[Talk-us] Is there any value at all in tiger:MTFCC and tiger:FUNCSTAT tags? (Kevin Kenny)

[OSM Volunteer stevea]

FWIW, I believe these TIGER tags have exceedingly low value in OSM:  approaching or at zero.  I say this because of a large/wide/far-reaching consensus we have reached with "similar" values in the USA on boundary=admin_level tags, where such entities were not only found to not be admin_levels (e.g. school districts and special districts are not those), but also that a taginfo query found that out of millions of boundary tag entries, fewer than a dozen of them were boundary=school.  The myriad flavors of special districts are similar:  few entries and low value to OSM.

The usage of a tag (via taginfo) does give some indication of its usefulness (e.g. school can't be that important a boundary tag if there are only nine or ten of them in all of OSM), unless massive numbers of them were imported, as from TIGER and these MTFCC and FUNCSTAT crufty stuff.  But when we can hardly figure them out (although Kenny did a great job explaining what they MIGHT mean) AND they are from a "hoary old import" (as TIGER is often called), there really is good argument to remove them.  I'd vote to do so in a heartbeat (if were collecting votes, and we don't appear to be doing so).  Hence, my logic-outline instead.  If they are essentially useless — and many seem to agree they are — I believe it is prudent to remove them.

SteveA
California