May I drop highway=street_lamp for light_source?

Help and support
1

I’m extensively mapping street lights these days, addicted to seeing it glow at OSMstreetLight.

Towards a schema that works for me, I already took attributes from light_source, especially light:shape and light:tilt. Now I’m wondering:

? Could I switch to light_source completely?

Pros:

  • more general concept in light_source, extensible far beyond hw=street_lamp, i. e.
    ** floodlight (think: no misuse of street_lamp for stadium flood lights and the like)
    ** warning (think: flash lights on some crossing)
    ** lamp_type → light:method °°
  • moves street lights out of crowded ‘highway’ name space, what looks good to me for topic clarity

Cons:

  • no more straight association by purpose like in ‘street_lamp’
  • man_mad=mast has ‘construction’ but misses a forms attribute equivalent to lamp_mount=(angled|bend|high|straight)_mast - but could be added
  • ‘street_lamp’ popularity, > 4 Mio uses, but does it matter?

Sure I’d like to spread the word on light_source proposal to get it into more common use. There shall be (more) light! :wink:

°° knowing infamous spread of value ‘LED’ instead of ‘led’, see lamp_type LED vs. led

2

:+1: me too!

I would not favour that. Street_lamp is a very well established and heavily used tag and one of the most common public light sources so I’d say there is nothing wrong in having a dedicated tag for it.

For more detailed information I think it is fine to add the light_source attributes to the street_lamp tag.

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3

Vast majority of highway=street_lamp is mapped without light_source and other details.

4

This is true but it would not do any harm to add such details whereas I do not see any benefit in replacing the tag highway=street_lamp by light_source=*.

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5

Do you see this as an argument pro/contra? Didn’t get it at least …

For what it’s worth I work towards much more detailed tagging in my hometown at least.

6

I would see as reason to support using highway=street_lamp

is not a viable “pro” as people will continue using highway=street_lamp anyway

at most you may get some people confused or even mapping highway=street_lamp and not seeing or not noticing tagging in unusual style

what is wrong with it?

7

Someone might like to differentiate street illumination from other lights. No big issut to me, just wondering to find more pro/cons. :slight_smile:

8

You mean without setting highway=street_lamp?

No. :-1:

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