I want to thank all those who participated in this interesting discussion.
As an attempt to catch the suggestions I read, I would propose changing the wiki pages of man_made=windmill and building=windmill to try and clarify these two elements.
building=windmill would encompass all buildings constructed to mill cereals or other less common things with the help of blades/sails moved by the wind. The page should present other options to better describe its characteristics, like the life cycle and other elements usually attributed to buildings. If the building is still in use, either with a craft or as a museum, for example, that also should be added.
man_made=windmill would be reserved for the objects, machines, structures created to harness the force of the wind to do some kind of mechanical work.
man_made=windpumpwould keep its definition as a tower or device which uses the force of the wind to pump something, usually water from the ground.
No, Peter.
The tag building=* should be reserved to buildings, the man_made=* tag should be reserved for all other objects/elements, like the one you posted here, which is more of a device, not a building.
But this object is not a windmill, it is a windpump (for water obviously). So why would we call a windpump on top of a lattice tower a man_made=windpump and the windpump in the sample pic a man_made=windmill?!?
As noted, partly because in some dialects of (at least American and Australian) English, we conflate these words (generic “windmill” encompassing all of [windmill, wind pump, wind turbine]). It is not only sensible tagging, it is “correct in our language.”
This only partly explains things, similar to how looking at one side of a coin might cause some people to say “the face (bust, profile…) of a famous, heroic, leadership person of that country…” (the “heads” side) and others might say “a bird, or a building, or an idealized icon of that country” (the “tails” side). It’s a coin in both (all) cases, but what it is called is more narrow or more wide (w.r.t. the word “windmill”) depending on the wide context of the world and its concepts of wording regarding windmills (and wind pumps and wind turbines). I hope that helps.
I think a building=windmill would also be a man_made=windmill, under these definitions. Right?
to me this would seem the most logical. It wouldn’t make sense to say a windmill fits the definition for man_made=windmill but will not get the tag because it is a „building“
I have no doubt about that but a tagging scheme should fit a certain kind of object all over the word, not just the US and OZ. I am aware that “windmill” is used widespread for all kinds of wind driven devices and I have no objection against that, but it would be good to have some logic in our tagging. So if this man made device used for pumping water like this one
is tagged as a “man_made=windpump”, then it would be difficult to understand that this man made device used for pumping water
would have to be tagged as “man_made=windmill” (according to the proposal of @AntMadeira in #53) instead.
So either we should tag all such devices as
Option 1 “man_made=windpump” or alternatively as
Option 2 “man_made=windmill” + windmill=windpump"
If the pumping device is incorporated in a building like in the post 58 of @Peter_Elderson the tagging could be
"building=windmill + man_made=windpump (on a separate node within the outline of the building) according to option 1 or
“building=windmill + windmill=windpump” according to option 2.
Both options would fit and enable every mapper to reflect the real world object by the tags used.
That would not be a “you must”, it is nothing but a “you can”.
I recall a story about six (or so) blind (sightless) people who touched an elephant and came to six (or so) conclusions about what it is…
(Not that they were simply describing it in their local way of “seeing” things).
Regarding
that tagging for that object (first photo, with the russet-colored trapezoidal-shaped water tower) already doesn’t make sense to me. So, we already get bumpy.
I like this discussion: little if any judgement, seeing that we see things differently. Now, we have to contend with finding agreement on the language (tagging) of how we do it. I think we can.
Edit: Option 2 works for me. Option 1, while is awkward as language, might be OK for tagging, but it still seems awkward to me.
So I guess my perspective is ok here, in the sense that a building is a building and a device is a device.
Regarding more particular cases, like the ones pointed by @Peter_Elderson, namely in the Dutch community, I like the option 1 listed here, because although the word “windmill” is more often used in some parts of the world, “windpump” is more descriptive and lesse open to ambiguities.
So a wind mill (building) which has another function inside (either a pump, a museum or a cafe), can be tagged this way:
building=windmill + man_made=windpump (as another node inside or added to the building=* tag)
this way, we wouldn’t need to create a subtag windmill=* just for that (unless there are other uses that I’m not aware of)
as for those kind of devices like the one from Wikipedia with no building, I believe they’re better described as man_made=windpump (and not windmill as I wrote in my previous message).
Again, speaking personally, I don’t pay attention too much to whether there is a building, and I (rather lazily) CALL this thing and things like it, wind pumps and wind turbines included, windmills (even though there is no grain getting ground nor “milling” of anything, really).
However, others do (pay attention to building=* and tagging); that’s fine and we’re trying to be precise about tagging. It’s a bit like nailing jelly to a wall, but we do seem to be getting closer. I might squint and shrug a bit, but I can be persuaded to go along with better tagging…once I know what it is. So, I listen and politely participate with my perspective(s).
A medium-term (years) evolution from the state-of-things-now to some ideal looks likely ahead. I want to tune in again in a year or so, but it’s a little static-y now.
I appreciate how receptive and welcoming we are here together with our perspectives.
This combination feels a little confusing to me, as it doesn’t explicitly state that “windpump” is a sub-type of “windmill”. IMHO the windmill=windpump style makes this much more explicit and immediately understandable.
My voice for Option 2 as well. I’d prefer to call all this wind driven objects “windmill”, which would be sufficient as generic tag, no further specification mandatory.
If mappers want to add such specification, they can continue with windmill=* (windpump, sawmill, whatsoever).
This would work with building=windmill (being a building) as well as man_made=windmill (being a technical device).
To my understanding this is the most simple and effective approach.
If we can come to an agreement that option 2 would suite the windmill issue best then we should not hesitate to deprecate man_made=windpump in favour of man_made=windmill + windmill=windpump.
man_made=windpump is not that much in use (some 3.300 uses) that it would not be possible to replace these tags within some time.
I’m also in favour of that, but then the aim would be to deprecate man_made=windpump and not man_made=windmill
I don’t know if people from regions where those objects are more present would mind with that change, but it seems to me a good reorganization of these two tags.
The tag windmill=* could even be attributed to those windmill buildings in the Netherlands that are used today as water pumps.
