[openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website] Added PlusCode functionality to search (#1818)

[Emmor]

@simonpoole <https://github.com/simonpoole>

I would like to assume that your response is based on your desire to
improve OSM and the way the map serves to communicate. I am frustrated that
you would declare that my only motivation would be to make income. I am an
OSM contributor because I believe that an open and current map is valuable
for all of humanity, the more OSM is used the more valuable it becomes.

I do not generate income from software or reselling OSM derived products. I
am not employed by Google and receive no financial benefits from Plus
Codes. I have no reason to "push this to market".

Last year I was living in a city in Africa (6GVW2FXH+4H) with a population
of nearly half a million people. Not one road in that city has a name and
there are no house numbers. In this setting it is very challenging to try
to describe a destination to a mototaxi driver. The European model of house
numbers does not work well in many places, and would require a bureaucratic
overhead to create and maintain that simply does not exist in many
countries.

I have worked as a geospatial professional for 30 years supporting a
variety of emergency response and firefighting activities. I understand
maps and managing data, and my primary focus is helping people understand
where they are. I have a very good understanding of latitude/longitude, but
do not expect the average citizen to understand it and even worse to
accurately communicate their location in that “language”.

Communicating one's location to others is major challenge when all
individuals are not intimately familiar with the locations. To help this
issue I have worked for years to use/adapt/create a system that will enable
communication of a location. Finding a system that is fairly simple to use,
free, with minimal confusion is a real challenge, especially when applied
to places across the planet. A local plus code (4+2) is very simple to
communicate via radio, phone, or text. In a relief context in Africa a
local map showing the homes with the individual plus codes for each of the
homes in a neighborhood could then be used to communicate where help was
needed. In short, I know of no other scheme that will serve citizens, aid
workers, and tourists alike.
I understand that applications can be written to display OSM data however
someone would like, however, the default openstreetmap.org style is the
only way many people know OSM.  If a unique code is displayed a building on
the map and it has intelligence then it will not only serve the traditional
uses associated with house numbers, but also provide a simple way to
navigate to places across the planet. I do not see how throwing up barriers
to improving a system is helping meet the needs across this world.

You talk about an address as if it were a finite, precise point. My home
has a single number for an area 30 m X 40 m. How is that different than the
Plus code area at the 13 digit level? For single family rural dwellings in
the developing world a Plus code is the simplest way of creating an
“address” and is infinitely more useable than any other system I am aware
of.  When one is travelling for many km to a place getting within 10m is
very good. Just because other systems have been tried it doesn’t mean that
another system, like plus codes, is inherently bad.

What would you propose as a way to send an aid worker to a remote dwelling
where a child is at risk for trafficking or someone is gravely ill? Why
wouldn’t we want to enable OSM to be a tool to help those in need?


Regards

On Thu, Dec 27, 2018 at 12:15 PM Simon Poole <notifications at github.com>
wrote:

> @bjohas <https://github.com/bjohas> could you explain how you are using
> plus codes, from your brief description it would seem to be at odds with
> its design (a fixed grid system).
>
> @Vaomatua <https://github.com/Vaomatua> that is very broken. Plus codes
> are a grid system, like many before and likely many after, at best they are
> a method of indicating a rough geographic location, they definitely are not
> building addresses. The only reason anybody even has this on their agenda
> because of a different grid system being pushed at the same markets.
>
> —
> You are receiving this because you were mentioned.
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