OpenStreetMap

sjorford's Diary

Esoteric shops?

Posted by sjorford on 27 February 2024 in English.

I’ve made a start at mapping the shops in Glastonbury - the result of which is that Glasto now has three quarters of all the places tagged with shop=esoteric in the UK.

Some of these could be shop=herbalist or shop=jewellery; others may be better tagged as shop=gift (although that implies most purchases are for other people, which I’m not sure is the case here). There are some that offer alternative medicine or services such as tarot readings. But many of them offer such a mix of items and services that “esoteric” seems the only proper description.

Location: Glastonbury, Somerset, England, United Kingdom

Discussion

Comment from chris_debian on 28 February 2024 at 13:00

Hi, SJ.

Good to hear your progress. I agree with your reasoning, and having now been made aware of the ‘esoteric’ tag :-) ; this as you say, would seem most appropriate. I wonder whether any sub-tags have been proposed for regularly stocked items, such as books, Tarot cards/ readings, crystals, etc.

As a side note, I think a lot of people think Glastonbury is a festival, and are not aware of the town and it’s ancient monuments and unique ‘feel’.

Well done,

Chris (NW Wilts)

Comment from SK53 on 28 February 2024 at 15:23

I remember looking at these tags about 10 years ago, and deciding in favour of shop=new_age (partly because I felt the meaning of shop=esoteric was too esoteric, but also because there was a distinct DACH preference which suggested the tag arose as a translation).

Both tags are well-documented on the wiki, and 10 years on I suspect the meaning is better known (at least to me). See my comment on a Reddit post, quoted below :

This came up on IRC a few days ago. UK mappers seem to have used shop=new_age and German mappers shop=esoteric. These seem better understood than metaphysical which is how many of these shops describe themselves, but has a meaning at variance from the more usual use of the word. Esoteric was in use earlier, has slightly more usage and probably has broader connotations. For now the tags can be regarded as largely synonymous.”

There are 7 shop=metaphysical which perhaps could be changed to shop=esoteric. I suspect there are quite a few hidden away as shop=gift too.

Glastonbury has had these shops for at least 35 years: I remember visiting in the summer of 1990 and then did some work at Clarks in Street a couple of years later staying overnight at the George & Pilgrims (just added listed status etc. to this).

Comment from SomeoneElse on 28 February 2024 at 20:43

The last time I looked at the shop key in Britain and Ireland to see what people were using esoteric didn’t trouble the scorers at all. I added rendering support** for new_age because that was used at the time.

With OSM you seem to have to revisit keys at least every couple of years to see what changes there have been…

** on the map style that I look after at map.atownsend.org.uk

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