Proposal talk:Refilling a purchased drink

Free Refills

I see that the suggestions about "free refills" are included here because there was some confusion about the use of "free_refill=yes" in central Europe. The English word "refill" implies that it is the second time something has been filled. Thus a customer may request that their glass be filled again with the same beverage.

I'd suggest a separate proposal page to discuss the free_refill=yes tag.

In North America, free beverage refills are limited to "soft drinks" (aka fizzy drinks / pop / soda / cola depending on dialect), tea and brewed coffee. Alcoholic beverages, espresso and specialty coffee drinks, and other specialty beverage are usually excluded. I don't recall every seeing free refills of lemonade or fruit juice.

So it would be sufficient to have free_refill=coffee/tea/soft_drink/yes/no free_refill=yes would imply that all customers can get free refills on coffee, tea and soft drinks, if all are offered. Or at a cafe that only serves coffee and tea, free_refill=yes would mean free refills on coffee and tea (since soft drinks are not available)

Some places only offer refills for free on one category. For example, a cafe or "diner" may only offer free refills of brewed coffee, while a fast food restaurant often offers free refills of "soft drinks" but not coffee. In this case the specific free_refill=coffee or free_refill=soft_drink would be used.

I don't think it is necessary to use a more complicated namespaced tag, such as free_refill:coffee=yes, though that could be an alternative.

- Joseph Eisenberg, @Jeisenbe, 20-Sep-2018

Just to help you see why these are together: a specific editor is involved in "free refill" program which is, actually, "refilling your own bottle", which is, as you already mentioned, a really weird way to use the word. Some (or most) of us advised to use drinking_water=* instead, but it's not yet clear - at least to me - whether there's another usage which needs distinction between a tap on the street and a pub offering water for cyclists happening by. As for myself: I'm only interested in places where I can get water for free, and I don't care whether it's a hydrant or a hotel lobby, as long as they let me (customer=no) use it. --grin ✎ 11:34, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for your insights. I believe that the UK program called "Refill" used the word in a different meaning as well, hence the key "free_refill" could lead to confusion in the future. wikipedia:Refill (scheme) Bkil (talk) 12:10, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

I am strongly against tagging the business practice how often a _paid_ glass of beverage is being refilled (with cheaply produced unhealthy liquids anyway). This is close to a restaurant review and not a geographical property.
I would support however tagging the free tap-water refilling campaign as it is apparently a litter-avoiding idea and presumably ground-verifiable (by some sticker or so at the door?), and not the practice of one particular business.--Polarbear w (talk) 08:27, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Previous comments copied from Talk:Proposed_features/Free_drinking_water_by_private_entities Bkil (talk) 15:01, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

Alternative tagging section

To me it is unclear which is the actual proposal, because you also list alternative tag proposals. --Dieterdreist (talk) 09:25, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Textual description

While a textual description can be very useful for people that understand the language used, it is not useful for semantic searches, and as its presence can discourage mappers from adding more precise structured information, I would rather prefer not to have it listed at all. A case like this example: "drink_refill=soft_drinks;coffee + drink_refill:description=except Coca-Cola and Pepsi" should better be described in a way that makes automatic filtering possible. E.g. drink_refill:soft_drinks=yes + drink_refill:soft_drinks:coca-cola=no + drink_refill:soft_drinks:pepsi=no + drink_refill:coffee=yes.
At this point, it might be easier to just write refill:coffee=yes. For pricing, there should probably be differentiation between "free" and "reduced price" and "no", e.g. refill:coffee=free/reduced_price/no. Not sure how to deal with limited refill vs. unlimited (e.g. up to 3 refills). Maybe without the "drink" prefix this could also solve the "all you can eat" situation? --Dieterdreist (talk) 09:25, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Key format

@Bkil: Just to let you know Proposed_features/Free_Water near the end of voting (with positive outlook) has used drinking_water:refill=*. I suppose you can consider it. -- Kovposch (talk) 17:01, 16 February 2020 (UTC)