Proposal:Discourage amenity=public building
| Discourage amenity=public_building | |
|---|---|
| Proposal status: | Abandoned (inactive) |
| Proposed by: | Math1985 |
| Tagging: | amenity=public_building |
| Applies to: | |
| Definition: | DISCOURAGED, use a more specific tag, such as office=government or office=administrative, instead |
| Statistics: |
|
| Draft started: | 2016-01-15 |
This proposal has been abandoned in favour of Proposed_features/Government_offices.
Proposal
Explicitly mark the tag amenity=public_building as discouraged by changing the wiki page to contain the following text:
The use of this tag is discouraged. A more specific tag should be used instead. If the particular use is not known, a new survey might be necessary.
Some examples:
- office=government for an office of an agency or department of the national/state government.
- office=administrative for an office of a local administrative authority, not related to the state government.
- amenity=townhall for a local government seat.
- amenity=community_centre for a facility for group activities.
Other relevant tags might be
Rationale
The tag amenity=public_building never had a clear definition. It has been marked as 'Don't use' on the wiki, apparently without discussion, since 2010 (see http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:amenity%3Dpublic_building ). It is used for a wide range of different things, such as government buildings, train stations, expo halls, art centres, municipal sport centres, and band stands, amongst others. Nearly all of these have more specific other tags.
Some mappers use this tag for government buildings. However, the tags office=government and office=administrative seem more suitable as these tags have a more precise definition.
The tag is still widely used (111 941 instances), and supported by JOSM. For this reason, and because marking the tag as "Don't use" has never been discussed with the community before, it seems to make sense to discuss the status of this tag with the community.