Proposal talk:Government offices

Some thoughts

1. Status "Proposed" requires an RFC date. Otherwise, the Status should be "Draft".
2. Section "Discouraged tags" includes office=administrative, although the "Rationale" section rightfully states that office=administrative seems suitable due to its precise definition.
3. I dislike the idea of discouraging office=administrative, because it is somewhat established in some countries (e.g. mine). office=government in conjunction with admin_level=* might be more flexible, but the exemption of amenity=townhall and courthouse indicates that this tagging scheme comes late. Keeping these tags might still leave us in doubt how to tag city governments. We should rather make the distinctions clearer instead of dropping tags.
4. The government=* key has little to do with the deprecation of amenity=public_building. Therefore, I suggest to split the proposal, i.e. to reactivate the proceding proposal.

--Fkv (talk) 15:39, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the useful feedback!

# Thanks for pointing out, corrected now!

# Corrected as well.

# I added some explanation why I'd be in favour of discouraging this tag.

# I think the two topics are rather intertwined. Most people seem to be against deprecating amenity=public_building without an alternative being offered, and I think also quite a lot of people would be against office=government if it will merely serve as a duplicate of amenity=public_building.

Math1985 (talk) 23:04, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

I don't agree with deprecation of office=administrative

The word "govern" implies reign, power. But there are a lot of state offices that perform not governing functions but social services. Pension services and social welfare offices for aged people are the such examples.

I persuade that we must split offices and agencies that issue laws and ordinances (rulers of the people) from ones that apply existing laws in the interests of people (servants of the people).

So governments, ministries, president's administrations should be put into office=government, and offices of a pension fund, social welfare offices, register offices, tax offices should be put into office=administrative

There may be some variants for local governments. If the local government possesses law-making functions then it should be tagged as office=government. But if it acts as a household administration, then it must be tagged as office=administrative.

In summary:

• law-makers go into office=government
• households and social services go into office=administrative.

--Surly (talk) 19:28, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

That's an interesting proposal. However, it's rather different from the way we use office=government/office=administration now. Also, I think it would not always be easy to draw the line. For example, a city's traffic department mainly does administration but they also make legislation (traffic ordnances). And what about something like the statistics office? They don't really do administration in the sense pension funds do, but rather support the legislative process. Even ministries probably contain large departments that don't bother with law-making. Math1985 (talk) 21:30, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

> it's rather different from the way we use office=government/office=administration now

Dear sirs! It was me who introduced the office=administrative value.

I introduced it in order to put into office=government only those offices who really govern.

According to my intention, the right criteria for government/administrative is not "state vs. local" but "reign vs. serve". I put a local administrtation into the "administrative" because they mostly act as a household management, not because of size or administration level. Due to my bad English (my English is rather read-only) I was not able to explain the conception well and established some chaos in tagging. I'm very sorry for that global misconception, and I think this proposal may become the way to bring a good order to current situation.

> city's traffic department mainly does administration but they also make legislation (traffic ordnances).

> And what about something like the statistics office? They don't really do administration but rather support the legislative process.

The criterion should be the obligation to obey them for people at large.

If all citizens (not only the person particullary specified in the order) must obey the directive of the office, then the office is office=government. If directives issued by the office are internal documents or binded to a particular person, then the office is office=administrative.

--Surly (talk) 08:49, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

I see, thank you for the clarification! That is indeed not how I first interpreted the wiki page. I think it makes sense what you propose, but now we are in the situation that city councils are tagged office=administration, I think it is rather hard to still roll out your original idea. Math1985 (talk) 09:44, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

This is about the Activity, not Ownership

I am thinking of the cases where a) a government-owned building is not being used for government purposes and b) where a privately-owned premises IS being used for government purposes.

Case a) can happen with excess real estate, and sports accommodations, whose usage has little to do with government.

Case b) can happen where government activities (including, for example, health and social care) have been outsourced to third parties

Based on the premise that this is about the activity carried on within the building, and nothing to do with who owns it or who paid for it, I would use the office=government tag on case b) but NOT for case a).

Anyone agree or disagree? --Csmale (talk) 18:01, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Typically governments don't "own" buildings, it's the public that owns the building, the state or the municipality etc., not the government. Also political parties can own buildings, regardless of being in the government or not. This said, I'd use the office=government tag for offices operated by the government, regard of ownership of the real estate. --Dieterdreist (talk) 09:00, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

I don't understand your point about governments not owning buildings. Government is not only central/national; states, provinces, municipalities etc are also forms of (local) government. They are the vehicle through which the public "own" various assets (in land registries, cadastres etc). Political parties are completely different - there is often a ban on using government property for party-political purposes. --Csmale (talk) 09:17, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Yes, sorry for the disruption, apparently in anglo saxon countries, "government property" is a perfectly valid and often used word. I was not referring to the hierarchy of local, regional and national and was well aware that government could mean local or regional government. It's just that in German the public property is called "state property" (Öffentliches Eigentum = Staatseigentum + Landeseigentum + Kommunaleigentum) and the government is seen as an administrator of this property, not as the "owner", but this likely has to do with the more differentiated meaning of government, which is also used as a synonymon for everything state related in anglo saxon countries, and not just for the executive branch. Do you know if even the non-governing opposition in parliament is part of the "government" in this usage? I guess judges are independent and not subordinate to the executive or legislative branch in anglo saxon countries too? --Dieterdreist (talk) 09:42, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

building or site

IMHO this tag should go on the site in case there is a site extending the building(s). As this is about a function, everything on the site (parking, driveways, fences, surveillance cams etc.) belongs to the entity. --Dieterdreist (talk) 09:02, 22 February 2016 (UTC)