Talk:Tag:office=security

Office versus amenity

RTFM, why do you think having this as an office instead of an amenity fits better? Both have about the same usage and in my opinion a security is an amenity along the lines of police. As in a "useful and important facilities for visitors and residents." Compared to something like a lawyers or NGO office. Where it's a private company (not part of the public good) providing a service for money. So id like to know your rationalization for going with this over the amenity tag. --Adamant1 (talk) 08:50, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

I don't think it fits better, I just documented an already used tag. Compare with https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/tags/amenity=security - seems people like to name it an office if it's an office. There are even some which would like to call it a "building" : https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Proposed_features/Tag:amenity%3Dsecurity_booth. I personally tend to use the one which contains the most information with the least number of components. But another question : why isn't police a "government" ? https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:government (as it's usually an office run by the government). And the usage is with 25 619 entries quite high. [user:rtfm] Rtfm (talk) 17:13, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Unclear

"An office for private security guards" - is it office of company providing security guard services? Is it an office where security guards work (rest/watch CCTV/etc)? Or is it a place where you may hire security guards? Or is it used for all this different purposes? Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 14:19, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Good point, think this applies to several "office types", so probably a namespace would make sense, for example :

• *:service=*
• *:hire=*

- Other ideas what could be offered by offices in general ?

Rtfm Rtfm (talk) 18:28, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

One good case is office=insurance that mixes internal offices of insurances companies, where clients are not entering with places where you may buy insurance. For the first case office=company would be better (if for some reason type of company should be tagged - add also something like company=insurance), for the second shop=insurance would work far better. I see no reason to use namespaces. Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 10:35, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Entrance guard post

How to tag the building that visitors entering the facility must talk to the guard at the window before driving their car in? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jidanni (talk • contribs) 19:01, 9 February 2020

@Jidanni: Would be off-topic here. This tag is supposed to be the office of guards, similar to estate management. You would go there for arranging permits, personnels, barriers, lost and found, etc. Guards usually sign and rest there outside of their post. Non-military checkpoints, security guard booths, and supervision needs to be further discussed and worked on elsewhere. Kovposch (talk) 01:38, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

@Kovposch: Well yes, one would park their car, walk into their office (which is located at the perimeter), apply for a permit. Then for the rest of the month just flash your permit at them without getting out of your car. Anyway it would be great to know where elsewhere this is discussed. Jidanni (talk) 08:06, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

@Kovposch: I came here with the same question as Jidanni, in particular regarding security guard booths. There's already the barrier=toll_booth tag, which is similar in concept to entrance guard posts, but it doesn't extend to other non-barrier booths. Taginfo lists a bunch of uses of amenity=security_booth (and to a lesser degree building=security_booth). Perhaps we could go with something like building=kiosk or building=shed paired with amenity=security_booth? --Waldyrious (talk) 17:59, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

See Tag:building=guard_post and links to discussion for my latest, not very successful, attempt to handle this, @Waldyrious and Kovposch:. Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 08:55, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the additional references, Mateusz! Clearly there's been a lot of discussion already. I'm not sure how I feel about the different proposals, but I do believe a consensus should be reached since there's clearly interest in mapping these structures. Maybe the various options should be put to a vote? --Waldyrious (talk) 10:34, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

The issue with barrier=*_booth is you are not usually required to stop for the guard. Another limitation with barrier=toll_booth is you can't add the actual barrier=* blocking the way on the same point (some have barrier=lift_gate, then it has to set back separately), and the booth structure is not handled yet.

For your suggestion, I imagine amenity=security might work better. There were a lot of arguments with amenity=reception_* for example. This removes the "booth" structure and scale attribute from it. Comparisons can be made with emergency=lifeguard + lifeguard=* and amenity=police (although police=* is not used to distinguish small police posts yet).

barrier:personnel=* is relatively unpopular at showing whether the barrier=* itself is guarded or require permission to pass through (barrier:personnel=additional is purported for the latter), compared to other tags from the original proposal. Now there is authentication:*=* for a similar purpose. The usage with supervised=* is also unclear. Kovposch (talk) 11:10, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

amenity=security is far too generic. amenity=security_guard or amenity=guard_post would be far better Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 11:23, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, I forgot to mention amenity=security + security=*, similar to emergency=lifeguard + lifeguard=*. --- Kovposch (talk) 11:30, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

What do you envision could be the other uses of amenity=security? i.e. what could be some of the values for security=*? --Waldyrious (talk) 11:41, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

See Talk:Proposed features/Security guard. --- Kovposch (talk) 03:49, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

Update: following the latest discussion in Discourse and in the StreetComplete repository, it seems there's agreement that the most appropriate way to tag these is building=guardhouse (with building=guard_post and building=guard_house being synonyms). I agree that this is clear and resolves my initial doubt. I will edit this page to mention that tag, and disambiguate the potential confusion. --Waldyrious (talk) 15:29, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

I don't agree with that. As replied.
There is no agreement for you to do mechanical edits either. https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/guard-posts-and-police-cabinets/1962/15
--- Kovposch (talk) 06:16, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, my bad, I jumped the gun here. Let's continue the discussion on Discourse thread so we may reach a firmer consensus. --Waldyrious (talk) 15:38, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Images used

What's with the photos of security guards? Kovposch (talk) 01:31, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Look OK to me. Jidanni (talk) 08:02, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

IMO the images should illustrate the features themselves (buildings) rather than individual security guards. --Waldyrious (talk) 18:12, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

Update: Edit 2371693 removed the gallery of images of security guards, and edit 2435322 replaced the main image from a security guard to an actual guard booth. I have now replaced the image of the booth with that of an actual security company office, to avoid further ambiguity (see the thread above). --Waldyrious (talk) 16:08, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Sadly, someone changed the photo again to a guard booth to continue the confusion. Aceman444 (talk) 11:56, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Probably mistranslation, and the file name. The problem is the actual usage of this is unclear. Eg the contrast against "posts where guards are stationed" is unclear for on-site security control offices, which is suggested to be amenity=security + security=operations_centre in Proposal:Security guard , alongside security=checkpoint for booths at controlled accesses. I changed to the closest worded Wikimedia Commons photo that looks more neutral. https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Tag:office=security&oldid=2686169
—— Kovposch (talk) 10:41, 30 March 2024 (UTC)