Proposal talk:Shop=telecommunication

Existing Tagging

Hi @Ilias! Thanks for your work on this proposal and for all your hard work on the NSI, and congratulations on becoming a maintainer on the project! Regarding this proposal, it seems that we already have tagging for this type of situation and that we need to update the NSI to reflect the correct tagging. The shop page has a section for multi-purpose shops which instructs contributors to either choose a primary value (what you are attempting to do here), use the established semi-colon value separator, or map multiple elements with corresponding shop values (possibly violating the one feature, one OSM element guideline.)

As you have experienced on your discussions and forum page, folks are hard to get into a consensus, especially worldwide, and especially when the line is not exceedingly clear. As such, I think embracing the semi-colon value separator method described on the shop page is one the NSI should follow. Some examples I have thought of (you'll have to excuse my US-centric examples as that's the only ones I know of first-hand)...

• Apple Store - shop=computer;mobile_phone
• Verizon - shop=mobile_phone;telecommunication
• Verizon HQ - office=telecommunication

As discussed elsewhere some shops, particularly in the developing world, will be single focused, only selling one thing. However, in a large swath of the world, these stores are more of a one-stop shop for your hardware and services needs.

It is hard to organize the physical world and ever harder to organize people from across the world, so I commend you on taking this on, it is good and important work no matter the outcome here! All the best. --GA Kevin (talk) 20:30, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

Hi @GA Kevin, thanks a lot for the kind words and the thoughtful answer. I envision the shop=telecommunication tag as already implying that mobile phones are sold there. So having a shop=mobile_phone;telecommunication would be redundant, and I'd prefer having a simple tag than having multiple values in shop=*.

Moreover, these shops never only sell mobile phones, but also tablets, laptops and other electronics. This simple shop=telecommunication tag would englobe any shop of a telecommunications company, whether they mainly sell phone contracts, Internet contracts or electronics. They still consistently propose the same offering, regardless on what their "main" offering is. Please tell me what you think of this approach. --Ilias (talk) 21:50, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

Have you seen the proposal for the sells key? The reason I ask (and maybe this should be a separate topic on the talk page here) is because this proposal is also surrounding primary vs. auxiliary items a shop sells. The classic example is a tobacco shop that also sells e-cigarettes. The sells method may be more tolerable to the wider community since it is generic, rather than being specific to telecom companies and electronics shops. Some food for thought perhaps. It was even advocated for as early as this year! My cautionary tale is we are not a business directory, inventory management, nor supply chain software so the line would have to be agreed to somewhere.

Okay! Enough of the tangent! Back to business. What you seem to be after is a way to (automatically via NSI) micromap these elements that may not be so clean cut. We tend to have levels of details for contributors to use. In many cases all of these can be simply shop=electronics, if more detail is known more information can be given, which is why (like cuisine) a semi-colon value separator is, to me, a smart way to go if we don't go the sells route. Another thought may be to instead update the shop=mobile_phone to also include language like "A mobile phone shop is a retail establishment that primarily sells consumer electronic devices and the connectivity plans that they connect to". It's not the cleanest, it's still expanding what mobile phone means, but would prevent the need for a mass retag effort or NSI updates.

Is your primary concern of the semi-colon value separator the complexity? It seems to be relatively easy in keys like cuisine which is a massive positive precedent, but would like your thoughts on that method or the sells route to be more generic. Happy mapping! --GA Kevin (talk) 23:06, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

Definition of shop=telecommunication should be primarily based on the product range, not the nature of the company behind it

I welcome this proposal as an important step in clarifying the difference between the long-standing shop=mobile_phone and new newer shop=telecommunication. I think one significant problem with the latter tag's current wiki page, is that the primary definition is based on the nature of the company running the shop: "A shop of a telecommunications company". I think this is a mistake. The tagging for shops should be based on the product range available not on the total business of the company behind it. A shop from a non-telecoms company selling telecoms products should still be tagged in the same way. But a shop run by a telecoms company that sells only mobile phones or a completely difference range of products should not.

The current proposal retains this problematic wording. Admittedly the product range is included too, but I would very much prefer the primary definition to be based on the products/servies, to avoid any continuing confusion. So I'd suggest starting the definition with something along the lines of "A shop selling a range of telecommunications products and services, such as..."

-- Rjw62 (talk) 11:51, 5 September 2025 (UTC)

Yes, exactly: it does not matter at all what parent company primarily does. If there is Samsung mobile phone store it does not matter at all for decideing shop=* whether it is operated by independent company, side-project of carrot farming company, telecommunication company that has small stake in tank manufacturing or weapon-producing company with small stale in telecommunication sector Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 09:19, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

Explicit clarification of how to tag shops selling mobiles phones and mobile phone contracts

I welcome this proposal as an important step in clarifying the difference between the long-standing shop=mobile_phone and new newer shop=telecommunication. One particular issue with the current setup is how to tag shops whose primary offering is mobiles phones (and possibly accessories too) and mobile phone contracts.

Such shops may be operated by a telecoms company or a network-independent chain - but I don't think that should make a difference to the tagging. The current wiki pages aren't particularly clear on this. Reading the shop=mobile_phone page in isolation, I'd think that such a shop could be tagged as shop=mobile_phone as a contract is pretty essential to have a functioning phone. But if the shop was run by a telecoms company the shop=telecommunication page might make me think shop=telecommunication was also appropriate. Although lower down it also says "shop=mobile_phone: – a shop that primarily sells mobile phones; may also sell mobile network contracts, often from several providers." tipping things back towards shop=mobile_phone.

I think this proposal needs to make a decision one way or the other on who such shops should be tagged, and make this absolutely clear in the main definition at the top of the page. So on shop=mobile_phone, either explicitly add "mobile phone contracts" to the definition, or add "Shops that also sell mobile phone contracts should instead be tagged as shop=telecommunication" straight afterwards. A similar clarification should be added to the proposed definition of shop=telecommunication.

-- Rjw62 (talk) 11:51, 5 September 2025 (UTC)

Only?

"A shop that ONLY sells mobile phones and related accessories" ?

So shop selling mobile phones and also say postcards must not be tagged as shop=mobile_phone ? This "primarily" is there to handle such admixtures that happen quite often Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 09:30, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

Forum discussions

It would be useful to link also other forum discussions that were recently started Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 09:31, 8 September 2025 (UTC)