Proposal talk:PO Boxes

post_office_boxes instead of "po_box"?

The current value "po box" suggests a single box, and "po" isn't clear. I think "post_office_boxes" would be less ambiguous. But perhas there is a better British English term? I'd also recommend sending an email to the tagging list for ideas - see Proposal_process. --Jeisenbe (talk) 15:20, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

I'm very indifferent about the name as long as it's something recognizable. I just created a page because there was a discussion on the German forums a while ago that was very inconclusive and I got reminded of it today while surveying as I stood at a closed railway crossing with a set of PO boxes right next to me, so I created the page and mapped a few PO boxes I know off memory (taginfo is lagging behind). -- Prince Kassad (talk) 15:51, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

To be clear, these are Post Office Boxes, places where individual people or households can pick up letters which have been delivered by the national Postal Service, but not located at a Post Office, right? Are these significantly different than amenity=letter_box (to recieve mail directly at an address)? There is also amenity=post_box (for outgoing mail) but I think that's not what you mean. I'm a little worried that amenity=po_box could be confused with post_box and letter_box --Jeisenbe (talk) 16:10, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

In Germany, strictly speaking, there are no post offices because the national postal service no longer operates any customer services themselves. They only cooperate with Postbank (former postal savings bank) which has taken over most former post offices, and various small shops like convenience stores in smaller cities/villages. The case I thought of when I created this page, that I once saw on a survey, was that there's a small supermarket that offers postal services and has PO boxes accessible through a side entrance separate from the entrance to the supermarket. amenity=letter_box, at least over here, is a private mailbox offered to residents who live too far from a paved road to have their mail delivered directly to their residence, so they get a mailbox posted at the closest paved road. They're most common (that's not saying much, they're not very common in general) in very rural areas. -- Prince Kassad (talk) 16:23, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Confusion

In Australia "Post Office Boxes" are located at a Post Office. They are not located in other places. I think the same is true in the UK. So the name "Post Office Box" or PO Box" will cause confusion to some of us.

For deliveries not made by normal methods there are a few officially accepted methods;

Care of Post Office -where you go into the Post Office and pick up your mail across the counter.

Community Mail Agent.

Community Mail Bag

Community Postal Agent

Locked Bag

Mail Service

Roadside Delivery

Roadside Mail Box/Bag - where a 'mail box' is located on a main road at some distance from the actual address. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadside_Mail_Box

Roadside Mail Service

Private Bag

What's the confusion? They are called "PO box", by the virtue of being located in a post office. If you mean conflict in key amenity=*, there are 2 po_box=* (+ 1 by me recently) instances that could suggest a amenity=post_office has a amenity=po_box. amenity=po_box could then be used for micro-mapping it in detail (as in the indoor of a post office). That being said, this is at its infancy, cf addr:pobox=* and contact:pobox=*. Similarly, there were discussions on the suitability amenity=letter_box, which may overlap with each other here. -- Kovposch (talk) 10:20, 31 July 2020 (UTC)