[OSM-talk] bot proposal: shop values cleanup (low use values only, 1 used 250 times, three over 100 times, many used less)

[Andy Townsend]

On 20/04/2023 19:50, Mateusz Konieczny via talk wrote:
> For start I want to propose to people to review shop tags in their area
> with undocumented shop values or ones documented as problematic.
>
> See http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/1u2o
>

Reviewing "odd" tags before tagfiddling them away seems to me a very 
sensible approach.  However, running that query locally finds, alongside 
a couple of typos by me, lots that are very much correct, but just not 
on your list - there are some very odd shops out there.

To change "shop=veryrarevalue" where it was correct to 
"shop=lessrarevalue"without preserving the detail somehow loses detail 
from OSM and is therefore by definition a Bad Thing.  Some of the 
entries on your list I'd definitely want to check onsite ("gun" and 
"firearms" is one obvious one such, but there are others).

Also, changing rare shop types into "yes" helps absolutely no-one.  If a 
data consumer wants to handle a catch-all for "shop" they can; they 
don't need them to be set to "yes" first.

That doesn't mean we should keep obvious rubbish in OSM - 
"shop=stationary" is an obvious and amusing typo for "shop=stationery".  
Single-use examples, especially featuring capital letters like 
https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/1u2R ("shop=Chandlery") are also obvious 
candidates for changing to something at least non-capitalised.

The rest, however, I really won't worry about.  I disagree very much 
with your paragraph that starts "For quite long time...", but let's not 
let that get in the way of fixing what ought to be fixed - either 
manually or automatically.

Best Regards,

Andy