Talk:Key:utility

Duplicate values

There are a couple duplicate values which are barely used or never used:

• "television" is a type of "telecom", since all TV cable systems are also used for internet now.
• "waste" appears to be a duplicate of "sewerage" - both are waste water and effluent from sinks/toilets/etc, according to the proposal page

Can we clear this up? --Jeisenbe (talk) 04:39, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

The proposal did not explicitly mentioned "liquid waste". It could have missed or implicitly (unintentionally or intentially) included the possibility of solid waste utility, as in pneumatic/vacuum solid waste collection systems using a network of evacuated tubes. -- Kovposch (talk) 10:24, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Allowing types of wastewater, viz municipal sewage (including both blackwater and greywater), industrial wastewaster, and stormwater, to be distinguished would be useful as well. Although it should probably be tagged in something else like substance=*, as mentioned. In its current rendition, it is not immediately clear whether the utility substance, function, or the "utility activity" as approved is being tagged. The word "sewerage" itself used by utility=sewerage means the sewer system/network, not the activity of wastewaster handling. This does not look consistent. -- Kovposch (talk) 10:24, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Personal comment: I would have similarly preferred telecom=marker + man_made=marker [assumed/implied] (+ marker=* [physical form of marker; though may be ambiguous and redundant compared to a key specified as the marker's mount]) mentioned by you in Talk:Proposed_features/Utility_markers_proposal#New_Utility.3D.2A_key:_why_not_use_existing_main_keys.3F and Talk:Proposed_features/Utility_markers_proposal#How_about_man_made.3Dmarker_as_top-level_tag.3F, had I participated in its discussion and voting. It would make the scope being telecom=* thus including TV, Internet, et al clear. However, I tend to think utility=* is used because utility=gas, utility=oil, and especially utility=sewerage and utility=hydrant don't have a clear top-level key. Of course, this comes at the expanse of multi-value markers (could exist theoretically, if shared utility tunnels is implemented this manner). -- Kovposch (talk) 10:24, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Clarification for utility=television has been brought directly on the page. television means you'll only get TV service, often over old analog networks instead of modernized infrastructure providing real triple play services with internet (which should get utility=telecom + telecom:medium=coaxial) Fanfouer (talk) 15:51, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

utility=sewerage refers to fluid sewer carriage while utility=waste indeed refers to solid waste carriage with help of pneumatic infrastructure. Like district heating (dealing with steam and hot water), difference between grey, rain, wastewater is made with help of substance=* 15:51, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

We should tend to give to power=*, waterway=*, telecom=*, pipeline=* only features directly involved in processes or operations like transformers for power or valves with pipelines can be. utility=* has been proposed to involve many more peripheral features that doesn't directly have an impact on infrastructure, like markers. No problem to introduce man_made=marker but no telecom=marker please : a marker is not a device delivering telecom services. Fanfouer (talk) 15:51, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for the clarification about waste refering to solid waste. Please clarify if this includes recycling and compost. It is still not clear to me why there should be a separate value for digital cable TV networks and for analog cable TV. Don't these systems look very similar on the ground? Ihey both use coaxial cables or similar, right? Since telecom already includes old-fashioned copper wire phones and modern fiberoptic cables and digital coaxial cables, why not include the old analog TV infrastructure too? --Jeisenbe (talk) 01:55, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Just that it occurs to me something like telecom=yes means it is related to telecoms, not necessarily carrying telecom in itself, and telecom=marker can be easily filtered out. I imagine someone working on utility would want to know where the markers are. Also Sometimes you don't know the actual infrastructure yet, only seeing the markers. What do you think about shared utility tunnels then? If I don't know what's under I can use something like utility=yes, but what about known multi-value? That's one reason for me to think about using top-level keys. -- Kovposch (talk) 09:28, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Needs of filtering and get a tidy namespace to map features we want is legit and we should care about that. Nevertheless, related features lead us to waterway=fuel for instance, which is a feature more or less related to waterways but is not a waterway at all (and brings more mess than advantages actually). telecom=marker would require to define what a marker is in power=*, pipeline=*, whatever=* and this would be redundant. Markers are particularly useful to locate yourself in ladnscape while people won't be interested to get all the associated telecom stuff with them.

Multi-utilities tunnel would be better described with utility=multi than power=tunnel + telecom=tunnel + heating=tunnel wouldn't you? Such tunnels are kind of a topic in modern cities. Think about multi-mobility bridges : we use man_made=bridge to enclose many different ways without puting cycleway=bridge + highway=bridge + ... on the bridge. Fanfouer (talk) 22:01, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

utility=power and utility=heating

I notice something that seems to be missed. While power=* is used for both electricity (or any form of energy) and heating (specific tags may refer to electric features only), under this key the value refers to the former only. Is this consistent? Since there are both general and specific values here. -- Kovposch (talk) 17:56, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

In OSM power=* is used for electricity only. What makes you think it could be used for heating as well? Fanfouer (talk) 13:29, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

Why would you say so? There are various sub-keys other than *:electricity=* defined, and there is for example power=heliostat in use. -- Kovposch (talk) 11:27, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

power=* is defined as For marking and tagging facilities for the generation and distribution of electrical power. Can you provide links to those various sub-keys please? I think power=heliostat was introduced as a device used in thermal power plants. Actually, helistat should be in man_made=* and not in power=*. Fanfouer (talk) 20:25, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

What about surveying?

I usually find stone markers that are/were used to mark official admin limits, like counties and parishes. Should they have a different utility than those listed in this wiki, like surveying or something like that? --AntMadeira (talk) 15:05, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

These are not related to Utility networks so they're not supposed to get utility=* Fanfouer (talk) 20:29, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying. --AntMadeira (talk) 21:43, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

Traffic signals

Traffic lights on wires

In some of the places where I map, traffic signals are typically strung up on wires suspended above the road by dedicated utility poles. The poles may or may not be used for street lighting as well. I wonder if this is what was meant by utility=highway, but in any case, utility=traffic_signals would be clearer. – Minh Nguyễn ^💬 00:21, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Passenger and non-bulk cargo transportation, or surveying above, isn't a "utility", let alone "traffic signals". Seems this is caused by prompting for utility=* in marker=*. ---- Kovposch (talk) 06:40, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

In my area, I guess, world-wide, the switching equipment for traffic signals is contained in street-cabinets. These might warrant a separate value for the utility key, they are not lighting or any other choice listed. --Hungerburg (talk) 09:14, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

While I don't deny it's a very particular activity that should be distinguished among other activities, traffic control is not an utility. It's built upon utilities (mainly power and sometimes telecommunications ones), like public transportation. Currently such cabinets are described with street_cabinet=traffic_control and to me we shouldn't use utility=* for that. Fanfouer (talk) 22:05, 14 August 2022 (UTC)