More shop categories please!

General talk
1

Hi folks,

I’m new to OSM but have enjoyed having a go at adding some attribution to buildings near where I live, as well as adding PoIs for shops and so on.

Not sure where the best place to suggest this is; however, I have some suggestions regarding features and their metadata attribution.

These shops have cropped up a lot but they don’t appear to have an entry on http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Map_Features The shop name examples here are from the UK so sorry if they are not much help.

Newsagent (larger ones such as WH Smith could go under books and some could go under convenience stores but smaller ones perhaps warrant their own category).

Computer/video game shops - some (such as HMV) sell DVDs and music as well so could go in those categories but others (such as Game) just sell games. It doesn’t really fit under computer shops either.

Electronic shops (such as Currys Digital). Could go under hi-fi shops or computer shops but that leaves TVs out so I think general consumer electronics shops would warrant a category like with domestic appliance shops.

Health food shops (such as Holland and Barrett and Julian Graves). Could perhaps go under organic or herbalist but they are not necessarily either.

Specialty food shops, such as Polish shops, Chinese supermarkets and world foods

Travel agents (such as Thomas Cook).

Some of the ones that are in the feature catalogue are a lot more specific and I would say less common than the ones above (vacuum cleaner stores, furnace stores and diving equipment for example).

These ones are listed in the feature catalogue but don’t have pink icons and I think they could perhaps be useful additions as they are quite common. As they don’t have icons they don’t seem to appear when I view the map after adding them.

Shoe shops
Mobile phone shops
Opticians
Sports shops (clothing/shoes/equipment)
Variety stores (such as 99p Store and Poundland)

And finally, and probably my biggest question, is over the complete lack of gambling categories. If there is a policy of excluding these from OSM then that is fine; however, there are rather a lot of these in the city I live in and most cities around the UK. The two I propose the most need for are:

Shop: Betting/Bookmaker whatever name they should have.
Definition: A shop where customers gamble money on the outcome of something, usually a sporting event such a horse race or football match. Found on virtually every High Street in the UK.
Examples: Ladbrokes, Coral and William Hill.

Shop: Amusements/Arcade
Definition: A shop containing machines that customers gamble money on, such as fruit machines. Small versions of these are found in most UK towns and cities but seaside resorts have larger versions. These establishments sometimes contain arcade games as well.
Examples: Nobles, Quicksilver

There could be further types that might be useful, such as casinos and bingo halls. However, these are probably less common. In the city I live, there are only 2-3 of each.

Thanks for any suggestions/advice etc.

2

You might want to have a look through http://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/shop#values and see if people are using other tags (other than what’s in the Features list) that you think are more appropriate. For instance there are 220 shop=bookmaker nodes.

3

Thanks, I have looked at taginfo and seen that there are over 500 entries for bookmakers and betting shops combined so I have created a proposal. I have also put forward a proposal for amusements but there are far fewer entries for this although there are probably hundreds of these establishments in the UK alone.

With regards to the shops I said that didn’t have suitable categories, I was wrong for two of them – newsagents and electronics – as these are actually on the list.

I still think Shoe shops, Mobile phone shops, Opticians, Sports shops (clothing/shoes/equipment), Variety stores (such as 99p Store and Poundland), newsagents, computer shops would benefit from symbols. Is there a way to suggest these?

Thanks,

Gary

4

I shouldn’t reply to my own posts but I have another question.

There appear to be tags for the following items but they are not listed on the Map features page. Is it possible to get these added?

shop:travel_agency
A shop selling holidays, for example, Thomas Cook.

shop:estate_agent
A shop selling houses/property.

shop:music
A shop selling recorded music, that is, music on CDs/records/MP3s etc. Not to be confused with shop=musical_instruments. For example, HMV.

shop:photo
A shop selling cameras and other photographic equipment and/or providing services such as developing film or printing digital photos. For example, Jessops or Boots. Sometimes they also undertake portrait photography but that would arguably be better under craft:photographer.

shop:appliance_store
A shop selling domestic appliances or ‘white goods’, such as cookers, fridges/freezers, washing machines and tumble driers. Some of these also sell smaller kitchen appliances such as toasters and kettles or also sell consumer electronics such as TVs and computers. Example: Comet and Currys.

Personally, I would call it just shop:appliance as the ‘store’ appears to be superfluous but these shops are very common and should be in the list IMHO.

5

Firstly, not all possible tags are listed on the Map Features page. It is worth searching the wiki, to see if there is anything relevant. Also check Taginfo to see what is in use.

For travel agents and estate agents, they are classed as offices, which is a separate section on the Map Features page. Also see http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:office The recommended tags are office=estate_agent and office=travel_agent

For photograhpic shops (Jessops etc), the tag is shop=photo. See http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:shop=photo

For appliances stores (Comet, Currys), I think shop=electronic is used for this. See http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:shop%3Delectronics Though it is perhaps a bit inaccurate, as a cooker does not necessarily have any electronics in it (though most modern ones probably do).

For CD/record shops (eg HMV), I’m not sure if there is a common tag. Just shop=music is confusing with shops selling musical instruments, or sheet music etc. And HMV sell DVDs/games etc as well.