Tag dilemma

Herrcule · 2012-01-03T10:38:30.000Z

Hello to everyone,

As I am a new user of Openstreetmap, I am not aware of “good practice” habit: I saw that some buildings are tagged as generic “buildings”, then a node is added on it with its specific use (for example “supermarket”), while other ones are already tagged as specific buildings…
So my question is: better to specify the use of the building on the building itself, or to add a node on it ??
I’d rather say the first one, in order to avoid adding nodes for nothing, but maybe it is good practice to do the second one…

Thank you,
Damien

csdf · 2012-01-03T11:02:29.000Z

Tags on the building way specify the function of the building - so if it’s a hotel for instance you’d put
name=Hotel X
stars = 5
tourism=hotel
phone=+11 123 456
addr:street=some street
etc

If inside the hotel there’s a spa, for example, then you’d tag this as a node with the appropriate tags
shop=beauty
name=Elements Spa
phone=+11 234 567
addr:housename=Hotel X

A building that is just a supermarket should have all its tags on the building way. If it’s a mall with individual shops, then the building would be tagged shop=mall and the individual shops placed as nodes inside the building.

Herrcule · 2012-01-03T11:20:24.000Z

OK I agree with that, I saw some buildings managed quite differently but I prefer your answer !

Thank you

Jedi_Ratti · 2012-01-06T22:34:13.000Z

I am a noob at this as well and had a similar question.
I am working on mapping a local airport and was wondering how to tag the hangars since there is no specific building function for that. I would make a building way and then just do name=hangar correct?
Thanks,
Michelle

Vclaw · 2012-01-06T23:29:05.000Z

Jedi Ratti:

I am a noob at this as well and had a similar question.
I am working on mapping a local airport and was wondering how to tag the hangars since there is no specific building function for that. I would make a building way and then just do name=hangar correct?

After choosing the option for building, you can click on the tab for “Details”, then this has an option for “Building type”. You can choose hangar from this list.
The name should be the official name of the hangar, or what it is commonly known as. Or it might not have a name, in which case leave it blank.

Jedi_Ratti · 2012-01-07T00:06:57.000Z

Thank you Vclaw, I didn’t notice the option for building type.
There is quite a lot of information to absorb to help with this project properly, but I’m having a ball learning!

gvmsia · 2012-01-09T05:57:13.000Z

in the example of a hotel, do you create a way that covers the entire hotel grounds? other than the main building, it may include the pool, gardens, carpark, etc. if yes, what/how do you tag it?

csdf · 2012-01-09T11:12:17.000Z

Good question and a similar problem arises with schools. I don’t think there exists a best practice yet. My suggestion would be that conceptually “a hotel” is a building (or set of buildings), and that if someone were using OSM to search for the Hilton Hotel they would expect to be pointed towards the building, not the grounds or carpark.

This means that the hotel building would be tagged tourism=hotel. The grounds are a leisure=park or leisure=garden with name set to “Hilton Hotel gardens” or similar. Carpark would be amenity=parking and name=Hilton Hotel carpark etc. But that’s just my view and as I say, I don’t think there’s a consensus yet on this question.

Tordanik · 2012-01-09T13:05:07.000Z

No, there probably isn’t a consensus, and when there is only one “main” building, then I don’t have a strong opinion.

But when a hotel consists of multiple major buildings or facilities and there is not a single “main” building, then an area with the tourism=hotel tag should be created that covers the entire hotel grounds. In that situation, the buildings will sometimes even have individual names or refs (probably more common with schools, hospitals or universities than with hotels).

It would be clearly wrong to have multiple tourism=hotel objects for the same hotel, and imo site relations are unnecessarily complex for most situations.

csdf · 2012-01-09T16:12:12.000Z

Makes sense, but it might be an idea to add an area=yes tag to the polygon to help renderers avoid rendering the whole area as a hotel if they so wish.