I want to tag features similar to this:
Usually, they are referred to as a “gas meter”, but I wasn’t able to find any information on the wiki about how people tag them. I would place a node at it’s location, or, if it’s big enough, an area covering its outline. utility=gas would be a tag that’d make sense, but I’m not sure what else to add to increase the specificity.
Interesting - I have never seen a gas installation like this open air. All those I know are locked up in a building or in a street cabinet or the like. Are there many of those in your place?
My opinion to your question: I would tag this a man_made=gas_meter. Not in use so far (probably because there are not many of those?) but there are 15 gas_valve and 22 water_meter, so I would not see any reason to call this object by its name.
=gas_valve is inappropriate, as there is already pipeline=valve
No specific feature exists for these. It’s not a pipeline=substation or =street_cabinet . Key:measurement - OpenStreetMap Wiki
There are 114 pipeline=measurement . But all these seem overlapping with =monitoring_station .
They seem to be rather common in North America (afaik USA and Canada). There are some that are locked up, but these open ones seem to be very common on residential buildings.
Out of curiosity, can I ask why you would want to map these?
Are these residential gas meters or do they serve some sort of public amenity?
Some could be residential, but the meters that I am currently looking at aren’t. In any case, I don’t think I would go so far as to classify residential gas meters, or otherwise, as an “amenity”.
I’m really just documenting what things are occupying an area. That being said, I do think I see the point that you are making, though — why map it if a person can’t meaningfully interact with the feature? I think I would agree with this sentiment, though I am unsure how to determine, or even if I should attempt to, what is and isn’t of use to others. I tend to approach mapping by adding as much detail as I can and letting future people determine the use.
What do they serve then?
Gas meters looking like the one in the picture are very common in southern Ontario, Canada. To a first approximation, nearly every building will have one. They measure how much gas a customer uses, and they have what I understand is an overpressure protection valve – the round thing in top left of the installation in the picture – which is why they’re always outside. So mapping those would be at the level of micromapping at or beyond mapping each house’s picket fence, so that’s probably why there’s not a lot of tag usage so far.
If it’s free-standing in open space with no building nearby, it could be some sort of compressor station instead? Something with Tag:utility=gas - OpenStreetMap Wiki or Tag:substance=gas - OpenStreetMap Wiki perhaps?
Alternatively, Gas holder - Wikipedia are called “gasometers” sometimes, are you sure it’s not that?
Correct.
The gas meter is not part of a pipeline but of a minor distribution pipe. And it is not a monitoring station either.
Correct, and the object is not simply a valve (although valves are incorporated). The main purpose of this thing is to measure the consumption of gas flowing through the pipe. As queenofthenightosphere has written, the common name for it is gas meter and I do not see any reason why it should not be tagged as man_made=gas_meter.
Sure, but it is a physical object and as such it may well be mapped. And it is definitely not a gasometer, but a gas meter …
… so it should also be tagged as such.
This is a man_made=pipeline . You should use usage= to define it.
There’s no restriction on where =monitoring_station should be used either. It only lacks a monitoring:*= , and something could be added for its purpose. Eg among the dozen monitoring:lightning= , at least 1 appears to be a local one (for a =siren in a =park ), not for a meteorology service. Node: 10912560323 | OpenStreetMap
A gas meter is not a monitoring station but a meter station. Nevertheless we are free to bend this key and include a consumption meter into its use. So we would end at something like
man_made=monitoring_station
monitoring:gas=consumption
whereas the simple and closer to reality solution would be
man_made=gas_meter
see also:
Ultimately the interpretation is up to the user, and the only principle really applies is KISS (“Keep It Simple, Silly”), or alternatively, “Do the Simplest Thing that could Possibly Work”. The cleaner and the simpler the better if you want more people to adopt your tag/proposal.
1 tag doesn’t mean “simple”. Yours mean inventing a =*_meter for everything, meaning at least 3 imaginable for =gas_meter , =water_meter , and =power_meter . That’s not “cleaner”. =monitoring_station is already standard, and monitoring:*= is extensible. Don’t forget presets can be made.
Or as I said, pipeline= , and there are 90 power=meter . Both fall in pipeline= or power= for what they are doing, compared to the mix of everything in man_made= . There’s nothing yet for current transformers to measure ac either. https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Tag:power%3Dswitch#Which_type_of_switches_are_they?
There’s no such distinction of “meter station” defined yet. Furthermore, meters are often installed together with other devices (also =monitoring_station was originally =measurement_station ), which is possible to be represented as a single feature by combination of multiple monitoring:*= .
I do not see any reason to make tagging more complicated by trying to follow some tagging scheme wich does not really fit the object. A monitoring station is not a meter and a feeder pipe is not a pipeline, although ist is the final part of the pipeline network. We do have an extensive tagging scheme for power, including power=meter, but we do not have such for gas, so there is no way to go for gas=meter.
