Showing ref on buildings with priority over addr:*

[ZLima12]

Currently, it seems that on a building with only addr:* tags and a ref tag, the addr:* tags will be rendered instead of the ref. (example) #3983 suggests that currently, name is prioritized over addr:*, and I propose that ref should be too. In cases where a building is assigned a number, it would usually function similarly to name; someone would likely say "let's meet at building 5", rather than using the full address.

As for how to handle a building that has all three, my first thought is to prioritize them as: name > ref > addr:*, but I am open to suggestions on this.

[imagico]

Thanks for the suggestion.

We do not currently render ref on buildings so i changed the issue title to be less confusing.

Use of ref on buildings is currently insignificant in volume (less than 0.1 percent) and it is undocumented. It is not even clear if ref in those cases always refers to the building or to something inside the building (which is frequently conflated in mapping). Even in those cases where the ref refers to the building it is unclear how this relates to address components, i.e. how mappers decide if to tag something as ref or as addr:*. There would need to be a consistent practice in use (and a meaningful documentation would be helpful as well) for us to consider displaying that. And in light of the current rendering of addr:* and name already being highly confusing as is just adding another component to that is pretty much out of the question. A renewed, holistic look at the labeling of buildings and addresses would be necessary here (and that would be technically challenging with the constraints of our current toolchain).

We have issue #4687 for rendering ref on entrances - which is a more common practice in mapping and at least regionally applied in a consistent fashion.