Hello everyone. I’ve just started the adventure of contributing to OSM and have questions. What is the etiquette when it comes to creating “areas”? As in, for example, a Walmart. Do you create an area around the entire property and level it as retail? And then the building. Do I call the building itself “Walmart” or do I just call it “shopping center” or whatever it’s called and leave the Walmart part to a point? Basically what I’m asking is should buildings themselves be specific to the business or should that be left solely to the point?
I’m not sure if there are different etiquettes for different local regions. But for my area, all areas are exclusively just around the contiguous businesses’ buildings themselves.
If the building is multi-business, where each address is leased to a separate company, the area is placed around the entire building and not assigned to any specific business. Unless the building belongs to a company and there are other businesses inside, such as a Walmart with a McDonalds inside (which would be an area for Walmart, and a pin for McDonalds).
- Here’s my local Walmart, which is an area with other business pins inside: https://i.imgur.com/9V3gOoz.png
- Here is my local mall, which is an area for the mall itself, with pins for the businesses inside: https://i.imgur.com/TCQZfxZ.png
So would you say for a standalone business to not put a point for it but instead put all the details as the building itself and only use points if there are things inside? I’ve been just creating points for everything but I can go back and delete them and just rename the buildings
My understanding is that it depends on how many services are offered at a particular business/building (think of how many different search results you might get for a single address on Google).
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For example, Walmarts often have garden sections/entrances, a tire/lube section, etc. Each of these might pop up with their own contact information on a Google search. So in this case, I would put an area around the entire building and give it the top-level Walmart information. And then, pins for the Garden center, Tire center, Pharmacy, McDonalds, etc.
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However if there’s a building that houses a single business/service, a pin is preferred I think. And then just a building area around the structure. For example, a Taco Bell would likely be in its own building, and they only provide one service / only one search result. So use a pin for the Taco Bell, and then draw a Building area around the structure.
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And then when there are multiple businesses that are connected to each other, use pins for the businesses, and a Building area for the structure.
Ok that makes sense, that is what I’ve been doing. It’s funny that you mention Taco Bell because a Taco Bell is what I’ve been messing around with. I have the building itself marked as “Mexican Fast Food Restaurant” and then a point that says Taco Bell with the phone number, address etc. Although I don’t know if the building itself should get all that info too but it seems redundant.
I would avoid duplicating information for both the pin & area. Some maps that use OSM’s business data will show multiple potential destinations if a driver were to try and route to it. “Mexican Fast Food Restaurant” is generic enough that it’s totally fine, but I wouldn’t fill in the specifics about it being a Taco Bell (save that for the pin).
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When I doubt I look at other regions and check out what they have done :)