Nobody would describe such a gas meter in reality as a pipeline for gas incorporating a montoring station which is meant for measuring the consumption instead of simply calling it a gas meter. The closer the tags are to what we call things in real life, the less tagging mistakes will happen. That is why I would simply tag this object as “gas_meter” and not pipeline or monitoring station.
If you say =monitoring_station “is not a meter”, should it not be a gauge or thermometer either? What’s the difference with monitoring:tide_gauge , monitoring:water_temperature , etc, then? Surely these are all different from monitoring:gps= as well. If there is something measuring water flow in tunnel=culvert or waterway=pressurised (ie =pipeline ) , should they not use monitoring:water_temperature= , monitoring:water_velocity= , or monitoring:water_temperature= ?
man_made=pipeline is used for all pipes. Why do you think all the usage= exists, including =facility ? pipeline= is equivalent to power= in this regard. Are you going to use some man_made= =valve (including the ones in this photo) , =surge_tank , and =substation at the end user instead of pipeline= because they aren’t “pipeline” in your mind? This logic is the same as considering highway=footway as wrong because it isn’t a “highway” , or a railway=miniature at a home isn’t a “railway”.
In fact, pipeline=measurement has already been “approved”. What’s a meter doing, if not measuring? Proposal:PipelineExtension - OpenStreetMap Wiki
Please read the existing definitions. pipeline=valve is “Domestic or industrial”. Why should other pipeline= features not be the same? Tag:pipeline=valve - OpenStreetMap Wiki
See the photos. They are described in all sizes. Tag:pipeline=valve - OpenStreetMap Wiki
In comparison, almost all of the 22 =water_meter were added by someone to Zanzibar in Tanzania. Not compellingly widespread.
Regret asking this question yet, @queenofthenightosphere ? 
Or you can give your reason too, instead of merely reacting. I described the situation at first already. What follows is replying to others.
There’s still 0 =gas_meter now. Besides the 114 pipeline=measurement which was at least part of a vote, the 1.8k measurement= is used with marker= , pipeline=substation , etc.
Meters exist between the source and end user as well. Why should those meters be a different feature from end user consumption meters? With original photo, aside from diaphragm meters, there are rotary, turbine, orifice, ultrasonic, and coriolis meters. They are considered together. Are they not “gas meters”? Restricting =gas_meter to residential consumption is still counterintuitive and unnecessary. Gas meter - Wikipedia
For “residential” gas meters , there is yet individual household meters for a home, vs apartment building meter (including with submeters inside), if not considering entire housing estates. Multiple meters can be installed together. Does this violate the purported meaning of your =gas_meter as well? File:Double row of gas meters for a condominium complex in South San Francisco.jpg - Wikimedia Commons
Another caveat is the term “gas meter station”. I’m afraid there will be mistakes from using =gas_meter on them.
Kovoschiz, respectfully: you’re inventing arguments to refute. You’re basically having an argument with yourself. E.g.:
No one was arguing that any of these tags was appropriate.
Nobody was arguing for that.
Nobody was arguing this.
Frankly the arguments you’ve presented in this thread are so convoluted I can’t parse out an actual recommendation of what to do, other than a general recommendation to bash a square peg into a round hole with a cudgel and somehow make … some combination of man_made=pipeline, man_made=monitoring_station:*=?? or whatever ‘work’ because it’s ‘simpler’.
As mentioned earlier, various types of metering are pretty standard in the USA. They are owned and operated by local utilities to track useage of a particular basic service and at the building or payer level.
This means that almost every building will have one. Whether attached the gas, power and water line coming to the building. Unless there is a need to know the make a model of meter, there is nothing novel or important about knowing where it is installed. I would ignore them and let the related utility track them by address.
Again, if you have actually read the thread, I have already mentioned pipeline=measurement at first, which I later realized to be part of a “approved” proposal. The opposing comment was about it not being on a “pipeline”. But both man_made=pipeline and pipeline=valve can be used on all pipes and valves.
When pipeline=measurement already exists, using =gas_meter for a single home consumption meter only would be inconsistent with other cases, the presence of a group of meters for each flat, a meter for a apartment building, a housing estate, large commercial or industrial end use, and meters along the “pipeline” or in a pipeline=substation . Meters could also exist together with other measurements. It would be an unintuitive restriction, as using the same word doesn’t suggest a different usage, unlike eg power=minor_line , or man_made=mast . If =gas_meter is used for all other meters, this creates 2 tagging systems.
So…
man_made=pipeline
pipeline=measurement
…??
Still not clear on what you’re recommending.
Thanks for your elaborately explanations. I’m not sure, if I am getting your point, but what’s clear to me is that we will surely not reach any consensus here. In my opinion the best tag for a gas meter is “gas_meter” and nothing else, but I have no objection if another more complex tagging will be chosen.
Irony on
pipeline=measurement sounds very nice to me and I am sure everybody will immediately understand what is stands for … “oh, look, there is a pipeline=measurement in front of this house!” … so next step could be to deprecate man_made=water_tap and replace it with pipeline=valve.
Irony off
Nothing else to add from my side.
