Talk:Tag:amenity=fountain

Name

Not all fountains have a spoken name. But here in Switzerland they usually have the bodied year engraved on it. I usually set name to this year (eg. name=1901). Should I add a hint? --Andy 19:46, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Use inscription=* and start_date=* for this.--Jojo4u (talk) 08:26, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Sprinklers and water games

Would this encompass fountain-like structures that are, in fact, water games where people are not allowed but expected to get themselves wet? What about the closely related wading-pools? I would personally not tag one as sport=swimming as I would a normal public pool. Circeus 19:35, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

A splash pad is a class of water game fountain that appears to be replacing wading pools in my area. Wading pools and public water seem to have fallen out of favour with the rise of West Nile Disease.

A splash pad is a concrete play area, with drainage. The play area holds one or more fountain heads that are normally off. The fountains can be triggered by a button for a short period of time. I've seen these most often used by parents (at the dry button location) with small children (frolicking in the fountain).

I used these tags.

• amenity=fountain
• fountain=splash_pad

User:Rw 20:44, 1 September 2010

Can you provide a picture? - User:Lulu-Ann - 09:29, 2 September 2010

suggest node but not area

I suggest this tag should apply to nodes not areas, at least in the vast majority of cases. After all the water spurts out a particular point. Often in ornamental gardens you'll have an interesting shaped area of water (could tag as natural=water) with a fountain at a particular point within this area.

The only reason for tagging an area with amenity=fountain might be to represent a very large stone statue type fountain. Again this would be sitting in an area of water.

I propose adding the text. "Most fountains should be tagged as nodes representing the location of the fountain sitting within an area of natural=water"

-- Harry Wood 10:57, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

An alternative might be landuse=basin. --Gkai 21:45, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, a fountain is usually not in "natural water"! --Lulu-Ann 15:05, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

You mean it's in unnatural water? ;) --EdLoach 15:52, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

There are many fountains with 2+ nozzles. But each fountain has one name. So a fountain should be defined as the whole thing including water. Osm-Carto has been changed accordingly: https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/pull/1804--Jojo4u (talk) 08:28, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Rendering

Currently carto renders amenity=fountain as an icon. Either on a node, or in the center of a closed way. No outline. No color. In other maps, ornamental fountains are often drawn with a light shade of blue, much like any other body of water. Mappers, thus, often use this tag in combination with others that allow for such rendering. Typically, this would be natural=water. This creates a conflict of tags for some quality tools (like osmose). Among proposals, fixes, issues, and a host of comments in talk lists, I don't seem to find any consensus on what is the correct usage.

Any pointers?. Should it be warned in the page that mapping the basin will produce an icon in the middle of nowhere? Dazerine (talk) 20:33, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

the current suggestion of the rendering team is to map the water covered parts with natural=water (a fountain often has also other parts like sculptures. Don’t know which check osmose performs in this context, maybe it has to be changed? —Dieterdreist (talk) 20:54, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip. Is there any place where these render suggestions are recorded, for future reference?. As for Osmose, it throws a "Conflict between tags: such, such" (which ranks highest) whenever some object has the key amenity along with keys like landuse or natural. Both can be seen in the gardens of Versailles.Dazerine (talk) 22:12, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Why is this amenity=fountain and not man_made=fountain

Wouldn't man_made be more in style with how other tags work on Openstreetmap? Because being a "fountain" is not really a service. A fountain is a constructed object. That'd also have the additional benefit that you could tag merely decorative fountains with only man_made=fountain, merely functional water dispensers with amenity=drinking_water, and things that are both decorative and dispense drinking water with both tags at once. --Taktaal (talk) 18:42, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Not sure about original reasoning, but it is too late to change it. Benefits would be tiny (for similar case where benefits would be greater see highway=road vs highway=unclassified mess) Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 21:31, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

amenity=* doesn't mean a "service". It is any desirable feature. Is drinking water a "service"? As in most tags, you could interpret it as amenity=fountain implies a man_made=fountain, unless mapped otherwise. To me, a fountain could comprise multiple physical "fountain"s, as multiple fountain=* values are possible (subject to further discussion). I have difficulty in understanding why "merely decorative fountain" should only be tagged as man_made=fountain - likewise, a decoration or comfort function should be expressed, according to you. -- Kovposch (talk) 16:39, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Location of water exit points?

