[Talk-us] How to tag US/CA border crossing telephones?

[stevea]

Nate Wessel writes:
>I'm not sure if these are common enough to warrant their own tagging 
>scheme, but the US/Canada have these little video phones posted 
>around marinas on the great lakes(at least). The idea is that people 
>crossing the border by boat will call in with the phone and show the 
>immigration officer on the other end their passport and face and 
>tell them that they've crossed the border. It's all very civilized 
>and polite :-)
>
>How should we tag these? I took a preliminary stab at one here:
><http://www.openstreetmap.org/node/3638039953>http://www.openstreetmap.org/node/3638039953

Nate, this is an interesting thing to tag!  Where to begin?!  First, 
I want to get started on the right foot by suggesting that 
amenity=telephone seems like the correct place to begin tagging these 
"things".  It is also a video phone, which is simply becoming more 
common in the 21st century, so we want to capture "generic" video 
phone (like a phone booth, but with video) vs. "specialized" video 
phone, like this one is.  I'm not proposing a syntax or tagging 
scheme (yet), but do I welcome suggestions from the wider perspective 
of OSM and those knowledgeable about the gamut of video phones and 
their associated technology as of today, as well as with an eye 
towards how video phone technology will progress in the near- and 
longer-term future.

THEN, there is the whole topic of how and whether "border guards" get 
to, or can, or do, or might, or shall "look at your passport when you 
cross an international border."  (I mean legally speaking, no matter 
how polite or civilized).  I suppose a simplified version of how I 
feel about this is to say "if it is legally required, do so..." but 
there are a whole host of gray zones here I'm only touching the tip 
of the iceberg by mentioning here.  So I'll just stop with that 
aspect of it (as talk-us may not be the appropriate venue -- perhaps 
a Discussion page in our wiki is) and leave it at that.

SteveA
California
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