Greetings.
In the information=board wiki it states that tourism=information tag is required, and this is true with iD, for example. However, there are information boards that clearly have no touristic interest, like legal informations, boards, parish and neighbourhood info, church mass times, obituaries, etc. In these cases, should we avoid the tourism=information tag or should we consider this as a top level-catch-all tag for all kinds of information boards?
Appears to be a catch all and then board_type on top to specify what the information board is telling.
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:board_type
which tells if itās map to use tourism=information + information=map rather than is being a board_type.
I think that most people do use tourism=information in such cases. Thereās a bit of usage of amenity=notice_board, but not much.
If you want to see usage of information=board without tourism=information move this query over your area of interest and run it.
Never pay too much attention to the semantics of the key (or even the tag). Once a usage is established then it is always best to run with it. Over time information may be enough on its own, but it will always have a parentage from tourism. The time to worry about this sort of thing is when the established semantics of already tagged elements differs significantly from that which you are mapping (not true in this case). I wrote about one such case recently.
(An aside: I have always found tourism=hotel annoying, because I have spent far more times in hotels when Iāve been working than when Iāve been a tourist).
Allow me to disagree with you. Itās always time to discuss semantics if thereās a way to improve and organize the data. A legal announcement board or an obituary board is not a touristic thing and should have a better scheme.
BTW, it seems Iām not the only one with this question. See:
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Tag:information%3Dboard
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Key:board_type#Legal_notice_boards_are_specifically_not_for_tourism
If you are travelling for working purpose (which I did extensively for many years) you are also some kind of tourist (= on tour), not a holiday tourist, but a working tourist. From that point of view a hotel has always to do with tourism.
We are all just guest here on earth, I read in an obituary.
Not to side track the discussion, but I had a close friend years ago who managed hotels and at least according to them most of their business was from locals. Usually either prostitutes or people who wanted a non-descript place to hook up. My guess would be if you throw in people who are visiting the area on business and/or the unhoused then tourists are probably an extremely small percentage of the hotel industries costumer base overall. Especially if your talking about areas that arenāt touristy to begin with or where itās only seasonal. So an argument could definitely be made that tourism isnāt the best top level tag for hotels.
I might start using that. Parish notices etc. have never seemed remotely interesting to any sort of tourist.
There is already advertising=board + message=
āAdvertisingā is different from āInformationā. I wouldnāt go that way.
amenity=notice_board would seem a good alternative, but the wiki clearly states not to use it (no idea why).
amenity=notice_boardwould seem a good alternative, but the wiki clearly states not to use it (no idea why).
seems it was introduced here
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Tag%3Ainformation%3Dboard&type=revision&diff=1983221&oldid=1876927
I would ask the mapper if theyāre ok with removing it and then remove it, or continue discussing here, according to the outcome.
I completely agree and sympathize with your comments.
And weāve been seeing similar discussions lately. - One of the similar types of discussions
But unfortunately, there are already too many contradictions in the OSM wiki and I think itās already āCHAOSā.
And whenever someone brings it up, the conclusion seems to be āit canāt be helpedā or that they have given up on the possibility of fundamental improvement.
So, if it were me, I would just go along with it or use it as I want to use it.
I can almost guarantee you that no one will be able to help you.
Most towns and villages have public notice boards where locals can learn of events taking place, to look out for a lost cat.
They are not advertising and are not aimed at tourists
I agree, thatās why I proposed to remove the warning in the wiki
But thatās what message= is used for. Isnāt events part of advertising? Lost & found is still advertising for something people should know and do. They are published on newpaper ads columns anyway. Advertising is not limited to commercials. Missing person, call for witness in traffic incidents, etc are all advertising. advertising= represents the advertising devices, which can be used in different purposes. Does an amenity=notice_board suddenly become an advertising=board if an ad is stuck on it? Or vice versa for notices?
tourism=information + information=board is usually more static and dedicated, about some topic near itself.
No, but advertising is often against the terms of use and will be removed.
Of course you can argue that advertising is a kind of information, but semantics aside, I would say that advertising in OSM is well defined as any kind of commercial publicity.
Your example of āan amenity=notice_board suddenly become an advertising=board if an ad is stuck on itā is a limit situation which must be decided based on survey and on the mapperās judgement, but the important here is the boardās purpose, not the occasional use made by someone that passes by.
I would think it also covers political advertising
Thatās why I mentioned a possible criteria. information=board is mostly fixed info about a locally relevant topic. The content of adveritisng=board is usually always changing, and not necessarily occurring locally.