Talk:Key:apartheid free zone

Deletion

Hi @Supaplex030 you deleted this page earlier today, I have reverted this since I was missing any form of discussion on this topic.

You gave the following reason:

A highly controversial term that many consider offensive, which, in this form, violates OSM’s commitment to political neutrality and its policy against discriminatory content.

1. What term are you referring to?
2. What rule does this term being controversial violate?
3. How does this page violate political neutrality? As far as I can see, no opinion is taken anywhere on the page.
4. Who is being discriminated against?

Wombatmaper (talk) 16:25, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

I have requested the deletion because I consider the choice of the key apartheid_free_zone – and thus the title of this page – to be inappropriate for use as a key in OSM. The key refers to the title of the controversial political campaign Apartheid Free Zone by the BDS movement, which targets products and companies from the State of Israel. In political and social science discourse, it is argued that the campaign is directed against this state; occasionally, accusations of anti-Semitism and thus discrimination against Israelis and Jews are also raised. (Among other criticisms is that the name trivializes the racist political system of apartheid in South Africa.) A term that some perceive as discriminatory seems to me unsuitable for naming a key in the OSM database and a OSM wiki page, even if it merely refers to an existing campaign under that name (I think there would be broad agreement that, for example, lgbt_free_zone would not be a good choice for OSM tagging, not to mention other historical examples of “free zones”).

A somewhat different debate is whether political views should generally be part of OSM / poi tagging. So far, they usually aren't. However, I don't think this question should be part of this deletion discussion.

Non-discrimination is in the DNA of OSM and a large part of its community, and the use of offensive language in the tagging system – aside from spam – has not been an issue in the community so far. Therefore, we do not need to explicitly refer to "rules of language" on pages such as Any tags you like. Our rules and codes of conduct are primarily aimed at communication within the community, where non-discrimination and "be nice to each other" are integral parts. There is therefore no "written" rule being violated here, as we have not yet found it necessary to formulate one. Supaplex030 (talk) 19:50, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

"In political and social science discourse..."

"A term that some perceive as discriminatory..."

A lot of things are argued about within politics and social sciences. Not mapping things that anyone might find offensive, or worth discussing would be utterly impossible. What if I find certain political parties offensive or discriminatory? Should we not map them? How about diet:vegan, maybe a butcher might feel discriminated by people not buying their product, should we not map vegan places? If a flat earther disagrees with the existence of the south pole, would we need to remove it?

The real world is full of controversial and discriminatory things, there is no way to have any form of map without mapping these things.

However I still do not see how this tag discriminates against Jewish people, since it does not seem to affect Jewish people outside of Israel in any way.

I also do not see how this is "offensive language". Indeed I would hope that most people would think that a "apartheid free zone" is a good thing, and giving people supporting apartheid to much room would only make the room more offensive to minorities (paradox of tolerance).

And people who disagree with this campaign can always ignore this tag. Wombatmaper (talk) 21:06, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing your opinion – you've made your position clear ;) Maybe there are more opinions out there. Supaplex030 (talk) 21:44, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

origin=* is the positivist, more useful, and somewhat supported term. For the negative, I would consider eg origin:IL=no first. Although fundamentally origin=* has the problem of distinguishing products "invented" or associated by one country vs manufactured vs designed/branded/owned, this can be improved.

In terms of verifiability, the article didn't explain who, or at least how to determine whether somewhere "has fulfilled all requirements", or "confirmed to have fully met the requirements".

apartheid_free_zone=no is further weird and misused to be "has been approached about joining", which would be a private use of OSM by the movement. It's akin to using affiliated_with_some_party=no for whether somewhere has rejected a political party's invitation. While I understand this should not be added to everything, I won't use this definition, instead relying on the usual standard of something expected to have it but doesn't. Kovposch (talk) 07:57, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

origin:IL=no would not be correct, since the campaign primarily targets organizations and companies who are supportive of the apartheid and genocide of Palestinians, regardless of where they are located. The vast majority of primary targets are actually from the USA: https://bdsmovement.net/Act-Now-Against-These-Companies-Profiting-From-Genocide.

In general, such places can be verified by the "apartheid free zone" sticker, often placed outside the store.

I do agree with apartheid_free_zone=no being somewhat inappropriate though, though currently there are 0 uses. Wombatmaper (talk) 08:40, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

That's a start for identifying the geography. It can be extended Israeli-occupied territories.

International companies doing business in Israel is more difficult. But this may be out-scope for OSM.

Scalability is a problem if you want to add any and all political stickers at somewhere to OSM. This was discussed somewhere before. Other services might be more suitable.

