Marc_marc <marc_m...@mailo.com> writes: > so now that we have a documented tag shop=knives, > how to tag a shop that sell knives and arcs ? shop=knives;arcs ? > of course not > when we have found the right term for this shop, the previous case > could have been handled in the same way with details in a secondary tag
the basic issue, which you seem to be avoiding, is that any actual shop sells a variety of things. We don't (can't and shouldn't) enumerate all of them; OSM is a map, not a precise inventory database. What we are doing is agreeing on a set of labels for objects which exist to some significant extent that people using the map will be able to grasp those objects and use them for either understanding what is present, analysis queries, or search. The point here is not that stores selling knives might sell something else. It's that there are a large number of stores whose *primary* point is to sell knives, and naturally the sell other things that people who are interested in buying knives might also buy, when selling those additional items is not burdensome. This is exactly the same as other stores. Liquor stores for example sell non-alcoholic beverages often used for consumption at parties, or mixers. They will ~never sell milk, because that requires stock management for expiration and usually a separate license, which is a different business operations plan. Similarly a gun store might sell some outdoorsy or self-defense-ish knives, because it's easy to stock. A knife store won't sell guns, because that's a different level of licensing and paperwork, here, and I suspect most places. As for stevea@'s comment about gun vs firearm, I disagree. firearm is more technical/precise and gun is less formal. Yes, the law defines all sorts of things, often in ways that are contrary to English, and in law things mean what the law/cases say they mean, not what they normally mean. Two examples: an air rifle is not a firearm, in English, because there is no combustion In Massachusetts, firearm in law means handgun. This is just bizarre and totally contrary to English usage, but it's how it is. We certainly shouldn't encode in tags legal definitions that are contrary to normal usage. And of coures, an OSM tag means what we say it means -- but good practice is to choose words so that mostly reading the tag causes people to jump to the right conclusion. I do agree with stevea@'s discussion of singular/plural. It seems obvious that each shop value should exist in one form or the other. _______________________________________________ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
