Deal with lifecycle of monitoring types

[quincylvania]

There should be a way to tag that a site used to monitor something but doesn't anymore (whether temporarily or permanently). I'm thinking something like monitoring:water_level=disused, since the typical yes/no values already convey state. And it would get pretty confusing to introduce tagging like monitoring:water_level=no + disused:monitoring:water_level=yes.

[tordans]

I was wondering if it is a new new lifecycle concept to put the disused in the value (instead of the key).

According to the query below there are quite a few keys that use it but the usage numbers are very low. Highest for…

• ~300 https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/tags/highway=disused
• ~190k https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/tags/railway=disused

So not really new but also not really established.

Query results (Raw)

% curl -g https://postpass.geofabrik.de/api/0.2/interpreter \
  --data-urlencode "options[geojson]=false" \
  --data-urlencode "data=
SELECT
  kv.key AS tag_key,
  COUNT(*) AS disused_count
FROM postpass_point AS p
CROSS JOIN LATERAL jsonb_each_text(p.tags) AS kv(key, value)
WHERE kv.value = 'disused'
AND p.geom && ST_MakeEnvelope(5.9, 47.2, 15.0, 55.1, 4326)
GROUP BY kv.key
ORDER BY disused_count DESC"

{
    "result": [
        {
            "tag_key": "railway",
            "disused_count": 30
        },
        {
            "tag_key": "highway",
            "disused_count": 29
        },
        {
            "tag_key": "amenity",
            "disused_count": 15
        },
        {
            "tag_key": "note",
            "disused_count": 14
        },
        {
            "tag_key": "lamp_type",
            "disused_count": 12
        },
        {
            "tag_key": "lit",
            "disused_count": 8
        },
        {
            "tag_key": "entrance",
            "disused_count": 5
        },
        {
            "tag_key": "shop",
            "disused_count": 5
        },
        {
            "tag_key": "description",
            "disused_count": 4
        },
        {
            "tag_key": "pump",
            "disused_count": 4
        },
        {
            "tag_key": "public_transport",
            "disused_count": 3
        },
        {
            "tag_key": "crossing",
            "disused_count": 2
        },
        {
            "tag_key": "crossing:light",
            "disused_count": 2
        },
        {
            "tag_key": "lift_gate",
            "disused_count": 2
        },
        {
            "tag_key": "mineshaft_type",
            "disused_count": 2
        },
        {
            "tag_key": "platform",
            "disused_count": 2
        },
        {
            "tag_key": "tourism",
            "disused_count": 2
        },
        {
            "tag_key": "usage",
            "disused_count": 2
        },
        {
            "tag_key": "buffer_stop",
            "disused_count": 1
        },
        {
            "tag_key": "switch",
            "disused_count": 1
        },
        {
            "tag_key": "bollard",
            "disused_count": 1
        },
        {
            "tag_key": "office",
            "disused_count": 1
        },
        {
            "tag_key": "operator",
            "disused_count": 1
        },
        {
            "tag_key": "transformer",
            "disused_count": 1
        },
        {
            "tag_key": "endpoint:substation",
            "disused_count": 1
        },
        {
            "tag_key": "emergency",
            "disused_count": 1
        },
        {
            "tag_key": "atm",
            "disused_count": 1
        },
        {
            "tag_key": "railway:switch",
            "disused_count": 1
        },
        {
            "tag_key": "seamark:bridge:category",
            "disused_count": 1
        },
        {
            "tag_key": "disused:tram",
            "disused_count": 1
        },
        {
            "tag_key": "state",
            "disused_count": 1
        },
        {
            "tag_key": "gate",
            "disused_count": 1
        },
        {
            "tag_key": "consulate",
            "disused_count": 1
        },
        {
            "tag_key": "chimney",
            "disused_count": 1
        },
        {
            "tag_key": "landuse",
            "disused_count": 1
        },
        {
            "tag_key": "station",
            "disused_count": 1
        }
    ],
    "metadata": {
        "generator": "Postpass API 0.2",
        "timestamp": "2026-01-11T15:21:31Z"
    }
}%

Personally I would go with something like …

monitoring:water_level=no
check_date:monitoring:water_level=DATE
note:monitoring:water_level=Was yes until X and might be reactivated in the future.