Proposal:Man made=mountaineers mailbox
| Mountaineer's mailbox | |
|---|---|
| Proposal status: | Inactive (inactive) |
| Proposed by: | Foronda_levt |
| Tagging: | man_made=mountaineers_mailbox |
| Applies to: | 
|
| Definition: | A "mailbox" placed at the top of some mountains. |
| Statistics: |
|
| Draft started: | 2016-09-04 |
| RFC start: | 2016-09-06 |
Some mountains have a "mailbox" at the summit. When mountaineers reach it, they may leave a card where they write down their contact data, weather, date of the hike... Then, the next mountaineers who reach the summit pick the card in order to give it back to the owner (sending it via mail, for example).
Most mountaineer's mailboxes have a plaque with the name of the summit, elevation and the year when it was placed.
Usage
Rationale
Even if they share the name, mountaineer's mailboxes cannot be tagged with amenity=post_box because they are not used at all to deposit letters. The specific nature of summit mailboxes makes them different from historic=memorial too; plaques in summit mailboxes are used to inform, not to remember anyone.
They can be found in most mountains in Spain (more than 4000), but I don't know if they are so usual in other countries. Some mountaineers even try to "log" as many mailboxes as possible; and even if this practice is not as much extended as it was in the past, it is still customary for most mountaineers to check the interior of the mailboxes.
This object also appears to differ from summit:register=yes.
Tagging
Mailboxes may display a name which is not the same as the official one, with variations such as Aiztzuri/Aitxuri. In addition, they usually bear the date when the mailbox was placed; and have a ref=* which doesn't apply to the mountain itself, just to the mailbox. Moreover, mailboxes are almost never placed in the exact summit; so it would be appropiate to place the summit and the mailbox in different nodes.
Mailboxes are placed by mountain clubs, which are responsible of looking after them. operator=* could be used to display this information. Many other tags could be used to describe the physical nature of the mailbox, such as height=* or material=*.
Examples
| Tags | Notes | Photo |
|---|---|---|
man_made=mountaineers mailbox name=Aiztzuri date=1975-12-14 operator=Arrola Mendizale Elkartea |
Aitxuri (Aizkorri). Note that the operator=* value is not "Antzuola'ko "Arrola" Mendigoizale Taldea". As the mailbox was placed 40 years ago, the name of the organization has changed, and therefore the tag should reflect the current name. This is also useful to keep tagging uniform (if there's a newer mailbox placed by the same organization, it will bear the current name; it would make no sense to tag with different values the same operator). | Example |
man_made=mountaineers mailbox name=Larredez date=1981-1-1 operator=Club de Montaña Gasteiz |
Aitxuri (Iturrieta). Larredez is an alternative name for Aitxuri. This is common mostly in less known summits. | Example |
Applies to
Nodes. Summit mailboxes are usually small in size.
Rendering
an icon proposal.
Features/Pages affected
man_made=*, as it would be a new value for this key.
Comments
Please comment on the discussion page.