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Background:

I have been adding some local businesses to OSM using, I hope, appropriate properties. In doing so, I have sometimes added the building outlines as well.

The building outlines and business names are showing up on http://open.mapquest.com/ but the amenity search (bank, atm, restaurant, etc.) does not find the new additions. Frustrating, for example, to have a map showing a building clearly labeled with a bank name but have the bank search function say there are no banks in the view.

I have double checked the properties I have for the nodes and ways (buildings) I've added against previously existing ones near by (found by the search function) and against the usage description at https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:amenity and don't see what I might be doing wrong.

I realize that mapquest can do what they want when updating their presentation of the OSM data. And volunteers with OSM may not know exactly what mapquest does. But does anyone know for sure that the amenity data is used to update the category search at the same time as the tile data is updated?

If others have not noticed this with their edits, it would indicate I am not following appropriate tagging conventions. Limiting the discussion to banks, my recent changes have the building (way) set with properties: amenity=bank atm=yes building=yes name=First Whatever Bank

I have been setting nodes on the building "way" in appropriate locations with the properties: amenity=atm operator=First Whatever Bank

I found that neither banks nor ATMs were showing up in the search, so in some cases I've gone back and added a node inside the building footprint with the following properties: amenity=bank atm=yes name=First Whatever Bank

That seems to work sometimes but not always for banks. But at all for other amenities. Am I wrong in thinking that having a building marked as a bank (or whatever) should be sufficient? Does it need an independent node inside the way with duplicate information?

In summary, a few questions: 1. Am I adding the properties appropriately? I've looked through lots of posts and read the wiki on this and it seems best practices may have changed over time but I thought I was using the current best practice.

  1. Does open mapquest actually use the property data from OSM when setting up their search database?

  2. Does open mapquest update their search data at the same time as they update their tiles? Maybe I am not waiting long enough to test things...

asked 25 Mar '13, 23:16

n76's gravatar image

n76
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accept rate: 17%

1

Would it be possible to provide a link to an example area in which there are things that don't show up?

(25 Mar '13, 23:33) SomeoneElse ♦

Your specific mapquest questions can probably only be answered by mapquest support.

I cannot see why http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/way/210312326 should behave differently than http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/way/47286731 , one is found with your search, the other not. Only difference is the name.

I also found that some ATMs have amenity=atm and some amenity=ATM (differing in case), but as far as i saw that isn't the cause of the problems.

(26 Mar '13, 15:03) gormo

To answer one of your questions: your tagging looks good!

permanent link

answered 26 Mar '13, 15:04

gormo's gravatar image

gormo
2.9k32660
accept rate: 13%

1

Thanks for that. I'll just continue on the with how I am doing tagging and hope that mapquest eventually gets it.

(26 Mar '13, 16:13) n76

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question asked: 25 Mar '13, 23:16

question was seen: 8,353 times

last updated: 26 Mar '13, 16:13

NOTICE: help.openstreetmap.org is no longer in use from 1st March 2024. Please use the OpenStreetMap Community Forum