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When I was mapping the buildings of a company, I found it a bit strange to have to tag all of them with name=company name. It would make all the buildings appear with the company name in the maps. What can I do in general to have all the buildings associated with the company without having to apply the company name to every building? I considered adding the operator tag, but that would again have the problem of not being rendered in OSM-Carto.

asked 20 Oct '17, 19:55

wanderw%C3%BCtiger's gravatar image

wanderwütiger
3755816
accept rate: 16%


I agree that name=company is a bit strange, but I'd go farther and say that it is, in fact, incorrect. It's tempting to tag things so that they are rendered how you or I'd like. This is called Tagging for the renderer, and is well established as an error. Your alternative suggesting the operator tag is the correct approach, even if it's not as gratifying when you don't get to see it in the default rendering. Do remember that the default rendering is just one of many. If someone wanted to have a map showing all the operators of buildings, and you'd put the operator in the name tag, then your buildings operator wouldn't show up on their map.

As has already been suggested the operator's name could be put in an area tagged as landuse=commercial (or landuse=industrial, or potentially another landuse) tag. However this should only be done if it's a reasonable name for the area. For example, if there are many buildings belonging in an industrial park owned by Bob's Bicycles, and the industrial park called Bob's Bicycle Industrial park.

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answered 21 Oct '17, 02:29

keithonearth's gravatar image

keithonearth
2.9k5676108
accept rate: 13%

If the buildings are within some fairly welldefined area, I'd recommend creating and naming a landuse=commercial (or similar) polygon (as is common with schools: example) rather than name individual buildings. Another option could be using a multipolygon

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answered 20 Oct '17, 20:50

Hjart's gravatar image

Hjart
3.0k42656
accept rate: 18%

edited 21 Oct '17, 18:02

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question asked: 20 Oct '17, 19:55

question was seen: 2,223 times

last updated: 21 Oct '17, 18:02

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