[talk-au] Mapping "secret" facilities?

[stevea]

On Jul 26, 2022, at 6:05 PM, Graeme Fitzpatrick <graemefitz1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 27 Jul 2022 at 10:42, stevea <steveaOSM at softworkers.com> wrote:
> We map cannabis facilities in California; cannabis is legal here.
> 
> Production facilities, or only shops?

I have mapped several shops, as their location must "thread careful needles," like being so many thousands of feet away from schools and such, so they are necessarily located in what are relatively out-of-the way places.  If I knew of "industrial plants (for cannabis)" — heh, see what I did there?! — I WOULD map them, but again, I might not necessarily include a name=* tag, especially if they were quite closed to the public (as most "industrial plants" are).  My point is, they are legal, they are not "top secret" (like a military facility, for which we have specific tagging, and laws-on-the-ground which REALLY guide what is legal, expected human behavior regarding these facilities).  And again, if they are especially strict with access=no (as I imagine they would be, with "upped" surveillance like gates, guards, fences, cameras...these are mappable, too), then include an access=no tag to underscore that "they are there, they are not there for YOU."

> I am of the opinion that "if it is in the world, it can be mapped."  There are things that people say we SHOULD not map, and I have even seen some well-reasoned arguments which cause me to nod my head. 
> 
>  Yeah, discussion also on Discord is concerning Verifiability - is there a sign out the front which says what it is?

I've had discussion about this regarding key:owner on our wiki. [1]  If it IS a sign (plaque, building dedication stone...) that asserts actual, current ownership, that is certainly definitive, and has every reason to enter OSM.  But "government records" (I argue in the Talk page of that wiki) can also be used, as long as this practice doesn't hew too closely to turning OSM into a "cadastral-like database of land- and business-ownership information."  I mean, we map fast_food restaurants (businesses, yes, these ARE open to the public), along with their opening_hours, website, phone_number...etc., so we certainly can map OTHER businesses.  Even those not open to the public (it's good as we denote that).  But again, a polygon of the outline of the building tagged building=industrial is at least a start, and such "little starts" are frequently how good, verifiable, reliable data are "built up" (over time) in OSM.

> (I note with some amusement that you cay "Cannabis 'plant'"
> 
> LOL! :-) 

Once in a while, mild linguistic ambiguity can (and does) give rise to mild amusement.

[1] https://wiki.osm.org/wiki/Key:owner , and see its Talk page, too.