Talk:Tag:information=board

In medium/small italian municipalities I often find boards where administration delivers public notices. Since they are not addressed to tourists but rather to residents, I think required tag tourism should be optional.

--Cascafico (talk) 12:39, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

I agree - My local leisure centre has information boards iain1940 (talk) 19:55, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Use network=*-Key?

Hi, it seams like many information boards belong to a group of signs. Wouldn't it make sense to use the network=*-Key on them to point out that network? --Mfbehrens99 (talk) 07:29, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

What do you mean by "belong to a group of signs"? I can understand tagging the "network" it is showing information for. -- Kovposch (talk) 08:00, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

I mean that usually multiple signs are distributed across a city or a hiking trail to educate visitors about history or nature. --Mfbehrens99 (talk) 06:24, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

You can add them to the trail's Relation:route. network=* sounds like the grouping for multiple trails. -- Kovposch (talk) 09:03, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Can this be a touch device?

Question. Can this be a touch device? For example, a touch monitor in a cemetery where you can find the locations of the deceased. --Valeriobozz (talk) 18:07, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

• Perhaps tag information=terminal is better for this situation? — Grass-snake (talk) 18:55, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

I think yep. Thank you --Valeriobozz (talk) 19:46, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

A title is not a name

Unfortunately, Mateusz reverted my change without any discussion, which I find kinda a rude but let's talk it out. The given reference is kinda useless as three people are in no way indicative of a consensus or thorough debate.

As of now...

• The section name indicates that the tags are the recommended ones although the name tag is controversial.
• The phrasing of the name tag use does not reflect that it describes the current usage (only). It does not give any indication of negative consequences or that it conflicts with the definition/usage recommendation of name=*: "Do not use name=* if: The feature is unnamed in the real world". You won't find many references like signpost to boards, on maps, flyers etc. in general (because they usually *don't have a name* ;) even less so with the title as the reference.

There is already a lot of misuse of the name tag in OSM (where I am sure we all agree it actually is misuse, e.g., name=Tennis on a random tennis pitch) and it is increasing because we encourage it for many object types in our editors. For exmaple, JOSM shows the name field in template dialogs at the very top for many types where almost no physical feature actual has a name. If you look at the state of google maps, one can get a feel where this eventually leads to: maps where renderers overrepresent minuscule features that seldom are of direct interest and hiding important but unnamed objects.

Apart from the current state in OSM there is no good reason to continue entrenching this problem by completely ignoring it in the documentation in the (admittedly) minor aspect of information=board.

--Stefanct (talk) 08:56, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

That is because discussion already happened for example in https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/tagging/2021-January/thread.html#59086 and noone agreed with you (though only one person agreed with me - feel free to post it to tagging again or to https://community.openstreetmap.org/ or other open discussion place) Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 08:47, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Three people sending 1.33 emails each is not a discussion. I even forgot about that thread because it was obviously non-authoritative. I have led numerous discussions with my mapping peers though and they were quite one-sided. In fact, I can't remember anybody who was strongly in favor of the current practice. Also, I don't see any reason why we should continue/restart the ML discussion as apparently it is not interesting to its subscribers.

You did not address any of my concerns stated above. They and my change go farther than simply declaring name as wrong. The current documentation is completely insufficient in describing the current state of affairs.

--Stefanct (talk) 10:33, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

I just updated the article text to:

• The board title is most commonly tagged with name=*, however it has been argued that board:title=* should be used instead.[1]

I think that objectively summarizes the current situation. --Push-f (talk) 10:58, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Jumping into the discussion as a (up to now) neutral person: While I find the "name-tag misuse" here indeed not too good and I would personally vote for replacing it by something like "board:title=", this tagging is widely established and seen as okay by the community as far as I can tell. A proposal for deprecating the usage of the "name" tag as title could help here to formally establish what the concensus of the community is.

Until this (or at least a more widespread discussion) has happened, I'd vouch for documenting the status quo here: State that the usage of the "name"-tag for the title is generally seen as ok for boards, but that this usage contrasts with the name is the name only policy. And then also mention that there are other options available, like the proposed "board:title", that might fit better.

Edit because typing too slowly: the changes by Push-f sort of already do this now, but the argument could be extended Pbnoxious (talk) 11:12, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

"this usage contrasts with the name is the name only policy" - that depends on a bit philosophical question whether information board have names or not. Personally I am fine with considering board with title "History of smithing in Foobar" to be also board named "History of smithing in Foobar" Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 12:52, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

I agree with stefanct here, while a information-board might have a title referring to something its usally not a name on its own. It often referring to something with a name. The title should be stored with board:title=* as it was already suggested. I think the current version (thanks Push-f) is a compromise to show how it should be made with board:title=* but currently it often happens with name=* instead. --Negreheb 11:10, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Thank you, stefanct, for raising this issue. The use of name=* for the headers of information boards has evolved historically. Now with board:title, a more specific and appropriate term is documented. Sticking to name=* seems to me somehow like whitewashing ... --geow (talk) 20:30, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Boards that are long and thin

For boards that are long and thin, often lines, not points, would be better, to represent things sometimes 5 meters long. Jidanni (talk) 00:51, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Boards with multiple titles

A few boards have multiple titles, or multiple lines that are all used as a title. Line breaks are represented with a / for inscription=*, but would that work for titles as well? Or is there another method we should used to indicate a title has multiple lines?

"Network" tag has priority over "board:title" if no name is given

At least when seen on the ID editor, boards that possess a network=* tag and a board:title=* tag, but do NOT possess a name=* tag, end up displaying the network=* tag instead of the board:title=* tag on the map. Is this just a quirk of the ID editor, or will this carry over to rendering? Mecheye (talk) 14:15, 29 June 2023 (UTC)