2017-07-07 8:36 GMT+02:00 John Willis <[email protected]>: > > > > On Jul 7, 2017, at 9:10 AM, Martin Koppenhoefer <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > > charity office, a government office, the office of an ngo, the office of > an association, etc., they don't sell a service, > > I think in he strictest of terms, they do - the embassy offers passport > and visa services, an NGO offers aid coordination, an association handles > logistics for members
"selling" implies a payment. Think the OSMF: noone is paid, no services are "sold", and they are not the only ones. NGOs are not just about aid coordination, they can also fight for civil rights, the environment, freedom, etc. Reducing an embassy to a place issuing passports seems a bit shortsighted, think American (not only, just to give an example that can hardly be questioned) embassies, they are basically bases for coordinating their agents and flow of information, mostly no services sold there, and embassies have a different tag in OSM anyway, so they will not be tagged as offices, usually. Let's have a look at actual value usage numbers: https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/office#values 1. leading with almost one quarter (22,4%) is "government". Are these "A place of business, similar to shops" (that's the short definition)? I don't think so. "government" is not "business" neither similar to shops Are they ""A place predominantly selling services." (long definition)? Don't think so either. Even if they "sell (some) services" (better "charge for" then "sell" anyway), looking in general at government offices that's not what they "predominantly" do. 2. Second is "company" (19,4%). I don't know what kind of company these are, but my guess would be that most of them are not customer oriented offices but places where a company is administrated (because otherwise the mappers would have been able to provide a more specific value about the services offered). 3. Third is "yes" (9,2%, skip) 4. Only on the fourth place with "estate_agent" (6,7%) there is a place that fits in the definitions. 5. insurance (5,6%), 6. lawyer (4,4%) OK, like 4 7. administrative (4,1%) like 1 or 2, not ok 8. educational_institution (3,3%), not ok 9. telecommunication (3,2%), likely not ok (because they are not "like a shop" and "selling services" (maybe some are) 10. ngo (2,1%), not ok, see above .... - but a better definition might be office where services are *performed* > and offices where a business or service is administered or “managed”. > +1, let's get rid of "like a shop", and of "selling services" as only requirement. We also should distinguish customer facing offices from backoffices (IMHO). I believe the (customer facing) estate agent should go into another key (either shop or amenity) and an office for an insurance company should get the office tag when it is a backoffice, while the insurance agency (for customers to go) would be shop or amenity. > > To me personally, people confuse: > > - the office as a physical structure > -> building > - the office as a “white collar” shop: a lawyer or clerk or consultant who > offered his services. > there's even physician, therapist, podologist and some other healthcare related tags. I'd rather not tag these as office, but as healthcare thing (maybe amenity fits as well) > - the administration section of a larger company: Apple’s HQ in Silicon > Valley is where they manage all aspects of their business if manufacturing > their devices in China. > IMHO office is fine for these > - a (government) service that is “public facing” but not represented by > the narrow tagging system: we have court house and DMV, but not “federal > building” or pension_office or other civic_admin offices. > I'd rather prefer to have a different key for all kind of government places, from the ministry via agencies to smaller public facing agencies / offices. > > My landuse Civic_Admin is (surprisingly) in de facto use because people > want to separate government services from commercial ones (a public pension > office from a private lawyer’s office), but we need to separate out > “customer facing service offices” from “private managerial offices” - > Offices of a newspaper, a car manufacturer, etc - as well. > +1 Cheers, Martin
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