The list of targets will be updated. The requirements will change. This is difficult to maintain data freshness. How do you determine whether somewhere is complying with the latest boycotts? diet:vegan=* or lgbt=* has a more permanent definition that doesn't move.

diet:vegan=* is added, but not eg climate_emergency=* (yet). Adding exact actions done is more specific for both OSM and other's purposes. Eg apartheid_free_zone=partial doesn't explain what it meets. Kovposch (talk) 08:53, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

But the geography would still be incorrect, since a AFZ only requires the store to "Cut all ties with BDS priority targets and divest, where applicable, from companies listed by

authoritative UN and civil society research groups.". Some places which register as an AFZ might additionally also boycott all Israeli goods, but that is not guaranteed. I do not see how this could be tagged with any established tags.

And this campaign is more than just a sticker, ideally the hope is to one day be able to recreate this map with osm data: https://bdsmovement.net/apartheid-free-zones

Indeed it might be hard to find out if a business has joined the latest boycott, or any boycott for that matter. Similar to how it is hard to verify if a place that declares a meal vegan, is actually preparing it without animal products. The tag description "Indicates whether the feature has joined the BDS campaign for Apartheid-Free Zones" helps here, since we need not verify how the business is implementing the boycott, but simply intent / declaration, which is much more verifiable.

Wombatmaper (talk) 08:08, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

From reading, I thought all Israeli products from occupied territories should be boycotted?

Anyway, then the definition should be changed first, removing the "requirements" criteria, and apartheid_free_zone=partial

Format-wise, having many somecause1=yes top-level attribute should be avoided

• initiative:apartheid_free_zone=yes : I suggested initiative=* for chat benches, although I mostly envision it as what the feature is set up for
• affiliation:apartheid_free_zone=yes : There are some affiliation=* and 1 affiliation:wikidata=*
• campaigh:apartheid_free_zone=yes : 1 campaign:name=* for sport competitiion

However, the fundamental question of whether all political or mass movement stickers should be added still stands Kovposch (talk) 08:57, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

Well if "all Israeli products" = "all Israeli products from occupied territories" depends on viewpoint, and if you count Israel in its entirety as an occupied territory.

Tagging @Sierra9982 since you wrote the "partial" description. I have no particular opinion on this.

As for the tagging scheme, initiative=* looks the most fitting for me.

And again: this is a much larger campaign that just some stickers. Wombatmaper (talk) 21:14, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

I'm referring to stickers as the plethora of signage that can potentially be added. Then there are posters, which can be time-insenstitive, or displayed long past their immediate relevance, showing the business's opinion. The problem is all the (partisan) politics and social issues out there that could be added. Kovposch (talk) 07:13, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

But this tagging is not about the signs. Its about a place joining a campaign and adopting various standards, the signs are merely the best way to find such places. Wombatmaper (talk) 09:23, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

Hello! Thanks for discussing this. I am relatively new to the OSM community, so apologies for any beginner mistakes with this. I initially meant the "partial" to indicate a business that has signed onto the initiative but has not fully divested yet. I realized later that this is not something that the OSM community would effectively be able to track, and have meant to remove that since but I am still learning how to use this system.

I would support moving this to initiative=* as suggested. I was originally trying to model this after the lgbtq:signed=* tag, but not all businesses who sign these initiatives have signs to indicate that. I was thinking maybe there should be a tag where one could include a source for the information, such as a URL to a social media announcement or something like that. Maybe something like initiative:BDS:apartheid_free_zone:source=signed for signs and initiative:BDS:apartheid_free_zone:source:url=* for links to social media announcements? Sierra9982 (talk) 13:19, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

"BDS" should be part of the tagging somehow, since it means "apartheid-free zone" specifically in the context of the BDS movement. This avoids the offensive implication that the BDS movement is the global authority on defining apartheid. JeroenvanderGun (talk) 17:56, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

BDS on its own is more of a general term. I can imagine this becoming a "generic brand" of activism tactics. Its authority is the Palestinian BDS National Committee, which has another BNC term.

*:PS_BDS:AFZ=* ? Currently *:PS:*=* country infix suffix would mean in national, not international use. Kovposch (talk) 07:21, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

I do not see how this implies that "BDS is an authority on defining apartheid". Israeli apartheid is a well established fact, defined by various human rights organizations and the UN which is what BDS references.

However I do agree that BDS should probably be part of the name, but mostly to be clearer, and differentiate to any other groups that might use the term. I suggest the tag initiative:BDS:apartheid_free_zone=* Wombatmaper (talk) 09:20, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

It's about what actions to take or agree with, and this specifies it as following the central authority of the movement, not any suborganization. There can be other counter-Israel movements. There could also be other apartheid in the world.

Or simply initiative:wikidata=* to avoid thinking about this ( name:etymology:wikidata=* is mostly alone) Kovposch (talk) 11:08, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

I think initiative:BDS:apartheid_free_zone=* would be suitable, or maybe initiative:BDS:AFZ=*. And after using OSM for a bit longer and becoming more familiar with it, I agree with the earlier assessments about apartheid_free_zone=no being inappropriate for OSM. Sierra9982 (talk) 13:24, 19 June 2026 (UTC)