Proposal talk:Newsagent

Discuss Proposed features/Newsagent here:

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Revive this proposal?

This was obviously never written as a proper proposal, hence it was rejected.

But how to tag a newsagent? shop=kiosk doesn't seem right to me. A kiosk is a dinky little shop ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiosk) whereas a newsagent ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newsagent ) well it's not normally a very big shop, but it can be a perfectly ordinary shop on a street (not a dinky box)

So shop=newsagent or shop=news ?

-- Harry Wood 18:31, 28 February 2009 (UTC

In the UK the industry term is CTN (Confectionery, Tobacco, News) which certainly covers the range of products sold in such outlets elsewhere in Europe. However, this is undoubtedly obscure for those who don't read Retail Week or similar, as the term is not even in wikipedia, so I think shop=newsagent is probably the best available. Kiosk to me more describes the physical building rather than the nature of the retail outlet, so perhaps shop=newsagent, building=kiosk for greek, parisian varieties ... SK53 18:50, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

The proposal is to list this tag alongside the widely used shop=kiosk, making the distinction (and yes it's a actually a distinction based on building size rather than retail function). This solves the immediate problem that many newsagents shops are not "kiosks".

It should also result in some proportion of kiosks (but not all) getting re-tagged as newsagents. An improvement in the accuracy/descriptiveness of data in those cases.

This might pave the way for shop=kiosk to be deprecated entirely on the basis that it "more describes the physical building rather than the nature of the retail outlet" as you say. That's something I would support. BUT it's something to debate in the future. This proposal is not about deprecating kiosk.

-- Harry Wood 10:43, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Proposal revived

Add your comments/suggestions in this page, thanks --SteveVG 12:16, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I think this is needed, as Kiosk really doesn't describe most newsagents round here. It may help to get things passed if the proposal page is formatted properly.... Would do myself but have got a lot of tracks to map still. --Pobice 20:54, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Ok I'll fix the proposal page later today.--SteveVG 09:49, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

vending=*

Since the newsagent often sells other goods, I also propose to use the vending=foo tag, similar to amenity=vending_machine. The following list has been copied from the vending_machine page:

• public_transport_tickets
• public_transport_plans
• parking_tickets
• food
• drinks
• sweets
• cigarettes
• photos
• animal_food
• news_papers
• toys
• stamps
• SIM-cards
• telephone_vouchers
• vouchers
• condoms
• tampons
• excrement_bags
• bicycle_tube
• ...

(--SteveVG 11:10, 25 April 2009 (UTC))

Clearly this vending=foo tag could equally apply to any kind of shop. Let's do it as a separate proposal applying to any kind of shop. I think someone did a product=foo proposal before maybe. It's a very open-ended and detailed thing to try and map, so not sure if it's a proposal I would support, but in any case I really think we should have that discussion elsewhere, so I'm going to remove it off this shop=newsagent proposal.

-- Harry Wood 10:23, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

JOSM icon

JOSM already shows shop=newsagent as an icon, and has done for some time now --LeedsTracker 19:19, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Current Usage in Europe (19-04-2009)

(Tagwatch is slow tonight, so I couldn't be bothered to look at other continents.)

Value	# used
kiosk	2976
news	1
newsagent	321
newsagent/tobacconist	1
newsstand	3

--Cartinus 00:27, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Not needed

If the kiosk is in a small building or in a big one is represented by the building=yes and the outline of the building. This is totally useless and makes it harder to look for a place to buy newspapers, as you have to browse one more tag. --Lulu-Ann 06:44, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Slight language thing I guess. I think in some countries e.g. Germany, the word "kiosk" is used a lot, whereas in the England we only apply the word to dinky little box shops (and we don't tend have them so much perhaps). It is wrong to call a normal newsagents shop (a proper shop integrated into a row of shops) a kiosk. The word just doesn't fit. That's why this is being proposed.

I guess "newsagent" is a very english term. From that point of view shop=news would have been a more universally understood proposal.

I have clarified how we might draw the distinction between a kiosk and a newsagent. I kind of agree though, that ideally we wouldn't have two tags, except I would say kiosk is a bit useless :-) To my (english) mind it would be better to tag those as shop=newsagent, size=kiosk or something.

