Tagging for "information desk" (e.g. at bus stations, supermarkets, etc.)

General talk Tagging general discussion
1

You now, place where you inquire when some train/bus is going to arrive or what are connection options, or in supermarket where you get warranties confirmed or inquire about items or suggest what they should order or complain about expired articles etc.

I see them mostly tagged with tourism=information / information=office with name=info desk[1] or similar.

But I wonder, is there something better? As wiki says information=office is “An office where you can get information about a town or region.”, which it kinda isn’t (it certainly is not about “town or region” but about a specific show/station/amenity).

There is also an information=visitor_centre, and while its description sounds a little better “A place where you can get information about a specific attraction or place of interest” it’s name sounds totally off to me for such purpose.

Ideas?

  1. yeah I know it is misuse of the name=* tag too, I’m just describing the situation I see, not advocating for it ↩︎

2

There is also Tag:office=information - OpenStreetMap Wiki.

3

Isn’t there a proposal going through atm for a change to “information” related things?

Ah, Top-level information tag proposal: final request for feedback is what I was thinking of.

4

Thanks! description and image of that tag looks exactly like I was looking for, although only 24 uses worldwide after a decade of use leave something to be desired… :grimacing:

But perhaps double-tagging such cases of information=office with office=information would help for the time being…

I’ve also found Proposal:Helpdesk - OpenStreetMap Wiki (with similar issue).

I’ve linked them in the wiki so they could be found by interested parties

Thanks for the pointer to the discussion! the proposal itself didn’t pass the vote, and unless I’ve missed something it only seemed to have proposed changes reducing two tags to one (i.e. that tourism=information + information=office would’ve become `tourism=information_office); but I guess its definition wouldn’t change)