[Tagging] Please don't think name_1 tags are errors.

moltonel 3x Combo moltonel at gmail.com
Fri Jan 15 21:48:08 UTC 2016


On 15/01/2016, Martin Koppenhoefer <dieterdreist at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Am 15.01.2016 um 18:03 schrieb moltonel 3x Combo <moltonel at gmail.com>:
>> To get back to my http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/5257865
>> example, I've got 3 names to tag. One of them distinguishes itself by
>> also appearing on an out-of-copyright map, the other two are at the
>> exact same level with each other and, as far as I'm concerned, pretty
>> much at the same level as the first one. I can't fit them into "loc"
>> or "old" or "whatever" categories, to the best of my knowledge they
>> are just "other names".
>
> if one of your sources "authorative", you could put the value under
> official_name, the other two could be name and alt_name (if there really
> isn't just a typo at least in one of them).

That'd actually be worse in this case, because the "authoritative"
spelling is also probably the most frequent one, that should go in the
"name" tag. The "official_name" tag is only interesting when the
official name differs from the common name.

See what happened ? Even though you agreed above that one shouldn't
"shuffle all your names into random foo_name keys", that's pretty much
what you suggested here. Not exactly "random" keys, but still trying
to shoehorn the three names into correct-looking foo_name tags, when
the reallity calls for putting all three names are at the same level.


>> Having multiple values for one tag is awkward in OSM, so we always try
>> to find clever ways around it. Sometimes that clever trick is the
>> right thing to do, sometimes we really just need a way to tag multiple
>> values.
>
> +1, I agree there might really be situations where this could be the best
> solution, but it is really, really rare, most of the cases where multiple
> values are actually used come from approximative mapping and would better be
> solved by more detail (e.g. area in area or node(s) in area rather than
> trying to put everything in one poor node).

Assuming all objects with a "(alt_)name_1" tag also have a "name" tag,
it amounts to 1.6% of the named objects (BTW, that's more than for the
"alt_name" tag). I'm sure some of those can be attributed to bad
mapping, but I wouldn't dare state that it is the case for most of
them. I don't recall encountering a multiple-name object that ought to
be broken down in two objects. No stats, just your subjectivity
against mine :p

Go ahead and add details where need be. But don't treat name_N as a
tag that should be avoided whenever possible, or that is intrinsically
inferior to foo_name. It's just another option, to be used whenever it
makes sense. It is well established, and consumers whishing to take
alternate names into account should include those.



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