Talk:Tag:historic=vehicle

vehicle:type is a proposal

Thanks for documenting this tag, Ungoose. It looks well-done.

However, there is a whole section of values for vehicle:type=* but these values have not been used yet: https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/vehicle%3Atype#values

That means this use of vehicle:type=* is a proposal. It would be best to create a proposal page at Proposed_features/Key:vehicle:type or Proposed_features/Tag:historic=vehicle to document these proposed values. I also see that vehicle=* has been used 14 for the same purpose, which is about twice as common, and it's a simpler tag: https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/YU7 - so perhaps that is a better option. --Jeisenbe (talk) 15:55, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks! It is probably a good idea to create a proposal. The vehicle=* is certainly a simpler tag. However, note that it is already approved as a part of the Restrictions category (to specify access) and has its own page. Besides, vehicle:type=* is in line with aircraft:type=*and ship:type=* used for very similar historic features. --Ungoose (talk) 16:07, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Given the existence of tags such as historic=tank and historic=railway_car, it's not clear how that intersects with a potential vehicle:type=* and it seems like this may be creating multiple ways to tag the same thing. Please remove proposed ideas from the main wiki and use the proposal process to gain community consensus for new tags. ZeLonewolf (talk) 15:59, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Why not use more specific tags for cars, tractors, etc?

There are more specific tags in use like historic=car (https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/tags/historic=car), historic=tractor (https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/tags/historic=tractor), historic=tram (https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/tags/historic=tram).

Also there are already documented pages for railway vehicles like historic=locomotive and military vehicles like historic=tank.

Perhaps it would be better to use those more specific tags, and then create a tag like historic=military_vehicle for non-tank military vehicles, which seem to be the main examples for what you would want to map with this tag. --Jeisenbe (talk) 16:28, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

This approach has several downsides:

• historic=vehicle seems to be a relatively established tag used for both military and civilian features with more than 100 uses. historic=Military_vehicle has zero.
• There are a lot of historic vehicles beside cars, trams, and tractors. Many of those don't even fit into conventional categories and would require some kind of a generic "vehicle" tag anyway.
• Creating a value for each new type of vehicle will fragment the database and would slow down the acceprance for each tag. It is much better to have three tags (vehicle, aircraft, and ship) to represent a decomissioned machinery than dozens with a couple of uses for each. In addition, many types of historic vehicles are quite infrequent, creating a situation where low numbers will be used as arguments against them.
• Separate tags for each vehicle type will make it less practical for data consumers. Rendering is the most obvious example: separate tags would require an icon for each tag, and developers are particularly picky when it comes to rendering less popular objects. On the other hand, vehicles as a category can be represented by some generic icon (with some exceptions like locomotives and maybe tanks that have separate tags anyway). For objects that are often major landmarks this is a serious issue.
• For some vehicles it would be difficult to establish whether they are military or not, adding ambiguity for mappers. Besides, there is little value in the military category from the map user's standpoint.
• There is no reason to use specific tags for civilian vehicles but only a general category for military ones, and creating a tag for each military vehicle would add to the issues listed above.
• historic=aircraft and historic=ship, which describe very similar features, do not separate military and civilian vehicles and do not use separate tags for helicopters, airliners, icebreakers, tugboats, ferries, submarines, etc. Using this schema for historic=vehicle will improve consistency and convenience of data.

Now, to be fair, the existence of separate historic=locomotive , historic=railway_car, and historic=tank does concern me, but considering all of the above, I'd rather opt for merging them with the vehicle tag (e.g., historic=vehicle+vehicle:type=tank like here https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/1122493917). That is, of course, a topic for a proposal (and, realistically, I don't think that is happening anytime soon), but certainly not a reason against adopting a more universal and versatile tag.--Ungoose (talk) 07:52, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

1) If historic-feature-focused maps want to show these features, they can choose to use the same symbol for each one, or no symbol, or a specialized map might want to show a different icon for trucks, cars, tractors, buses, military transports, armoured vehicles, etc. - and in that case it's easier for the mapper to add one tag (historic=bus) rather than two (historic=vehicle + vehicle=bus), while for a map renderer or software developer it's no different.

2) It's unlike that general-purpose map will choose to show an icon for historic cars and trucks, but if they do, it's not an obstacle to show multiple tags in the same way. All the tags can be selected together in SQL, which is quite trivial.

3) Can we propose that this tag be limited to road and off-road motor vehicles: cars/trucks/tractors/etc, but not tanks, locomotives, trams or other railway vehicles? Otherwise there will be two overlapping options, and it seems like mappers are already using more specific tags for the railway vehicles (and tanks). --Jeisenbe (talk) 15:35, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

I am not talking about historic-feature-focused maps, but rather a general-purpose one like carto. Trucks, tractors, and combine harvesters are often significant local landmarks, as are aircraft, locomotives, tanks, and other types of military vehicles. The value of showing them on a general-purpose map is comparable to memorials and similar objects in the historic category.

