<div dir="ltr">Well Brian, the answer to question 1 is pretty straight forward: I don't really know whether it's more or less ignored or accepted in Washington, District of Columbia (abbreviations are a no-no, don'tcha know? ;) ). And I don't really care either.<div><br></div><div>With respect to question 2, there are users of OSM data for whom making a seemingly subtle change from e.g. "37 Street SW" to "Thirty-seventh Street Southwest" is going to break the functionality of whatever it is they're using it for, which is essentially why I commented on Michael’s change in the first place. Michael shared a quote from correspondence with another mapper: "You are correct services using OSM may not know what NW is. But in Alberta [it] is treated as the name and not really a direction at all. And this becomes an issue for services that are trying to use Alberta (and other areas to be honest) without understand[ing] this slight difference. This is also my problem. With the global change to OSM I can no longer use it as a data source as the names are simply wrong. This is how we name everything from road[s] to well sites." It's not just a matter of "local mapper preference", or of a user finding a preferred renderer that will abbreviate the quadrant suffix to their liking: it's breaking functionality for other users of OSM data, in much the same way the abbreviated form "breaks" TTS routing.</div><br><div lang="EN-US" style="overflow-wrap: break-word;"><p class="MsoNormal">I appreciate the insight Minh has shared, and I can imagine he's probably very tired of having to re-hash the same discussions about this over and over and over. I also believe "there are many possible solutions to any given problem", with tradeoffs to be made between them. I sympathize with the concerns about TTS engines being limited, and the programmers using these TTS engines being somewhat limited in their capacity to "improve" the TTS "logic" and having to simply make-do.<u></u><u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal">That said, our discussion seems to boil down to this: if it's not named as spoken, TTS generally won't work. But unless it's named as typically written, many data users won't be able to parse the name at all. The OSM "global policy" seems to express an implicit preference for TTS to be accommodated and leaves it up to other data users to parse the written names. If a TTS engine can't figure out "NW" = "northwest" that's a problem, but if another data user can't figure out "northwest" = "NW": too bad, so sad.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal">The mapper going by the username tastrax raised an interesting hypothetical: what about another sub-key for the quadrant? I don't know if that had ever been considered before, but it could substantially simplify things. Even for routers using TTS. As spoken, routing software could/should typically drop the quadrant entirely anyway. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal">Oh, and for Minh’s knowledge: U-turns in Alberta are generally prohibited too. :P It’s pretty much the same rules as in BC: in urban areas you can only do them at intersections that are not controlled by traffic signals (unless specifically permitted; there are for example U-turn-specific traffic signals on 17 Ave SE in Calgary), but NOT at intersections with alleys or driveways, and in rural areas you *<b>can</b>* do them in between intersections but NOT on a curve or approaching the crest of a hill. This is something most routers do not take into account and often end up giving illegal directions to drivers in Alberta (and BC). It has become something of a running joke that the people who get the substantial tickets and demerit points on their licence for pulling illegal u-eys feign to the local constabulary: "My GPS told me to!".</p></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, Dec 12, 2022 at 6:36 PM Brian M. Sperlongano <<a href="mailto:zelonewolf@gmail.com">zelonewolf@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sun, Dec 11, 2022 at 8:08 PM Hoser AB <<a href="mailto:hoserab1@gmail.com" target="_blank">hoserab1@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div>Brian happened to provide examples from the US of A to illustrate that in said country they've made the choice to "unabbreviate" where possible, and that's fine and dandy; it doesn't matter much to me what the nomenclature is in Washington, District of Columbia, United States of America (although I have been to the White House and happen to know that the street signage quite consistently uses abbreviations, i.e. "Pennsylvania Ave NW" :P).<br></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Since Washington DC is a city that we have both visited, Would you elaborate on the comparison between Washington DC, and Calgary?</div><div><br></div><div>So far, from this thread, I understand that:</div><div><br></div><div>1. Both places abbreviate their street names and quadrant suffix on signs (e.g. 6 ST NW)</div><div>2. In both places, residents verbally speak out the expanded version of suffixes (e.g. "Sixth Street northwest")</div><div><br></div><div>References [1] and [2] show the street signs for 6th Street NW in both Calgary and Washington, respectively, as well as their differences in tagging, "6th Street Northwest" in Washington and "6 Street NW" in Calgary.</div><div><br></div><div>Until now, I wasn't aware of the tagging difference of "6" vs "6th" in the name tag, but please also consider that difference in your response!</div><div><br></div><div>Specifically, I would like to understand:</div><div><br></div><div>1. Is there any difference between the two cities in how the street suffixes are signed, spoken, or understood locally that would give rise to the differences in how the name tag on these streets are tagged between the two cities?</div><div>2. If not, is there a reason, other than local mapper preference, to tag streets in this way?</div><div><br></div><div>It is important to understand whether we are simply documenting a choice made by mappers in different locations or whether there is a substantive difference in the objects we are trying to map. If there is a substantive difference, then this difference needs to be documented so that mappers can better understand when to apply expansion rules and when to abbreviate. If this difference is merely a local choice, then it's important to document the boundary within which the normal global conventions do not apply. Is it only Calgary? All of Alberta? All of Canada? Etc.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div>[1] 6 ST NW (Calgary)<br><a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@51.0582943,-114.0780452,3a,75y,214.2h,86.38t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sToSlTcrEKtlH6CSBJA5klA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192" target="_blank">https://www.google.com/maps/@51.0582943,-114.0780452,3a,75y,214.2h,86.38t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sToSlTcrEKtlH6CSBJA5klA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192</a><br>OSM: <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/4818657" target="_blank">https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/4818657</a> "6 Street NW"<br><br>[2] 6 ST NW (Washington, DC)<br><div><a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@38.9139575,-77.019923,3a,75y,288.91h,97.45t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sAe9hRMIt4x7z9qlvxJV12w!2e0!7i16384!8i8192" target="_blank">https://www.google.com/maps/@38.9139575,-77.019923,3a,75y,288.91h,97.45t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sAe9hRMIt4x7z9qlvxJV12w!2e0!7i16384!8i8192</a> </div><div>OSM: <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/45839046" target="_blank">https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/45839046</a> "6th Street Northwest"</div></div></div>
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