Nate Wessel writes:
I'm not sure if these are common enough to warrant their own tagging scheme, but the US/Canada have these little video phones posted around marinas on the great lakes(at least). The idea is that people crossing the border by boat will call in with the phone and show the immigration officer on the other end their passport and face and tell them that they've crossed the border. It's all very civilized and polite :-)How should we tag these? I took a preliminary stab at one here: <http://www.openstreetmap.org/node/3638039953>http://www.openstreetmap.org/node/3638039953
Nate, this is an interesting thing to tag! Where to begin?! First, I want to get started on the right foot by suggesting that amenity=telephone seems like the correct place to begin tagging these "things". It is also a video phone, which is simply becoming more common in the 21st century, so we want to capture "generic" video phone (like a phone booth, but with video) vs. "specialized" video phone, like this one is. I'm not proposing a syntax or tagging scheme (yet), but do I welcome suggestions from the wider perspective of OSM and those knowledgeable about the gamut of video phones and their associated technology as of today, as well as with an eye towards how video phone technology will progress in the near- and longer-term future.
THEN, there is the whole topic of how and whether "border guards" get to, or can, or do, or might, or shall "look at your passport when you cross an international border." (I mean legally speaking, no matter how polite or civilized). I suppose a simplified version of how I feel about this is to say "if it is legally required, do so..." but there are a whole host of gray zones here I'm only touching the tip of the iceberg by mentioning here. So I'll just stop with that aspect of it (as talk-us may not be the appropriate venue -- perhaps a Discussion page in our wiki is) and leave it at that.
SteveA California
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