Talk:Tag:building=tower

This tag is not "approved"

Wiki page of man_made=tower says building=tower is not approved: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:man_made%3Dtower#Not_approved_tagging I think this should be displayed on this page some way. Maybe deprecation or a similar warning? --Infeeeee (talk) 10:19, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

This tags means related, but different things. building=tower means "a building in form of tower". Dropping this tag causes information loss. Something B (talk) 11:48, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

Most of the other building=* values are the usage of the building, not its shape. Skyscrapers should be tagged as building=tower? There are ~5000 building=tower, ~3000 of them also have the man_made=tower tag, so I think it's not as straightforward, the meaning and recommended usage of this tag is ambiguous. The example image, a bell tower, it can be tagged man_made=tower, tower:type=bell_tower. Bell tower wiki even uses the same image as this page... --Infeeeee (talk) 12:31, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

Bell tower still building, therfore should be marked with building=*. Of course, it is possible to use (building=bell_tower OR building=tower) AND man_made=tower AND tower:type=bell_tower . Something B (talk) 21:26, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

When is a tower "man_made" instead of a building=tower (material,construction,size,usage) ?

See the "man_made" page https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Tag:man_made%3Dtower#building=tower_vs._%22man_made%22 Rtfm (talk) 05:49, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

Certainly a key question but no easy one because there are random variants. To me one basic criteria is: Does the tower have a room (closed or semi-closed) with the purpose to take, accommodate, contain humans, animals, an accessible mechanism (technical unit / machine) or substances? If yes, than I would call it a building. If not, e.g. only stairs on the outside of a pylon, or stairs on the inside of a pylon not leading to a room but only to maintain antenna, I wouldn't call a building. – But in addition to the pure disambiguation we have to think of the data use case with OSM: Is it beneficial to have double tags like building=tower + tower:type=bell_tower and man_made=tower + tower:type=bell_tower ? Or is it beneficial to tag a man_made=tower + tower:type=bell_tower with an additional building=yes if it applies? --Chris2map (talk) 17:34, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

I think that building=yes should be used only for buildings of unknown types. Something B (talk) 07:30, 6 April 2025 (UTC)