[Tagging] We should stop using hyphens to denote address ranges

[Mateusz Konieczny]

18 Aug 2020, 23:29 by colin.smale at xs4all.nl:

>
> On 2020-08-18 22:39, Clay Smalley wrote:
>
>
>> If you
>>
>> On Tue, Aug 18, 2020 at 12:51 PM Colin Smale <>> colin.smale at xs4all.nl>> > wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> On 2020-08-18 20:55, Clay Smalley wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> On Tue, Aug 18, 2020 at 11:26 AM Colin Smale <>>>> colin.smale at xs4all.nl>>>> > wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> There are two use cases here: one is "what is the address of this building (or whatever)" and the other is the reverse situation: "where can I find number XXX". As long as we have tagging that is potentially ambiguous we won't be able to cover both. 
>>>>> In the US I know of cases where an apartment number can follow the street address, i.e. 10-321 meaning Street Address 10, apartment 321. In Europe I know of the suffix being used to indicate apartment number, or floor number - e.g. 379-3 meaning Street Address 379, Floor/Flat 3. Sometimes other characters are used for the floor/flat such as A/B/C or I/II/III - in these cases it is unambiguous because it is non-numeric.
>>>>>
>>>> Can you point out some examples? I've never seen that syntax used in US addresses.
>>>>
>>> If you mean the US example, some friends were living in Long Island City, Queens, NY, and their apartment address was something like 1100-157 50th Ave. The other examples are possibly typically European. Here in the Netherlands there are all kinds of notations in use for sub-units. The national addressing standard has a field for an alphanumeric "house number suffix" for this that people in IT know about, but the average Johan might not know what a "huisnummertoevoeging" is. Normally the full number, including the suffix, is written together with some kind of separator.
>>>
>>  
>> I think you misunderstand hyphenated addresses in Queens. The second part of the hyphenation is not a flat/apartment number. As an example, the Dunkin Donuts at the corner of 31st St and 36th Ave has an address of 31-02 36th Ave, with no apartment number. The US Postal Service considers this to be equivalent to 3102 36th Ave, and will deliver mail to the same place regardless of whether you include the hyphen, though the address written on the entrance is hyphenated. Most building numbers in Queens have a hyphen before the last two digits.
>>  
>>
> Thanks for the explanation.. It is indeed a while ago since I was there. Any idea how this is structured in IT systems? Is "house number" alphanumeric? Are the two parts stored separately? Or is it simply a question of formatting, inserting a "-" before the final two digits?
>  
> Maybe we should use a different character to indicate a range, such as a slash?
>
Slash is used in Poland to separate
housenumber from unit number.

For example 22/5 Streetname
would be house 22 at Streetname,
flat number 5.

Using it for range would be 
unbelievably confusing 
And at least some addresses are
in form addr:housenumber=1-3
denoting single housenumber,
not a range.

I added recently such example to
a Wiki page about addresses.

>  
>
>>> There are also areas where the whole neighbourhood has a single street name, and everybody has a very long house number; the initial digits of the house number indicate the specific road within the neighbourhood. Sometimes these house numbers are written as 123-45 to aid navigation.
>>>
>>  
>> Examples?
>>  
>>
> https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=17/51.80636/5.80412
>  
> https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=17/51.83527/5.78425
>  
> https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=18/52.29739/4.68692
>  
>

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