[OSM-talk] Prolification of the amenity tag

[David Groom]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "bvh" <bvh-osm at irule.be>
To: <talk at openstreetmap.org>
Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2006 9:48 AM
Subject: [OSM-talk] Prolification of the amenity tag


> While this mail has been triggered by the proposal for
> amenity="wifi", it is more about the amenities tag in general and
> that is why I bring it up here instead of on the wiki.
>
> My take on the amenities tag is that recent proposals have drifted to
> uses that are better served outside the openstreetmap database.
>
> For starters a (maybe) trivial conclusion : we do not want to tag
> everything that has a location (even if we could). So the question
> is where do we draw the line?
>
> My take on it is that we should try to tag everything that is needed
> to find your way (the purpose of a map, no?) So it's perfectly
> reasonable to tag football stadiums and churches because by virtue
> of being easily recognizable they serve as a point of reference
> out there in the field.
>
> However, amenities="wifi", ="park_ride", ="clinic" etc don't share
> that purpose. There is little value to add them to a map.
>
> That is not to say there is no value in knowing where these things are.
> But that purpose is better served with a seperate project
> (let's call it openyellowpages). And certainly in Web 2.0 spirit
> of things there would be a mash-up so that if a user searches for
> all wifi zones in her neighbourhoud she'd get back a map from
> openstreetmap and an overlay from openyellowpages.
>
> So, I'll be voting against nearly all amenities proposals that are
> currently being considered and I hope to find some people who think
> the same about this.
>

I think you make a valid point here.  The problem is in knowing where to 
draw the line about what to include in OSM and what to include in mashups.


> (Coincidently don't we need a page in the wiki with refused proposals?
> one thing we can immediatly add is flight paths.)

see
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Old_Proposed_Features


>
> cu bart
>
> _______________________________________________
> talk mailing list
> talk at openstreetmap.org
> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
>
>