Tag status

The Description templates, including ValueDescription and KeyDescription, provide a description box for describing keys and tags. One of the included parameters is status= which describes the approval or community acceptance status of the key or tag, representing a feature or attribute.

Status values

content template

• approved: the key or tag has successfully completed the approval process
• de facto: the tag is in widespread use, and while it was not approved in a proposal process, it has a widespread acceptance among mappers ⁽²⁾
• deprecated: deprecated tags that are discouraged from being used
• discardable: tags that are so useless that editors remove them automatically, for example Tag:odbl=clean
• imported is used for a tag which was added from an external database
• in use: the key or tag is in use ⁽²⁾
• obsolete: a key or tag which is no longer found in the database
• proposed: the key or tag has been proposed to be used (but not yet approved) and usage of this tagging is minimal ⁽¹⁾
• undefined or  (empty): unclear situation (this may be actually useful in case where data item has invalid value and it is not entirely clear which one should be used and someone is not interested in editing data items)
• voting: the key or tag is currently being voted on as part of the approval process

Notes:

1. By "usage of this tagging is minimal" it is meant that there is minimal usage world wide, for example a tag that has been used 50 times. Note that depending on the tag low usage may be normal, generally properties will have a much higher usage than specific features.
2. in use and de facto can be used for tags that are in use but have proposal in some stage that was not approved. For example, a heavily used tag with rejected proposal can have de facto status.
3. inuse was sometimes applied instead in use, the same with defacto instead of de facto. It is highly preferable to avoid this.

See also: Proposal status values

Current layout in the Wiki

approved · de facto · deprecated · discardable · imported · in use · obsolete · undefined · voting · proposed

Now unsupported: unsupported “abandoned” status · unsupported “draft” status · unsupported “rejected” status

Statuslink

Keys and tags which have been proposed should have a link to the proposal:

• statuslink: name of the proposal page, for linking

This should always be included for tags with proposal status approved or rejected, and should be included for all tags and keys which had a proposal, even if the status is now de facto or in use - approval statuses which do not require a previous proposal.

"Green" values

approved and de facto tags have usually been accepted and supported by the community, and the majority of features in the database are tagged with one of these tags. Most are listed at Map Features. The wiki highlights these statuses in green.

Approved

• approved keys or tags have completed the Proposal process and been approved by a majority or supermajority vote. Mappers and database users can expect these tags to usually be well-thought-out and developed. The original proposal should be available as a small link just to the right of the word "approved".

De facto

• de facto is used to describe the keys and tags which have been strongly adopted by mappers, without completing the approval process. Many of these key and tags were developed in the early years of OpenStreetMap, before the approval process developed, but others developed organically more recently. A key or tag that is marked de facto is used by many mappers and has been used very frequently often for a number of years.
• Note that some of them were rejected in proposal process.

"Red" values

deprecated and discardable status values are highlighted in red.

• discardable tags have no use. Usually they were created by an import or clean-up process, but are no longer needed. Editor applications may automatically discard these tags without requiring human intervention.
• deprecated tags should not be used any more. Usually there is an approved replacement tag which has been discussed and agreed upon by the community, and is listed in the page deprecated features

"In use" status

in use status has a wide range of meaning. These keys and tags have not been voted on and discussed like approved ones and are not as widely used as de facto keys and tags, but may still be the most common existing tag for a feature. Only a small percentage of in use tags have been added to the list of Map Features.

• All in use keys and tags are currently being added to new features by mappers, but have not been approved or used so widely to become de facto.
• Some feature and attribute tags with in use status are fairly widely used, but are too new or not yet common enough to be tagged as de facto. However, they may change to de facto after another year or two of frequent use.
• Some in use tags are very common, but somewhat debated. There may be another in use tag with a similar meaning, or the tag may be used for several different features with a similar name.
• Some in use tags may be only used in one country or by a small number of mappers.
• Some in use tags were rejected when proposed, but are still being used but not often enough to qualify as "de facto".
• There is some usage but not high enough to qualify as de facto. Note that tag that is part of established tagging scheme would require far less use to qualify as in use or de facto than some completely new tagging scheme. Also, most users will consider even ATYL tags with minimal usage as in use as long as they're properly documented on the wiki. Consider consulting Taginfo to get better idea of actual usage numbers and how widespread it is.

Proposal process values

proposed, and voting are used for tags that are currently in the proposal stage.

If tag has enough uses to qualify for de facto or in use this values should be used instead.

• proposed: the key or tag has been formally proposed and discussed on the Tagging mailing list and at the proposal Talk page, but it has not yet reached the voting stage.
• voting: the key or tag is currently being voted on as part of the approval process, and will soon be either approved or rejected. Recently rejected keys and tags might be re-written and resubmitted for approval.

Undefined

Status may be not defined at all (   empty) - it means that it waits for someone to specify it.

There may be also explicit unspecified/undefined that gives no extra info or benefit.

Other values

Some tags do not qualify for any of the statuses above: the tags below have not been approved or rejected, are not commonly being used by mappers, but do have a wiki page and have some examples in the database.

Values include unknown

• obsolete is used for a tag which is no longer found in the database. It may have been replaced by a new tagging method.

• import or imported is used for a tag which was added from an external database.

Former status values

Until 2023, the following values were used:

• abandoned tags were proposed, but the proposal process for tag was abandoned before completing it. Note that tag itself may independently have in use or de facto status even if the proposal was abandoned.
• draft: the feature has a draft proposal being written, but may not yet have been discussed widely.
• rejected tags were proposed and discussed, but not approved by the community. Read the linked proposal to see the reasons for rejection. Another tag may be suggested instead.

Note that for abandoned and rejected proposals, while the initially proposal may have been abandoned, the tag may be in active use and have a different status such as de facto or in use. Even some widely used tags began life as an abandoned proposal.

They were removed after discussions because they were statuses of proposals, not tags.

Changelog of approved tags

For a listing of newly approved, added, changed or deprecated tags, see Changelog.

References

Related terms: ‹ approved › ‹ de facto › ‹ defacto › ‹ deprecated › ‹ discardable › ‹ in use › ‹ inuse › ‹ obsolete › ‹ proposed › ‹ voting ›