Talk:Tag:residential=rural

rural vs. suburban

It looks like this tag is primarily used in Russia and the surrounding areas. In North America, "rural" implies a much lower density than the type of residential described here. "Suburban" is the word I'd use to describe these areas (specifically the low-rise houses with their own fenced yards). For me "rural" describes a more sparse settlement pattern, where detached residential buildings are mixed in with some small farming and patches of natural areas. Would anyone object if I suggest "suburban" as a way to describe residential=rural for North American mappers? --Alan (talk) 18:21, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Yeah that picture looks extremely suburban to me. Similarly, current definition of residential=urban ("areas with multistory residential buildings") excludes much of what I'd consider "urban" by Canadian definition. --Jarek Piórkowski (talk) 00:11, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

As a Brit I agree, this is suburban to me too. Have made similar observations in other European countries. --Trigpoint (talk) 00:20, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Status

@Angoca: The enormous count of uses (632,471) qualifies for status "de facto", IMHO. All descriptions should be updated to "de facto". --Chris2map (talk) 12:18, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

Ok, this is an interesting point of view, but it remains your opinion to massively change the current properties of the tags only in English. It is better to ask the community what they think about this.
@Minh_Nguyen Do you think asking this in OSM Communities is the best place? AngocA (talk) 02:14, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

Hi Andres, where do I massively change status of tags? I rather opened several discussions to your reverts instead of changing or reverting back. Many of the changes to "de facto" are initiated by Geozeisig. In most cases, however, I see it similarly and sync the respective data item. My understanding of the tag status is that it is a process or record of the development state of a tag. At the beginning there are "undefined" and "proposed". Then "in use", later "de facto" or "approved" (after porposal). Or "deprecated" and "obsolete". In this sense, if a tag is "in use" for quite a period, it's count reaches high values, and it is wide spread, then it is very established among the contributors. To take this into account, when a tag has undergone such a development, we have status "de facto", IMHO. Do you have a different understanding? Please let me know it! To the other part of the question whether to update the translations / language pages, I'm undecided. When maintaining the Wiki, I sometimes intentionally do not change all translations to enable and encourage users from different countries or language areas to contribute in their own language. At least, I hope that some people will find meaning and enjoyment in helping with the updates. I think it would be desirable if people in every language contributed and others interfered as little as possible. Regards, Chris --Chris2map (talk) 19:50, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

There are two things I’d like to point out.
First, these changes are being made only on the English pages, and that creates a burden for the translations. In fact, that’s how I noticed the edits—because of the discrepancies. If the updates were applied consistently across all languages, I wouldn’t mind. Is the mapping approach of someone who speaks Spanish different from someone who speaks English? No. But we’re giving different instructions to different communities through the wiki. It’s even more problematic when a tag is marked as deprecated “only in English” while remaining “de facto” in other languages.
Second, what does “for quite a period” mean? One month? One year? Every time someone checks the stats? And similarly, what counts as “widespread”? Is 100 uses enough? Or do we mean hundreds of thousands? Regarding this point, I would actually prefer to merge “de facto” and “in use”, because the distinction isn’t clear enough. The whole set of status options is confusing. I even tried to create a state diagram to clarify them, but couldn’t make it work: https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/correct-invalid-wiki-tag-status/2253/23
Finally, I believe the status should come from the data item itself, rather than duplicating it across multiple wiki pages. But that’s a separate discussion—especially with those who don’t fully trust the data items yet. AngocA (talk) 22:25, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

I understand it's annoying when the information differs between languages. My thinking is: we can't rule out or prevent changes. What if the text content / page content changes? Therefore, I also see the positive aspects: the information in the description box at least provides some tracking. This makes it possible to maintain and synchronize the translations. These tasks, in turn, offer an easy entry point for contributing to the wiki in other languages. The existing languages need to be maintained somehow. (Creating it once and having it stay there forever would be an illusion.) That's how I found my way into the wiki: starting with small tasks. As I said, I think translations only work and make sense if they are maintained by people, preferably native speakers.

The tag status is of course far from perfectly and definitively defined. Discussions about when which status applies are not new. I don't think I need to tell you that, unfortunately, difficulties quickly arise when attempting to establish fixed definitions in practice. The count, for example, cannot be considered universally. It makes a significant difference whether one is evaluating a feature such as a streetlamp, a wind turbine, an airport, or a pyramid. For these, widespread use could mean, for (just a quick) example: streetlamp 200,000 / wind turbine 20,000 / airport 2,000 / pyramid 20. I can only subjectively assess on a case-by-case basis when "in use" and when "de facto" seems to be acceptable. In many cases, for me, "in use" begins at several hundred and "de facto" at several tens of thousands. In the current cases where I have left a comment, the case is therefore clear to me. – Addendum: In my daily wiki work, I try to make do with what we have. At the same time, I agree that we need further development here that makes more sense and is simpler and clearer for us. There was already a small cleanup of the statuses. But that's not the goal yet. The switch to data items for the description box entries is something I support. Even though the change, as well as the technology of the data items themselves, brings disadvantages in addition to advantages and is not yet fully developed. But as I said, those are bigger stories. The current cases remain relatively clear to me. --Chris2map (talk) 17:38, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

OK, let's do one thing, when you change the status, you can ping me (AngocA in most of the platforms) and I will update the status in other languages. AngocA (talk) 16:27, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

I like to maintain translation, and keep them in sync based on English. I do a similar thing with website translation. AngocA (talk) 16:30, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

@Angoca: status updated to "de facto". Regards --Chris2map (talk) 10:58, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

All translation has been updated as well AngocA (talk) 23:02, 27 November 2025 (UTC)