Creating a proposal

This page is designed to assist anyone considering putting forward a tag proposal, with the aim of speeding the tag proposing process. It is not meant as a set of absolute rules, but as a guide. OSM was created out of a desire to change things, to break the status quo; this principle should be kept in mind when creating tags as well.

When designing new tags, you can consult for example International Orienteering Federation's mapping specifications with their standard categories, IDs and descriptions, that might be of use; how are some users classifying their interests.

Contents 1 Before creating a proposal 1.1 Existing tags/proposals 1.2 Significance 2 Creating a proposal page 2.1 Proposal Page Template 2.2 Page details

Before creating a proposal

Existing tags/proposals

• Does your proposed tag already exist? check the Map features page.
• Is it already a proposal in progress? check the Proposed features page and the Abandoned feature list.
• Has it been proposed before and rejected? check the Rejected features page.

being a rejected feature does not necessarily mean it should not be proposed again: some proposals fail due to a poor definition, being ambiguous or lacking information to justify their significance, some items become more significant over time and thus more map-worthy.

• Is there any other work not referenced on these pages? perform a general search on the wiki, including related words.

For example:

• You want a tag for a racecourse; consider searching for "racing", "horse", etc.
• You want a tag for a peninsula; consider searching for "headland", "point", etc.
• You want a tag for a brewery; consider searching for "beer", "manufacturing", "alcohol", "industrial", "plant", "works", etc.

Significance

Is the tag you are considering for proposal, worthy of a new tag? Consider possible uses for the map, and specifically the data you want to add.

This is a difficult judgement to make: if you want to tag it, then that is generally reason enough to create a tag.

• Is it a destination in itself?

  People may search for some locations, for example: a national park, a bus station, a street address or a rubbish dump, because they want to visit that location.

• How many of the item do you think there will be in the world?

  For instance, you want to map an aero-engine factory - there are very few aero-engine factories in the world, so rather than creating a specific tag, this may be better served by using an existing man_made tag and specifying type=aero_engines.

• How large is the item?

  Large items can assist with navigation.

• Is it useful for research/study?

  A geography student may want to determine the total area of national parks in a given region.

  A sociology student may want to map correlation between number/location of Porsche dealerships and houses greater than 600 m² in area.

  A history student may want to show the locations of all battles in a given war.

• Does it assist in route-planning?

  It is useful to know which junctions are traffic lights and which are roundabouts as this can affect journey times.

  Truck drivers need to know the maximum height allowed under bridges, or the maximum weight allowed through population centres.

  Traffic calming structures can affect journey times, routing software will generally not use roads with these on.

  Walkers would want to know surfaces/conditions of walking tracks.

Creating a proposal page

Create a new wiki page (MediaWiki Help:Starting a new page) and then fill in the proposal page template and page details described below.

Proposal Page Template

Place the following wiki text at the top of the page, and fill in the brief summary content fields.

{{Proposal_Page
|name=
|user=
|key=
|value=
|type=
|definition=
|appearance=
|status=
|draftStartDate=
|rfcStartDate=
|voteStartDate=
|voteEndDate=
}}

This will bring in the wiki template Template:Proposal_Page which displays a green box with summary details on the top right of the page. Use 'Show preview' to check how it looks. After the closing '}}' characters you should begin the main content with proposal details as follows.

Page details

In general: be verbose. The more information you can include, the better. Photos, descriptions, situations, examples. Anything to create a well-defined image in people's mind.

More specifically: this list is a starting point for items you may want to consider putting in your proposal:

Proposal

A short description of what you want to map, including links to relevant material with photos if possible.

Rationale

Why the tag is needed, considering significance and potential uses of the data.

Examples

Names, locations, rough idea of numbers (e.g., one on every street corner, several in each suburb in Germany, half a dozen in each South American country).

Tagging

The category the tag falls under (man_made, waterway, tourism, etc,), with a justification of why other similar categories are not suitable (for instance, there may be too many to map individually - such as residential properties in which case a landuse tag would be of more use if they are grouped closely enough?).

The name of the tag itself - keep it as short as possible (15 characters is generally as long as they get), whilst still being logical, descriptive enough to need little explanation and not overlapping with another tag in a different category.

Other significant tags to describe specific instances of the item (e.g., author for a work of art, contents for a pipeline, etc.).

Generic tags that are re-used extensively (e.g., name, operator, access, etc.).

Applies to

nodes, ways or areas; when considering nodes vs areas: generally, if an item is smaller than 5 m by 5 m, it would not be mapped as an area, but as a node.

Rendering

not a part of the proposals process as such, but hints for the renderer maintainer will help them out. maybe a description of an icon (refer Map Icons), or an example mock-up.

Features/Pages affected

What keys/tags and Wiki pages might this proposal affect if approved?

Comments

there must be a time set aside for other people to comment on the proposal, do not go straight to a vote.

Don't forget to add a link to your new proposal on the Proposed features page. Let people know of your new proposal by sending a mail to the tagging mailing list, not the talk list.