The amenity=fountain should represent the fountain as a whole. But is there a solution for additionally mapping the locations of individual nozzles? --Tordanik 22:05, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Separate nozzles can be tagged with fountain=nozzle (see fountain=* for more details). --Vazhnov Alexey (talk) 20:27, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Use for drinking water?

Spain has many places for public drinking water commonly called “fuente” by locals and “fountain” by tourists. Since the first line says “cultural / decorational / recreational purposes,” I was about to add text saying “amenity=fountain” should not be used for these. But then I noticed that there are photos of such lower in the page. If it’s in a plaza or along a trail, one could argue that it is recreational, but that’s a stretch. Or if it’s not ugly, it’s still a stretch to call it decorational. 伟思礼 (talk) 18:55, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

The image of the "Château de Rolle" fountain definitely doesn't belong in the list imo. That's a drinking water fountain without any decorational significance. As to the one from "Trento" I'm not sure myself, because I don't know if that's drinking water. An object that dispenses water that isn't drinkable should probably still be tagged as a fountain even if it's not very decorational. --Taktaal (talk) 13:00, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

You are absolutely right, on February 26th, user MalgiK undid the edits decided after a long discussion in the tagging group which amended the definition of amenity=fountain to "A fountain with cultural, decorational or historical significance or which serves a recreational purpose.". I believe this last edit by MalgiK should be reversed. https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Tag:amenity%3Dfountain&diff=prev&oldid=1962588 --European water (talk) 21:11, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

On lakes

Some lakes on e.g., university campuses have lakes with several fountains on them, perhaps to keep the water aerated. Or look good. Say how to tag. Jidanni (talk) 18:58, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

Map lake and fountain(s)? Not sure which aprt is problematic, can you link some specific place and link images? Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 20:27, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

Picture examples

I suggest to move two pictures to amenity=drinking_water. IMHO "Um dos fontanários de Loriga, Portugal" and "A (XIX century) fountain, Trento, Italy" have the main purpose to deliver drinking water. This may be important for passerbys, searching for water. They don't serve a recreational purpose. --Rudolf (talk) 12:05, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

The thing is those two fountains are not recreational, but they are historic and cultural fountains, as stated in the wiki. Given this, I don't think those pictures should have been moved. Copied, yes. You can then add the drinking_water=yes and fountain=drinking to indicate they're also for those who search for water. --AntMadeira (talk) 00:15, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Copying is no good idea. This leads to misunderstandings. IMHO the tagging follows the main purpose of an object. Is it build to serve drinking water or is it build to be historic? This two fountains are build to serve drinking water. You can add historic=yes to show the historic relation. --Rudolf (talk) 12:49, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

The problem with that approach is that you're disconsidering the first line of this wiki. A fountain is a fountain, is a place or structure which serves water. In many countries, a fountain is not just something pretty with lights and statues in the middle of squares or roundabouts. They're elements of everyday life, centrepieces of thousands of villages, towns and cities. This is a long debated issue and I just wanted to leave this opinion registered in the talk page of this tag for others to consider. --AntMadeira (talk) 23:33, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

I agree with @Rudolf: and I have concerns also about this picture "Pipe fountain (German: "Laufbrunnen") in Germany" • File:Laufbrunnen_Einhardstraße_(Steinbach).jpg that in my opinion is clearly designed to deliver drinkable waters, and it's main use is not a decorative object.

Here we are talking about giving useful information to computers, included. So, we should map the main usage, as best as we can.

This is not a good example of drinking water, in my opinion, and therefore we should remove it - or, add a very clear description to do not confuse mappers. Valeriobozz (talk) 14:24, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Deleted example

This page contains now a deleted example, the second "here" in: "a hull polygon enclosing all the nozzles of the fountain (like here or here)." --Ivanbranco (talk) 21:00, 10 August 2024 (UTC)