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?
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).
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.
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.
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).