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At 2012-05-10 20:45, Dale Puch wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>The issue with abbreviations is
very muddy. BUT it has been said many time that we do not want to
abbreviate where possible. There are several reasons.
<ul>
<li>Clarity! The abbreviations are just that, they mean the full
word, and are spoken that way, but written and displayed as the
abbreviation.</blockquote>
</ul><br>
<br>
Since the cities and postal services publish the abbreviated names in
documents and on signs, and people use they routinely that way in their
own writing, and (in my experience) rarely speak the suffix except where
it matters (in UT, DC, Atlanta), I disagree that expanding them adds any
clarity. Everyone knows what they mean. If anything, we're making an
assumption by expanding them, since we don't "know" that a
leading Dr means Doctor, or St means Saint - we can only assume. I think
we should tag what's on the ground and leave it to the specific case of
accessibility and navigation tools to expand as necessary - this is the
way commercial tools already work, and it's not hard for them to
do.<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>
<ul>
<li>It is a LOT easier to abbreviate from the full word than to go the
other way. Otherwise this scripting expansion thing would be easy
and error free.</blockquote>
</ul><br>
<br>
Slightly easier, maybe. Significantly - I don't think so. I think people
aren't thinking about the problem very well, honestly. The fact that
"St Something St" keeps coming up as being ambiguous is silly
to me. Obviously, there's a difference between the meaning of St in front
and in back. To design an sort of expansion logic without that basic
concept is silly.<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>
<ul>
<li>As mentioned it makes use of the data easier, especially for
searching, and text to speech. </blockquote>
</ul><br>
<br>
Searching? Why? People are more likely to search for Something Blvd than
Something Boulevard. Text to speech, yes, per above.<br><br>
There are reasons commercial databases and maps have separate fields for
number, direction prefix, name, type, and direction suffix, and use
standard abbreviations in all but the number and name field. I don't know
why we are trying to re-invent the wheel as an octagon (or maybe square
:) ).<br><br>
<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>Yes there can be errors with going
from abbreviations to the full words. A reason for doing this as
said, do it once with review instead of in every program that uses the
data. </blockquote><br><br>
Why not just publish hashes of the correct expansions in each language
for the consumers to use. Soon after they start to be used, they will
rarely change.<br><br>
<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>But those errors are small in
comparison to the number of abbreviated way names and can be corrected
later as found just like any other tagging error. Most of those
errors are going to be on names that are unclear to begin
with.</blockquote><br><br>
They are _very_ hard to find. I still stumble across balrog-kun expansion
errors, years later. And I look at a _lot_ of street names in detail
compared to the average mapper.<br>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
--<br>
Alan Mintz <Alan_Mintz+OSM@Earthlink.net><br>
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