[Talk-GB] Places and postcodes -- nodes/areas?

[David Fisher]

Hi all,

I've noticed that in my area (Croydon, S London) a lot of streets & POIs
are identified by Nominatim with a nearby suburb of Croydon (Thornton
Heath) rather than with Croydon town itself.  The Nominatim/geocoding guys
said this was due to nodes being used instead of areas, and suggested I
create relations to identify the boundaries of the town and of its
suburb(s).  My question is: are there any guidelines on how such
areas/relations should be defined?  Political/admin boundaries don't really
help.  Is it a case of just using my instinct & local knowledge?  Are there
any good examples elsewhere?

My other (related) question is to do with postcodes. Some postboxes nearby
have been tagged not only with "ref=xxx" (containing the first part of the
postcode plus a reference no.) but also "postal_code=xxx" (again containing
the first part of the postcode), meaning that, again, a lot of streets &
POIs become identified by Nominatim with this postcode (e.g.
http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/node/363996567).  Should *all*
postboxes be tagged with "postal_code" in this way?  What about streets
themselves?  For streets, does the (first part of the) postcode need to be
displayed on the street sign for this to be done?

Thanks,

David.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-gb/attachments/20120910/8f33e651/attachment.html>