I agree, John. The boundary between "public buildings" and others is becoming increasingly vague. Many "governmental" tasks are carried out by third parties nowadays, for example many prisons are operated by private companies on behalf of the state, same with a lot of healthcare provision (which in parts of Europe such as the UK *IS* a governmental task). Do we care if a museum is state-run or privately-run? They are all amenity=museum, with owner=government or whatever.
Using landuse=* or building=* to indicate a "public building" makes no sense to me. We should choose a paradigm, and apply it consistently. What makes a building a "public building"? * If "public" in this case is about the activities carried on there, then let's tag the activities like office=tax. * If it is about ownership, then we use owner=state or whatever, except that we basically don't tag ownership on buildings and governments own many more buildings that are not used for "civic" purposes * If it is about the state being the primary/sole tenant of a building, I don't see the point in tagging that - we should be tagging the functions or activities that are carried on within it //colin On 2016-01-10 04:14, John Willis wrote: >> On Jan 10, 2016, at 8:01 AM, Matthijs Melissen <i...@matthijsmelissen.nl> >> wrote: >> >> To me it is not clear that this is a solution, as the definition of >> building=public is equally vague. Is a prison a public building? A >> band stand? A theatre? A bus depot? > > A building operated by a government agency or by a private operator for the > "public use" or "public good" is my take. > > But we chop this up. > > Museums. > City Halls > Community Centers. > Sports centres > Stadiums and arenas > Etc. > > So having a generic definition where we all ready have more specific ones > leads to catch-all - so some people throw everything in. > > Building=civic also exists, but has no accompanying land use (yet) for the > vast amount of "civic administrative" centers and offices. > > If we further define these common "public" building types - true government > stuff like tax and pension and immigration and other almost purely > governmental facilities - not only do we get more detailed building > definitions, but a landuse or two to accurately map the complexes they > invariably are part of in first world nations. > > This lack of good building sets and missing landuse has, in my opinion, made > most government and public offices/facilities unmappable in the current > methods used by commercial/residential/industrial buildings and their > complexes. > > Getting public/civic/whatever decided and fully fleshed out and a proper > landuse(s) to go with it will really help bring them up to "first class > citizens" - and help make a single process (landuse/building sets) work > everywhere. > > When I first started - trying to map a train station in the same way as a > factory or apartment complex completely flummoxed me. There were totally > different rules for mapping the land and the station and everything. > > This is the same for civic office buildings - and since my mapping area > (Japan) is heavily coated with government complex after government complex - > being able to map them (and their functions) properly and in a consistent way > to the other buildings would be appreciated. > > Javbw > _______________________________________________ > Tagging mailing list > Tagging@openstreetmap.org > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
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