Talk:Key:subject

Usage

It looks like most of the uses of this tag are for flagpoles now and not museums. So if no one cares I'm going to edit the article to reflect it. Also, not to suggest an undiscussed mass edit, but it would be helpful if the few uses of the tag that are left over on museums were transferred over to museum=* so there isn't needless overlap. --Adamant1 (talk) 03:09, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

@Adamant1: I think the usage on flagpoles is just a special case of this key being used to say "this thing is about such-and-such", so it's also documented elsewhere as an option for playground=map, historic=memorial, and tourism=artwork (though there's also artwork_subject=*). In principle, a local historical museum could be tagged with both museum=history and subject=Union County to indicate whose history it covers. – Minh Nguyễn ^💬 08:22, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

retagging subject to the museum key would loose information as the museum key “naturally” refers to the museum type, and the type is not necessarily representing a subject, e.g. “local” or “open_air”: https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/?key=museum#values —Dieterdreist (talk) 08:29, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

“local” and “open_air” are better suited for the museum_type=* tag. As "open air" isn't an "object or subject in exhibition." Which is what the tag is supposed to used for. It is a type of museum though. Same with local museums. --Adamant1 (talk) 15:26, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

To confuse matters further, there's also museum_type=*, which sort of overlaps museum=*, but not quite. – Minh Nguyễn ^💬 09:47, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Exactly. There doesn't really need to be three different tags for what is essentially the same (or extremely similar) things and I can't find anything tagged with subject=* that wouldn't work better (or at least the same) if tagged as museum_type=* or museum=*. "Subject" in relation to museums is a pretty ambiguous term anyway. Just like "type" would also be. Since it assumes a single subject and lots of museum have multiple ones. Like in Dieterdreist's example we can argue all day what the subject of a local outdoor history museum is. In the meantime museum_type=outdoor + museum=history works fine. I don't think that can be said for using the tag on flags, memorials, or artwork though. No one is going to argue the subject of a war memorial is "outdoor" and we can all agree the subject is "war." I'm pretty sure all flags being mapped in OSM are outdoor. So there's no chance of ambiguity or disagreement there either. --Adamant1 (talk) 15:26, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

I agree that the tagging for museums should be sorted out, so far we have not defined well how to separate different properties on which tags, and how these properties are defined. This should preferably happen through the proposal process, in no way should the process be distorted through unilateral wiki fiddling on tag pages. —Dieterdreist (talk) 10:08, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Where did anyone suggest "unilateral wiki fiddling on tag pages"? I sure as hell didn't. All I said was that I wanted to edit the article to reflect the fact that the tag is being used on flag poles now. Which is just a fact and in no way is documenting it "unilateral wiki fiddling." Especially since I brought it up on the talk page first. I'm not doing a proposal to document how a tag is used either. In the meantime, I'd love to see one conversation on here where it isn't needlessly contentious or someone doesn't say something false and extremely hyperbolic just to foment drama. At this point I seriously doubt it's possible. --Adamant1 (talk) 15:50, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I think the ship has already sailed for the broader use of subject=*, not only because of actual usage of this key in the database but also because of subject:wikidata=*, which wouldn't need to exist under the narrower definition. We should document that reality. I don't see the older values as incompatible with that usage: for example, subject=cinematography subject:wikidata=Q590870 would be logical enough. – Minh Nguyễn ^💬 17:30, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

I agree with that. There's no reason this can't be used for older values. I think the ones related to museums are a special case though, because the most used tag subject=history, only has 82 uses compared to 2,387 for museum=history. So it's pretty clear the community doesn't prefer this tag being used for museums. Whatever the case is with subject:wikidata=*, the subject=cinematography tag is only used once. It would be ridiculous to make the article solely or only (if at all) about museums based on that little usage. I like the idea of something like museum:wikidata=Q16735822 for history museums and so forth though. From what I can tell Wikidata has a pretty good database of museum types and the Wikidata articles already have "OpenStreetMap tag or key museum=*" in them. So museum:wikidata=* makes sense if you want there to be a logical connection. Adamant1 (talk) 00:04, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

I disagree with this conclusion.

