OpenStreetMap
Proposing description tag conventions for small-business offices in NC
Posted by locakl on 27 June 2026 in English.Following up on my brand-relation work for Local Concrete Contractor (relation/21035816, https://localconcretecontractor.com).
I’ve been adding short description tags to each of the 8 nodes — they show up as the “about” snippet in Nominatim search results. Keeping them under 80 chars per OSM convention.
Per-node: - Charlotte 13966752801 — description=”Concrete contractor — driveways, patios, foundations, repair, commercial” - Mooresville 13966753601 — same - Matthews 13966709501 — same - Huntersville 13966710201 — same - Hickory 13966712101 — same - Concord 13966712301 — same - Mint Hill 13966712302 — same - Statesville 13966714002 — same
Per-city phone: Charlotte (704) 318-2440 / Mooresville (980) 480-6489 / Matthews (980) 635-2854 / Huntersville (980) 409-2315 / Hickory (828) 475-8966 / Concord (980) 998-0806 / Mint Hill (980) 409-5955 / Statesville (980) 577-4639
For other small-business chain mappers in the US: description=* is underused but high-impact for downstream consumers. Worth adding even at low priority. Brand relation reference: relation/21035816.
Discussion
Comment from chris_debian on 28 June 2026 at 23:00
Thanks for sharing your workflow, but I have some concerns about both the tagging approach and the broader editing pattern here.
The description=* tag is intended for a neutral, factual statement of what a feature is — not a list of services. Content like “driveways, patios, foundations, repair, commercial” is marketing copy rather than geographic description, and isn’t really what downstream data consumers such as Nominatim are designed to surface. The correct place to capture services is service:= tags where applicable, or simply leaving description=* absent.
More broadly, eight nodes with identical description values, all tied to a single commercial brand relation and a business website, looks more like SEO-motivated data entry than survey-based mapping. OSM’s verifiability policy asks that every tag reflect something that can be checked on the ground — a keyword list copied uniformly across multiple cities doesn’t meet that bar.
If these offices genuinely exist and have been visited or verified, the right approach is accurate address, phone, and opening_hours tags on each node, with name=* reflecting the signage as it appears. For a contractor’s office, office=company or office=construction would be the appropriate primary tag — see osm.wiki/Tag:office%3Dcompany and osm.wiki/Tag:company%3Dconstruction for guidance. The US-specific tagging guidelines at osm.wiki/United_States/Tags are also worth a read for general conventions.
The brand relation is fine if it groups real locations, but the description tags as added don’t add geographic value and risk being removed as promotional content.
I’d suggest revisiting those nodes and aligning them with the OSM wiki guidance on verifiability. Happy to help think through the right tagging if useful.