[Request] Allow addition of generic shops

[ParzivalWolfram]

Use case Addition of shops that aren't in iD's tag list, or aren't easily identifiable, without adding a note that may go unnoticed for many years at a time due to lack of mappers in most areas. Manual tagging is insufficient due to lack of suggestion/auto-complete requiring switching to a browser constantly to manually verify tagging.

Proposed Solution

Allow for shop=yes points to be added as a last resort option, with a nag and requirement of other info before creation. I'd suggest a process similar to the following:

• Add an item (something like Shop (generic)?) to the list for places.
• Add a nag screen similar to the "Did you check this in person?" dialog box informing the user that they should pick any other type if at all possible.
• Require any other information to successfully add the tag (a name, phone number, opening hours, etc.) so empty shop=yes points aren't possible to add in this manner.

Automatic addition of review_requested=yes to the changeset for these sorts of points might be best.

[mnalis]

Thanks for your interest! However, (and please don't take this personally), I don't think that it is good idea, for multiple reasons:

• Firstly, shop=yes is basically as useless as amenity=yes. It doesn't tell you anything except that money is exchanged for something else (without any hint of what that something else might be); and as such is more likely to mislead people then help them. It might as well be a node with just fee=yes on it. E.g. imagine you're a data consumer trying to make use of that shop=yes: You need to buy milk and bread? Bad luck if that shop=yes turns out to be shop=hardware. Need USB cable urgently to charge your phone? Well, bad luck as that shop=yes is shop=greengrocer. Need to buy some wine as you're late for a dinner with your wife already? Too bad as that shop=yes is actually shop=fabric. Want to just buy anything as last-second gift? Too bad, that shop=yes was actually shop=hairdresser.

• Secondly, making such an exception to not use id-tagging-schema as for all other tags, and even have special warning handling for it, introduces huge coding & maintenance effort forever - for absolutely tiny (if any at all) benefit.

• Thirdly, if you're not able to determine type of shop while you're standing in front of it, you're even less likely to be able to do it when you're back at home. So once marked as useless shop=yes will likely stay that way. We have quests to reduce number of shop=yes; and not give it a way to easily increase it.

• Then, you say "Manual tagging is insufficient due to lack of suggestion/auto-complete requiring switching to a browser constantly to manually verify tagging". I don't follow, as:

  • SCEE does have suggestion/autocomplete in its raw tag editor (and it works fine for me. Doesn't it for you?)
  • Also, if you're trying to add value yes to that shop=* it is just three simple letters - there is not even a need for any fancy suggestion/auto-complete
  • Why would you need to be "switching to a browser constantly to manually verify tagging"? Surely you can remember and later proofread single three-letter value "yes" without help of an external website?

---

Thus, my suggestions if you find indeterminable shops:

• just skip them and move on. It is by far the easiest and almost as helpful as shop=yes. Or,
• invest some time to determine what the shop is selling. Go in and look around, or ask the clerk. Then tag what is a most closely resembling shop type (i.e. shop=convenience or shop=hardware or shop=beauty etc.). That is actually useful, but takes some effort. Or
• leave a note with pictures and all hints you can gather; and then make it a habit when you get home that you go through your notes (e.g. using https://my-notes.osm-hr.org/ or regular https://osm.org/user/xxxx/notes) and SOLVE YOUR OWN NOTES that you can. That way, they won't be hanging around for years. But if you're not able to resolve type of that shop=yes even when you're home with full desktop power at your fingertips and all the hints left in a note - just delete it (both the note and shop=yes). Likely nobody else be able to solve it either, and that shop=yes will just cause people to waste their time and effort. Or,
• suggest missing shop types to https://github.com/openstreetmap/id-tagging-schema, and then use them later in SCEE or iD etc. It will help if you firstly prepare nice wiki page for them (if they don't already have one, of course). Or,
• tag General shop or whatever and use SCEE raw tag editor to change that shop=general to shop=yes. It is just a several clicks (and as you say, we want to discourage that and only use it as a last resort, so it should have even more clicks than that), with very low chance of error (but do proofread that you really wrote "shop=yes"). It will tag what you want, but at the detriment of everyone else. Please try some other solution if at all possible.