[Tagging] Tagging of a politician's office

[Minh Nguyen]

Vào lúc 03:43 2022-05-12, Mateusz Konieczny via Tagging đã viết:
> May 12, 2022, 00:08 by 
> minh at nguyen.cincinnati.oh.us 
> <mailto:minh at nguyen.cincinnati.oh.us>:
> 
>  > In the U.S., these offices tend to be run by a member of a 
> legislature or local council acting in their official capacity.
>  >
> So technically, it is not an office of politician but official 
> representation of government
> representative?

As I understand it, it's an office operated by a specific officeholder 
on official business with quite a bit of autonomy. It's named after the 
officeholder, rather than the position or constituency. [1][2] It lasts 
for the duration of their term in office but closes afterwards. [3][4] 
The staff is appointed by the officeholder, so they aren't career civil 
servants. Two such offices would have nothing to do with each other.

>  > I think office=government government=official would avoid this 
> confusion and potentially apply to a broader range of facilities. Would 
> there be interest in migrating to this tag instead, for the physical 
> offices that are apolitical in nature?
> 
> This tag sounds like "official government office", not like
> "government office of specific official"
> to me, and I would not guess its intended meaning on encountering it.
> 
> Also "offices that are apolitical in nature" seems confusing, as this 
> offices are unlikely
> to be actually apolitical (even if there are limits on direct campaigning).

I meant to say the basic services offered by these offices are typically 
apolitical, not that the politicians themselves would be apolitical (hah).

The exact services provided by these offices depends on the level of 
government, but in general, the staff there serves as a sort of customer 
service representative for the government as a whole. If a constituent 
has a problem and doesn't know which department, branch, or level of 
government can help them, they can contact their representative's 
constituent service office to help them navigate the system. (It's a big 
system.)

As others mentioned, the office can also be a meeting place for when the 
representative is in town. Politics certainly plays a role, but it's not 
like a campaign headquarters that's inherently overtly political.

> Not sure should "constituent service office" have a separate tagging or 
> is it best to
> consider it as technical/funding/descriptive detail and treat it like 
> any other politician
> office.

I don't think it's an operator:type kind of distinction. A legislator's 
constituent service office is basically an extension of their main 
office, but a political campaign office would only be related in terms 
of who hires the staff.

The offices I'm aware of are run by legislators or local councilors, but 
I guess in principle an elected or appointed official in the executive 
or judicial branch of government could open a similar office if there's 
funding for it.

A practical benefit of tagging these office types distinctly is that we 
can more easily track them as they pop in and out of existence. I just 
went through the office=political_party nodes in the U.S. to retag 
things that aren't local party headquarters. In some cases, it would've 
been helpful to know the specific kind of office:

* Is it a legislator's main office that would likely still be there, 
even though it was mapped years ago?
* Is it a legislator's constituent service office, which will likely 
close later this year, as soon as the legislator retires?
* Is it a legislator's campaign office that's definitely gone because 
they won reelection last fall?

The campaign offices would deserve particular scrutiny from 
StreetComplete because they're temporary, seasonal. I've retagged a 
couple as office=political_campaign, by analogy with office=political_party.

> Maybe
> office=government government=constituent_service
> or
> office=government government=official_representative
> would be better?

Yes, these more descriptive tags are a good idea. If there are any 
qualms about calling them government, I think it would be fine to use 
office=* instead of government=*. After all, diplomatic offices are 
tagged office=diplomatic despite being run by a government ministry of 
foreign affairs.

If these constituent service offices turn out to be significantly 
different than the kind of office a politician runs in other countries, 
then perhaps we can document alternative tags that coexist with each other.

[1] https://www.mapillary.com/app/?pKey=494675961657248
[2] 
<https://www.bing.com/maps?cp=40.572436~-74.11345&lvl=19&dir=35.805073&pi=3.4521592&style=x&mo=z.2.9&v=2&sV=2>
[3] 
<https://www.bing.com/maps?cp=42.726797~-87.783568&lvl=19&dir=350.97842&pi=-3.6238697&style=x&mo=z.1.77&v=2&sV=2>
[4] https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/120900537

-- 
minh at nguyen.cincinnati.oh.us