[Tagging] Rethinking Map Features

Tod Fitch tod at fitchfamily.org
Tue Aug 6 13:49:41 UTC 2019



> On Aug 6, 2019, at 12:56 AM, Martin Koppenhoefer <dieterdreist at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> sent from a phone
> 
>> On 6. Aug 2019, at 05:33, Tod Fitch <tod at fitchfamily.org> wrote:
>> 
>> When I walk down a street collecting house numbers I have no indication of the ZIP code of each building. If you require ZIP codes then I am forced into an import situation rather than a field survey
> 
> 
> you might survey this by asking locals about their address, or by looking at addresses that businesses publish about themselves.
> 
> Cheers Martin

When I map businesses I do look to see what they publish about themselves and the ZIP code as well as hours of operation can be easily determined. But if you are asking me to knock on doors in residential areas or ask total strangers who look like they might be locals what their ZIP code is as I collect non-business addresses you are asking too much.

In the suburban sprawl of my country I am guessing there are far more residential addresses than business addresses. So putting postal code requirement on my collecting house numbers means that either we will never have a critical mass of house numbers or we will be doing it all with imports. By critical mass, I mean a sufficient density of numbers so people use OSM as their first choice for looking up an address to navigate to. At least where I live, ZIP codes are not needed or normally used for when giving an address for a navigation destination. ZIP codes are used really for just one thing: Delivering mail.

I can see a suggestion in the wiki that acquiring a postal/ZIP code for an address is desirable to provide completeness. But making it a requirement? No.

Cheers Tod.
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