diff --git a/assets/layers/vending_machine/vending_machine.json b/assets/layers/vending_machine/vending_machine.json
index 779b92bd91..d148f7c3a5 100644
--- a/assets/layers/vending_machine/vending_machine.json
+++ b/assets/layers/vending_machine/vending_machine.json
@@ -372,7 +372,7 @@
       "freeform": {
         "key": "vending",
         "addExtraTags": [
-          "fixme=Freeform input used, value may need to be checked"
+          "fixme=A mapcomplete user used the text field to set the 'vending'-tag, which is probably incorrect (e.g. might be in the local language, use upercase, ...)"
         ]
       },
       "render": {
diff --git a/src/Logic/Tags/Tag.ts b/src/Logic/Tags/Tag.ts
index a941ab427e..40bb10c1cd 100644
--- a/src/Logic/Tags/Tag.ts
+++ b/src/Logic/Tags/Tag.ts
@@ -19,6 +19,9 @@ export class Tag extends TagsFilter {
         if (value === undefined) {
             throw `Invalid value while constructing a Tag with key '${key}': value is undefined`
         }
+        if(value.length > 255 || key.length > 255){
+            throw "Invalid tag: length is over 255"
+        }
         if (value === "*") {
             console.warn(`Got suspicious tag ${key}=*   ; did you mean ${key}~* ?`)
         }