-- Harry Wood 12:16, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't care how it is called, if shop=news is the better term you can start a proposal to replace that with a bot. I just want to make sure we don't start two keys for the same thing. --Lulu-Ann 20:08, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

I also agree that the new tag is necessary. Here in Brazil, we call the kiosks and the newsagent/news/whatever by the same term ("banca de jornal"), but that's just here, since they're clearly different I think that this justifies the use of this tag. --Nighto 08:06, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Maybe shop=news is the best, as kiosk is too generic to me, and also here in Italy we don't use to have many kiosks selling newspapers, we rather have shops located in buildings, so if you think that this is a duplicate tag and would prefer to have one tag only, let's discuss if a shop=news tag is needed and let's try to standardize it as the only tag for shops selling newspapers (isllated kiosk or shop inside a bigger building).--SteveVG 15:27, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

As cartinus has pointed out, there's quite a lot of shop=kiosk tags out there, so to deprecate shop=kiosk would be a big undertaking. It might be the tidy thing to do in the long run, but I don't see it as a big problem having both shop=kiosk and shop=newsagent for a while. After all we can draw a distinction (as I have done on the page)

The fact that you can buy newspapers from both of them would be problematic for anyone building a "find my nearest newspaper" app, but then you'd hit a problem anyway since shop=convenience often sell newspapers. shop=supermarket almost always sell them. You can also buy newspapers at some shop=books, amenity=cafe, etc.

-- Harry Wood 16:35, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

"to deprecate shop=kiosk" is not a "big undertaking" but a small bot run. --Lulu-Ann 07:45, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

In technical terms it may not be a big undertaking, but it is bigger proposal to put to the community (and all the people who have been mapping kiosks. Personally I'd be happy if a bot swapped every shop=kiosk to shop=newsagent & size=kiosk ...but automated tag swapping is frowned upon, especially if some people disagree with the change. Given that >2000 kiosks have been mapped, some people will disagree with the change. Hence it is a big undertaking. The alternative is to just start to move to more shop=newsagent nodes (as per distinction given on the page) as a gradual process -- Harry Wood 10:33, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

That's why we should have a proposal on the change and the bot run. --Lulu-Ann 16:19, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

"That's why" what's why? -- Harry Wood 10:23, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Newsagents vs Convenience Stores vs Kiosks

I note the comment about newsagents primarily sell newspapers, whereas convenience stores sell other items. My father was a newsagent until he retired some years ago now, and I can't remember a time when I was growing up (from the mid-1970s) when newsagents don't sell other things as well. Crisps, sweets, greetings cards, milk, ice-cream, cigarettes (but not a tobacconist which was primarily tobacco based products...), for a short time before November the 5th fireworks, combs, shoelaces, things that could be given as gifts, wrapping paper, small toys, sandwiches, biscuits...

When I'm tagging I use convenience store if there is a bigger range of food than I would think of seeing in a newsagent, and/or longer opening hours. I think I've tagged the two shops that sell newspapers near here differently as one I think of as a convenience store (I'd go there if I wanted say eggs, bread and a bottle of wine when the supermarkets are closed), and the other as a newsagent as they don't have the same sort of food range (though I may pop in there for a pre-made sandwich after a haircut next door) and are open for shorter hours.

I may be wrong but one other common feature of newsagents is that they do deliveries. The kiosks I'm thinking of are little point like features with one bloke selling solely newspapers, and quite often only a single newspaper, such as the Evening Standard ("Evenin Stannit") or the Express and Star ("Tahn Finul" - which shows my age - they've been a city 9 years). Newsagents usually have paperboys (and/or girls) that deliver papers as well as selling them over the counter.

Anyway, as far as I'm concerned they are all different. kiosk should have an additional tag to say what it sells; I'm sure I've seen similar kiosks when on holiday dedicated to films, batteries and disposable cameras (I've not checked to see whether there is a shop=photo_kiosk tag).

--EdLoach 08:54, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree. They are all different. I do concede though that they are somewhat awkwardly overlapping. How big should a kiosk be before it counts as a newsagents? Does selling eggs mean it is a convenience store? But awkward overlap between shop types is entirely unavoidable. That's why I think it is important to write things like "A newsagent primarily sells newspapers and magazines". It's an attempt to make the distinction a little bit more verifiable, as best as we can.

There's examples of this all over the shop types though. If a bakery has tables and chairs, how many tables before it counts as a cafe? If a fuel station sells eggs, is it also convenience store? I've been working on clarifying these in some places. We should add to existing tag docs to give distinction characteristics between similar tags. For new proposals this should be required.

Another interesting example: How big is a convenience store before it becomes a supermarket? In this case we are making a distinction based mainly on building size ...rather like the kiosk distinction proposed here. As long as people are made aware of similar tags, and how to make a distinction, we can cope with overlapping shop type concepts.

-- Harry Wood 10:31, 24 June 2009 (UTC)