other office (as 
opposed to industrial) buildings on site.

A search for building=gatehouse https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/1ka4 (try 
moving that around) finds it used in OSM for the historic kind, and 
therefore if you're going to try and use a building type for 
commercial/military gatehouses it would make sense to pick something 
else.  In most of the commercial examples I'd probably just use whatever 
building type seems appropriate (not gatehouse, perhaps office) and try 
and scratch around for a functional tag that describes the function 
"gatehouse".  Using a tag for building type Y when it is already used 
for building type X seems like a bad idea when Y!=X, even if English 
usage is more fluid.

Unfortunately the global taginfo seems to be broken at the moment, but 
https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org.uk/keys/building#values gives local 
values.  I'm not really sure where to start looking for functional tags 
- I'd probably look for large factories and see what is used there.

Best Regards,

Andy