I’m conflicted about mapping picnic tables that are able to be moved, and they might not be considered permanent, and they’re not always going to be in the same exact location, but it’s useful to know that a park has picnic tables, even if they aren’t always in the same spot. In theory they could be stolen or moved outside the park, but I tend to map them as I find them useful. What do you think?
If you know the park and know that the picnic tables are usually there, I’d map it
If you’re just passing by, I personally wouldn’t add it, but I wouldn’t mind if someone else does
Yes it could be moved, but IMO that falls under things changing in the real world. A bolted-in table can also be removed if the park is renovated
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I would care whether they are moved, not whether they can be moved.
And if they move by few meters (for example are rearranged) then mapping them may be still acceptable. Similarly to recycling containers that often are moved a bit/rearranged during emptying them (applies especially to version picked up to be emptied).
If they keep being present at the same location I would be fine with mapping them.
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I wouldn’t hesitate to map benches, picnic tables and the like despite being “unanchored”. As long as they’re consistently located in the same place, even if not “the same exact location” down to the millimetre or whatever, their persistent presence is perfectly sufficient justification to map them.
I understand the idea that something not anchored to the ground could hypothetically be removed, but unless it’s a persistent problem where you live I wouldn’t worry about it. Frankly just about anything on the map could be stolen if a thief is equipped with the right tools and persistent enough. E.g. lots of benches in my neck of the woods are attached to concrete sidewalk with simple anchor bolts: literally anyone with the correct size of wrench could loosen the bolts and abscond with the bench if they really wanted to. Nobody has though.
In my experience many picnic tables in parks aren’t anchored down because they’re located deep enough into said parks that, barring the illicit and extremely conspicuous use of a pickup truck, it would otherwise take a team of people quite a lot of effort to carry them out. I’ve helped relocate them before (for perfectly innocent, legitimate reasons!): those things are not light! Especially metal ones…
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and if you are sufficiently determined then you may move surprisingly large things
File:Hydrolic dollies relocate house in Newark, Delaware.jpg - Wikipedia Wolfe House & Building Movers CC-BY-SA 1.0
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exactly
Surviving parts of the former Hotel Esplanade have been incorporated into the north side of the Sony development, including the Kaisersaal which, in a complex and costly operation in March 1996, was moved in one piece (all 1,300 tonnes of it), some 75 metres from its former location, to the spot that it occupies today (it even had to make two right-angled turns during the journey, while maintaining its own orientation).
If you’re uncomfortable with the potential inaccuracy of individual movable picnic tables (leisure=picnic_table), you could still map something like an outdoor seating area (leisure=outdoor_seating) or picnic site (tourism=picnic_site) and add a tag to it such as picnic_table:count=*.
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