Hi, please tell me how to tag Neighbourhood Watch signs in Australia. Neighbourhood watch signs are typically on streetlight poles in suburbs.
I am not sure tourism=information and information=neighbourhood_watch is the best way to go.
A quick look in Taginfo doesnât really show anything obvious already being used in Australia. It might be worth posting in the Oceania category as well to see if anyone locally has any ideas.
I think thereâs a proposal going through atm to remove the requirement for tourism= as part of information?
Where would you be tagging it - on street-name sign posts, or individual private letter-boxes?
street name sign posts
Although these arenât part of any traffic sign standard that I know of, Iâve tagged several as traffic_sign=neighbourhood_watch nodes, since theyâre usually directed at road users as if theyâre formal traffic signs. The American spelling traffic_sign=neighborhood_watch appears 269 times, mostly around Springfield, Illinois. These signs are abundant in the U.S., but it shouldnât be a problem to align on the Commonwealth spelling.
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Never seen neighbourhood watch type signs e.g. seen in one country many whatsapp alert group signs⊠join one of your residential area, after proofing you really live there and youâre the first to know. See here occasionally a sign which freely translated says âif you observe abuse call 800âŠâ. Maybe a handfull downtown, not sure at all if those would fall under this NW label.
For context, these signs warn of an active volunteer program that partners with law enforcement:
Neighborhood watch signs are distinct from signs that remind the public how to contact law enforcement. However, itâs entirely possible that some of the neighborhood watch programs I see signposted are no longer active, and the sign only serves as a deterrent.
Of the signs Iâve mapped in Ohio, most only name the organization that would take any report of suspicious activity, either the police department with jurisdiction over the neighborhood or the local Crime Stoppers affiliate. Iâve tagged these organizations as operator=* or subject=*. All the signs seem to have a consistent logo that seems to belong to a statewide program, but I canât find any documentation about this program online.
Some of these neighborhoods also have a No Thru Traffic or Through Traffic Prohibited sign at the entrances, which I tag as access=destination on all the neighborhoodâs streets. I know this will confuse some routers, but itâs especially pertinent to outsiders when paired with a neighborhood watch sign.
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Some kind of surveillance, there is guard then there could be neighbourhood_watch.
man_made, the warning system?
So much for âneighbourhood watchâ 
. This time the cam in onslaught, appears the signs are sure mentioning âabuseâ⊠if you observe non-entitled person/vehicle occupying a disabled parking spot (absence of blue EU standardized card behind windshield), call the cops, Every disabled parking spot seen in that area had the orange sign with the phone number to dial.
Thatâs different than a typical neighborhood watch sign. Itâs more like one of the âSee something, say somethingâ signs on the New York City Subway or the equivalent on many other public transportation systems.
The number can be tagged as emergency:phone=*, and I suppose the sign itself could be something like traffic_sign=emergency_contact or traffic_sign=enforcement. Maybe an enforcement relation too if youâre feeling ambitious.
If this is too specific, a broader option could be traffic_sign=surveillance, similar to how Iâd tag these signs about camera surveillance. After all, neighborhood watch programs are functionally man_made=surveillance surveillance:type=guard, but with volunteers instead of law enforcement officers or trained security guards.
If this is too specific, a broader option could be
traffic_sign=surveillance, similar to how Iâd tag these signs about camera surveillance.
I donât think these are traffic signs, neither the camera sign in the Netherlands nor the Italian call-this-number sign.
These are physically traffic signs â itâs what the SKU is called when you buy one or have one manufactured. But whether itâs officially classified as a traffic sign would depend on the jurisdiction, just as with street name signs. In the U.S., it can be either a regulatory sign or a warning sign:
NYCDOT classifies the NYPD surveillance sign I posted earlier as a regulatory sign, SR-1763. According to this dataset, theyâve installed several of them. Iâve mapped a few so far using the specific code instead of a more generic keyword.
In any case, it should be an independent node, not attached to a roadway.
Here in Australia, Neighbourhood Watch is strictly hands-off - if you see something, report it, but do NOT get physically involved!
Yes, itâs supposed to work the same way over here, also with rent-a-cops, but I think that rather speaks to the man_made=surveillance analogy.
Yeah, I meant to continue on after saying that ⊠
Would it really count as âsurveillanceâ & if so, what type?
Youâre not deliberately watching the area, the theory is âIf you see something strange, let us knowâ
It depends. Some neighborhoods have active patrols. These volunteers are somewhat notorious over here for sometimes straying into vigilantism, with tragic consequences. Most of the time, though, itâs probably just a sign in practice, like the one down the street from my old house, or something in between.
Personally, a neighborhood watch sign tells me Iâm a little more likely to run into an uncomfortable, possibly menacing encounter while going through on a field survey. It wouldnât be the first time. These days I know better than to survey in the neighborhood-watched neighborhood over to the west of me. Non-mappers just passing through may or may not perceive the same risk, depending on a variety of factors.
I would prefer to focus on the signâs message rather than making assumptions about its effect on othersâ behalf. If surveillance is too much of a stretch for how neighborhood watch programs operate in Australia, then a less direct neighbourhood_watch would allow data consumers or end users to decide for themselves. We can reserve surveillance for the signs that are about a specific man_made=surveillance feature (whether or not we can find it).
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I found and replaced traffic_sign=neigbourhood_watch to conform to Commonwealth spelling by agreement with @salisburymistake. Since the original intention was to use American English, I also made a hopefully straightforward suggestion to make keywords like this more usable for those who donât speak British English:
But how about for those of us who do? 
The British English localization would restore the âuâ, the Spanish localization would come up with an entirely different word, etc.
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