I am certainly okay with excluding tanks, locomotives, and rail cars, which already have their own tags and such approach is encouraged on the page in the "Similar tags" section. We can also remove the mention of trams from examples if you feel that railway vehicles do not qualify. However, we are still left with a lot of road and offroad motor vehicles, both military and civilian - a dozen at least, I'd say, twice as much if we count exotic ones. Many of these exist as entries, but none of them is as numerous as historic=vehicle. Should we add a dozen new values to the historic category or will it be better to have a general tag for all of them? I use aircraft and ships as a reference because both are quite popular tags (historic=aircraft has over 2000 entries, historic=ship is just short of 800) and seem to have consistency in their tagging.--Ungoose (talk) 16:33, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

One might also argue for historic=vehicle and then a series of vehicle=* values which are sub-tags to describe the type of vehicle. This would be a typical practice. However, this talk page is not the right place for that discussion - a proposal discussing how historic vehicles (of various types) should be tagged appears is appropriate here. That way the wider community can weigh in, not just those that happen to stumble upon this discussion. ZeLonewolf (talk) 16:54, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Picture

The picture (of a tank) is better represented with historic=tank. A different picture should be used that shows a historic vehicle that isn't one of the other more specific tags. ZeLonewolf (talk) 16:50, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

The picture used for historic=vehicle is not of a tank but an APC (which is both visually distinct and does not fall under the definition used on the historic=tank page, which is why APC should be tagged as historic=vehicle). However, I will try to find something even more distinct for better clarity.--Ungoose (talk) 17:15, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

tourism=yes vs tourism=attraction

There is no indication that tourism=yes is a better combination than tourism=attraction. It is just a less specific tag. tourism=attraction is "added to objects to indicate that the item is interesting for tourists" and "does not distinguish between major and minor tourism attractions." tourism=yes is described as "other (rarely used) possible way is to map the primary feature." Other types of decommissioned vehicles like aircraft, ships, tanks, locomotives and railway cars all use tourism=attraction and are described as tourist attractions on their pages. I was unable to find any of them used in combination with tourism=yes aside from one ship and one incorrectly tagged hangar. To me, tourism=attraction looks a better fit in every way.--Ungoose (talk) 13:52, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Can we not mention either one, then? Both tags are not really verifiable, they are basically a tag that means "recommended for tourists by the mapper that added this tag." We might as well have "good_for_kids=yes" or "romantic=yes" for restaurants, like you will find on Yelp or Google reviews. The problem with tourism=attraction is that this is used as a primary feature tag in some cases, that is, it's the only tag on an object. In contrast tourism=yes if a property tag in most cases, added to another feature. This is a significant problem for database users when trying to interpret if a closed way is an area or a linear feature. --04:04, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

I agree that tourism=attraction is rather vague and somewhat subjective, but then again, so is tourism in general. The question of whether this information belongs on the map is a valid concern – I just don’t think this is a good place to raise it. As of now, adding this tag is both well-documented and widely used practice. It also fits well with historic=vehicle – many decommissioned vehicles are major local landmarks that are not only interesting for tourists but are actually installed near popular tourist destinations with a sole purpose of looking cool (so they cover both use cases described on the tourism=attraction page).

I also agree 100% that using tourism=attraction as a primary feature tag is a problem. However, I don’t see how mentioning it on this page makes it worse. As a matter of fact, the page encourages using it in combination with a (primary) historic feature, which is exactly how it is meant to be used.--Ungoose (talk) 06:53, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

How can the model of vehicle (and its wiki links) be tagged?

This question applies both to this tag and its related tags (historic=aircraft, historic=tank, historic=locomotive, ...).

These pages specifiy how to tag the manifacturer (manufacturer=*, manufacturer:wikidata=*, manufacturer:wikipedia=*), but they do not specify how to tag the model of the vehicle.

Currently a lot of these elements on the map tag the model using directly name=*, wikidata=* and wikipedia=*, as can be seen with this Overpass query: https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/1h9E

This is crearly wrong, as name=*, wikidata=* and wikipedia=* should represent the object itself and not its model. The wiki page for historic=aircraft cites model=*, this seems a good alternative, shouldn't it be added to this wiki page?

Currently there aren't many historic=vehicle with model=*, there is only two of them to be precise ( https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/1h9D ). Still, IMHO it is the best alternative and should be added to this page.

Then, wiki links to the model could be added with model:wikidata=* and model:wikipedia=*. Currently these tags are very rarely used ( https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/1h9C ) but they seem ideal for this job. --Danysan (talk) 09:00, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

I created a feature proposal for this: Proposed_features/Manufacturer_and_Model --Danysan (talk) 19:01, 28 March 2022 (UTC)