1. Usually something as museum=* will be used initially without the existence or knowledge of a more specific tag. Documentation of usage and straightforward suggestions don't have to be exactly the same. Although subject=* is relatively new, this shouldn't prevent us from using it. Your subject=history comparison actually shows the problem of both tags, where subject=* may be a very specific individual entity or topic, while museum=* is only a general classification. Similar behavior is seen on tourism=artwork with artwork_subject=* and subject=*, as documented in Tag:tourism=artwork#Useful combination.
2. There isn't going to be a museum:wikidata=* for every possible variety. Often the "type" will be mixed (eg open-air colonial rural history), unfit for the content on Wikidata or Wikipedia focusing on a particular aspect in a flat hierarchy. If we aren't going to use *:wikidata=* for other sub-tags, why start it on this one? Relationships can be formed from data items starting from Item:Q463.

---- Kovposch (talk) 05:33, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

@Kovposch: there's a few important things being left out here. First of all, the article says "This key is mentioned on the page for tourism=museum to be used for the kind of object or subject in exhibition." So it has nothing to do with the if the place is a history, anthropology, or any other type of museum. It's purely about what the museum has on exhibition. Which can be multiple things and changes regularly. Whereas, that it's generally a history museum doesn't. We shouldn't be tagging temporary things that change week to week or month to month either. So there isn't an appropriate way to use this tag. There is one when it comes to museum=* though. And in cases where this is being used for the type of museum it's clearly wrong tagging, because that's not what it's for.

Even if that weren't the case though, "subject" isn't a clear term anyway. Is the subject of a Native American exhibit local history, archaeological, ethnography, or something else? There's really no way to figure it out. Nor does just picking a subject at random add any useful information. Whereas, with somewhere like the Sacramento History Museum it says "history" in the name and they consider themselves one. Whatever they are currently exhibiting. So we can just tag it as museum=history without having to search through their website or argue over semantics. There's zero reason to make this more complicated and contentious then it needs to be by expecting people to just because this is a new tag or whatever.

As far as this being a new tag, I don't really care because it's not an argument. Also, sure there isn't going to be a museum:wikidata=* for every possible variety, but so what? There probably isn't subject:wikidata=* for every damn subject out there either. That's not a new or unique thing. In both case we can make them when there isn't though. Lastly, what's the alternative anyway? Tagging a history museums as both museum=history and subject=history would just be stupid, confusing, and it's not how things are currently tagged. Independently using both wouldn't be any better either though. Nor would going with subject=history. Especially for the ass-nine reasons I've heard so far. It's cool to knock what other people suggest, but it's pretty worthless if your not also going to pose an alternative. --Adamant1 (talk) 17:17, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

@Adamant1: Calm down, folks aren't trying to knock down your suggestions outright. A bit of scrutiny can be healthy for any suggestion. In the first place, I think it would be quite reasonable to use a key description page to explain how a tag was originally intended to be used and how it's currently used in practice, "for better or worse", while we continue to hash out the merits or demerits on the talk page. As it is, the article is clearly only telling part of the story. – Minh Nguyễn ^💬 19:54, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, but speak for yourself. I don't think you are. But I had an extremely similar conversation to this one with Kovposch on the talk page of the industrial=warehouse talk page a while back. Where he just talked in circles and didn't really address anything I was saying. Same thing with Dieterdreist. He tends to flip out when people suggest changing things or makes edits without asking him for permission first. Like 6 month's ago he accused me everywhere of doing an undiscussed mass edit because I re-tagged a few retirement homes and then continued it for months even after Woodpeck said I didn't do one. Dude just gets defensive and shots down any change at all. Especially if it involves Id Editor. He knows I'm not going to do a proposal just to change to the article. So he was shooting down my suggestion outright by creating an unrealistic bureaucratic barrier. It's just gate keeping for it's own sake.

I probably wouldn't be as defensive about it if both of them didn't have a history of acting this way or showed some inkling of wanting to have an honest, fair conversation. Instead of just Strawmaning. In the meantime, I found Dieterdreist accusation that I was "unilateral wiki fiddling" by starting this discussion rather disparaging. Honestly, how much of that kind of defensive crap should I have to tolerate just to edit articles? Adamant1 (talk) 23:09, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Well, I just added a simple line to the intro section to nod to the reality of non-museum usage. I'm not a disinterested party in this discussion, having personally used subject=* on a bunch of statues and flagpoles, which others apparently also took to. But then again, the key was first used on a bunch of school buildings anyways. – Minh Nguyễn ^💬 02:25, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. Hopefully it can be expanded beyond that at some point, but it's adequate for now. One of the reasons I asked about it before editing the article is because I know you've used the tag a lot on flagpoles. So I thought you might have an opinion about it's usage and how best to reflect it in the article. --Adamant1 (talk) 03:04, 2 September 2021 (UTC)