Proposal:Denomination

Note: this page preserved for reference use only, for current usage refer to Tag:amenity=place_of_worship

Currently there is the one tag amenity=place_of_worship

However there is a need to differentiate between religions, otherwise:

• we lack information on what the place of worship is;

• it becomes difficult to draw a map which has some universal symbol for a place of worship which would not cause offence to various religions. The current version of Osmarender (which implements the map features page) only allows for amenity=place_of_worship. Currently this renders as something obviously Christian in origin.

good idea, proposed rendering is a cross for christian (maybe differentiate between catholic and protestant in the style of the cross), a half-moon for moslems, a [star of david for jews and a diamond for hindus --blk 19:46, 22 Jul 2006 (BST)

List of religions (to prevent different ways of typing them):

• bahai (Baha'i)
• buddhist
• christian
• christian_quaker (on advice of a quaker friend, not to be shown as a normal church but as a "Friends Meeting House")
• hindu
• jain
• jehovahs_witness (Jehovah's Witness)
• jewish
• mormon
• muslim
• sikh
• spiritualist
• taoist
• unitarianist
• pastafarian

(please expand)

Name of tag (denomination/religion)

To follow up on TomChance's recent revision to this page, denomination is not the proper term here. When I think of the churches nearby to me, there are several denominations represented: United, Anglican, Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, etc. But they are all Christian. I think there's a value in tagging which religion it is to provide the proper symbol for most uses, but it should not appropriate another term, especially one where there may be value in retaining that info. (For example, one might want a map showing all the Anglican churches in a given area...)

It would seem that the list above should be a "religion" tag, so that the denomination tag might be used for--oh, I don't know--denominations.

I'm relatively new, so I don't know the ins and outs of the situation. I'm guessing it wouldn't work for the same thing to be tagged both denomination=christian and denomination=presbyterian (for example). - Cafemusique 16:05, 14 October 2006 (BST)

I agree with this, it this particular tag should be "religion=". You would then have "religion=christian, denomination={church_of_england,catholic,methodist,united_reformed,free_church}", etc, as well as "religion={muslim,mormon,jehovahs_witness,sikh,..." etc. Each religion would have different denominations, as appropriate (i.e. Muslim might have sunni,shia, etc). "anglican" may be a better term for "church_of_england", for worldwide use in the "denomination" tag, too. Matthew Newton 17:11, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, this worried me when I extended the list of "denominations". A tag each for religion and denomination would be much better, but let's make sure we get it right and don't piss off too many people by, for example, suggesting that Jehovah's Witnesses are Christian or that Quakers aren't :) TomChance 20:53, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually, Jehovah's Witnesses are Christian, so I guess you've inadvertently proved your point - it's easy to get it wrong. (No, I'm not one, but I was raised as one as a child before fleeing as quickly as possible...) Phillip@comsomol.org 19:35, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

May I suggest that there is no formal list of "denominations" and that denomination should be exactly as noted from the church's sign, for example, denomination=Roman Catholic or denomination=Uniting Church of Eastern Australia. This would a) make it easier to render b) make things more accurate, for example the "Uniting Church" is very big here but I've no clue what relation the "Uniting Church of Eastern Australia" has with any other Uniting Church sects. I appreciate that this has a down-side and would appreciate other opinions. MikeCollinson 07:02, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Votes to change denomination= to religion

Following on from the discussion above I propose that denomination= be changed to religion=. Voting will run from 19 November 2006 to 10 Dec 2006. User:JLS/speller has confirmed that the speller will be able to change all existing nodes tagged as denomination=, so if the voting is successful I will instruct him to make the change. Dmgroom 22:31, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Votes in favour of the change

• I 'approve' the change. Dmgroom 22:31, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
• I approve the change, and suggest denomination remains to distinguish, well, denominations of religions. TomChance 22:50, 19 November 2006 (UTC).

If denomination "remains" in use it might confuse the automatic spell checker. I would therefore suggest that denomination 'not' be kept in use for a while after voting has ended, after which period you put denomination= back on the list of proposed features. Dmgroom 22:57, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

• I approve the change. Cafemusique 23:10, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
• I approve the change. Grant Slater 00:28, November 2006 (UTC)
• I approve the change. Blackadder 10:44, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
• I approve the change, so long as denomination 'reappears' later, as per dmgroom above. Gravitystorm 13:01, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
• I approve the change. Phillip@comsomol.org 19:37, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
• I approve the change. Ben. 22:22 20th Novemeber 2006 (UTC)
• I approve the change, so long as denomination 'reappears' later, as per dmgroom above. Higgy 18:43, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
• I approve the change, agree that denomination should come back, and wonder if we could change the spellchecker to only convert denomination=christian -> religion=christian, etc. leaving any more "correct" uses like denomination=methodist in place? Mcknut 17:05, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

It sure is possible but don't hold your breath while waiting for me to do it. I have been thinking about doing such things but I don't see when I will be able to do it. However, I could upload the speller to svn, should anyone else offer to do it. --JLS 20:41, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

• I approve the change, and second Mcknut's request that conversion is only done where the value is recognised as a religion, I confess to having entered many, many denomination tags with a denomination value MikeCollinson 06:50, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Conclusion of voting

The change was approved, and the tag 'religion=', will now be used to properly denote the religion, with 'denomination=' used to provide further classification within a religion, see Tag:amenity=place_of_worship. Dmgroom 21:02, 10 December 2006 (UTC)