Graeme Fitzpatrick <graemefi...@gmail.com> writes:
> On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 at 22:11, Greg Troxel <g...@lexort.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> an air rifle is not a firearm, in English, because there is no
>> combustion
>
> Unfortunately, in Australia at least, air rifles are actually officially
> classed as firearms! :-(
Sure, that (and warins') are examples of a law defining a word to mean
something different from what the word ordinarily means. This happens
all the time for all sorts of things, and I don't think we should let
that drive our tagging, which should be about the normal meaning of the
word.
But, if someone applies the tag to a shop whose primary product is air
rifles, regardless of our label, that's not a bad thing, compared to the
other tags someone might choose.
It is absolutely the wrong thing to say that shop=firearms means "a shop
that sells whatever the local law means by firearms". This is a
general principle in OSM that we define something and then expect
mappers to use the OSM definition, not local language.
As a valid and further crazy definition, in Massachusetts law a
"highway" means any legal road (one with an easement to the public that
includes vehicles). Almost no one in MA knows that, and would think
highway means either what OSM calls motorway or maybe also trunk, or
would think it means "a road with a state or federal route number". We
don't It is amusing that OSM tagging is "highway=foo", and it is perhaps
a historical artifact of English law and naming.
If people are saying that the OSM definition for shop=gun/shop=firearms
should be "a shop that primarily sells firearms, by which we mean
devices that emit a projectile via combusion, as well as via compresed
air", because drawing a line around that represents a cluster that both
- exists in the real world
- captures an idea that large numbers of people are likely to find
meaningful
that's fine.
I find that tagging discussions tend to be disconnected from considering
the utility of tagging for data consumers. That is the point, and I
think when that is the main consideration then it will also be
straightforward for mappers.
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