[openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website] Do not zoom/pan to first Nominatim result if other results are equally probable (Issue #3991)

Soundlover99 notifications at github.com
Wed Mar 29 20:10:26 UTC 2023


### Problem

If Nominatim finds several results (e.g., search term / address is ambiguous) which are equally probable or plausible, then the current behaviour of zooming/panning on the first result creates the false impression that this is the "best" or "correct" result. In my experience, users tend to trust search engines that the first result is the best / desired result, they rarely check the following results. In case of e.g. duplicate street names within the same city / zip / postal code, all results are equal as long as the district / village etc. (e.g. Tag: addr:suburb) has not been specified or selected. See "current behaviour" screenshot.

Yes, the city administrations should resolve such address conflicts, but they don't, becaus this would be even more hassle than leaving it the way it is.

Same goes for searching generic points of interest in a city; zooming in on the "first" result, and subsequently showing only one red position tag (corresponding to the result on which the cursor hovers) at a time is rarely the desired behaviour.

More elaborate background can be found here: https://help.openstreetmap.org/questions/74796/nominatim-search-results-prioritization

### Description

- If a query leads to several "equal" results, the map view should not zoom/pan on any one of them
- "Equal" results can be:
     - If the first Nominatim search result has the same address rank as one or more of the subsequent results, or
     - Results which fully match the search term (especially if the city/municipality is included) but require an additional address part (e.g. Tag: addr:suburb) not contained in the query for further narrowing down
- All such "equal" results should be displayed simultaneously by an equivalent number of red position tags, on a map suitably zoomed/panned to show all of these (similar to "show all hardware stores in Berlin"). This way, the user is immediately aware that there are several equally probable results to his/her query. Hovering over the results list enlarges the corresponding position tag.  See "Mockup" screenshot.
- This behaviour could extend not only to residential addresses, but also to points of interest of all kind, e.g. "Supermarket Berlin" or "Museum Paris".

### Screenshots

![OSM_current_behaviour_1](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/129313036/228653260-8c36afe0-c30e-464b-8830-04a006bf2355.png)
![Mockup_equal_search_results](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/129313036/228653285-da6d7744-bd9f-47bd-9158-ff9846ff6aa3.png)


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