Proposal:Separate Contact & Social Prefixes

Separate Contact & Social Prefixes
Proposal status:	Proposed (under way)
Proposed by:	GA Kevin
Tagging:	social:*=*
Applies to:
Definition:	The username of the social profile of a OpenStreetMap element.
Statistics:
Draft started:	2025-07-02
RFC start:	2025-07-02

Proposal

Currently, the contact:*=* key covers a few different types: contact methods, social media handles, and mail being the major categories. This proposal aims to separate contact methods from social media. The remaining mail category is not addressed by this proposal. This proposal is importantly not a debate on the existence of a contact prefix nor does it aim to deprecate the existing contact:*=*. This proposal also addresses the interoperability of federated social networks as well as formally renames Twitter to X in OpenStreetMap.

Rationale

Social media in the Web 2.0 phase of the internet has become a huge influence on society as a whole. As such, entire industries (both physical and digital) exist surrounding these profiles. This differs from the contact method you'd use to reach out to a representative of the OpenStreetMap element. Social media is a form of one-to-many communication; contact information is an invitation of one-to-one communication. This is useful when determining if something should be considered a contact:*=* or social:*=*. While many social platforms also offer messaging, the main purpose of a business, organization, or government joining a social network is to advertise or inform, versus the users who consume and communicate. If an element uses social media as a customer support option as well as a typical page, both contact:*=* and social:*=* may be tagged.

Tagging

Values should be the account username or ID, in lowercase, without a leading symbol.

Existing Tags (non-exhaustive)

Name	Logo	Current Key	Proposed Key	Example	Current Usage
Facebook		contact:facebook=*	social:facebook=*	social:facebook=openstreetmap
Instagram		contact:instagram=*	social:instagram=*	social:instagram=openstreetmap
Federated		contact:threads=* contact:mastodon=* contact:bluesky=*	social:<protocol>=*	social:activitypub=openstreetmap@en.osm.town	-
VK		contact:vk=*	social:vk=*	social:vk=openstreetmap
X		contact:twitter=*	social:x=*	social:x=openstreetmap
YouTube		contact:youtube=*	social:youtube=*	social:youtube=openstreetmap
Any other verifiable one-to-many social networks...

Features/Pages affected

contact:*=* mainly, with other smaller pages that reference contact.

External discussions

- Community Forum (c.osm.org)
- Tagging Mailing List

Comments

Please comment on the discussion page.