[Tagging] Lyft and nameless sectioning in OSM

Wed Oct 12 08:17:58 UTC 2022

*FOLLOW UP HYPOTHETICAL: *
I've been thinking about this a lot. I'm arguing here that,

* Landuse for developed land can be better automatically generated when
there isn't a named polygon.
* If automatically generated, we can achieve perfect accuracy or quantify
the margins of errors (the degree to which a buildings adhere to the
landuse that contains them).

I think not everyone grasps this. Let me put forward an alternative to
illustrate this.

Let us create a new landuse-esque tag called "density"
Let density come in three flavors, "density=high", "density=low",
"density=medium"

* Low Density is where you have mostly single story buildings
* Medium Density is where your buildings average to five or fewer levels.
* High Density is where most of your buildings have more than 5 levels

What would be ideal: (a) to have users create these polygons in OSM, or (b)
to automatically calculate density as a function of the buildings in the
polygon by referring to building:levels? This is a direct analogy to how I
see unnamed landuse for developed land. There is an application for
landuse, and for density. However, I don't understand why these are better
left to users rather than automatically generated. If we want to support
landuse for developed land moving forward, I highly suggest automatically
inferring it from the contents of polygons created in the method outlined
in my reply to Joseph Eisenberg. =)

On Tue, Oct 11, 2022 at 1:34 PM Evan Carroll <me at evancarroll.com> wrote:

> Lyft has been adding thousands of Polygons around Houston for Retail and
> Residential and Industrial Areas. I'm just wondering what the motivation
> here is for Lyft's behavior, especially in Texas. It seems like a lot of
> bloat on OSM. IMHO, these polygons don't add any value: they're not
> describing  what things are, and they're frequently incorrect. Houston
> doesn't have zoning: stating what something is today as if it was a zone is
> problematic anywhere (as at best it's only ever administrative where there
> is zoning) but even more so in Houston where with enough money you can buy
> the property and put an industrial plant there (assuming the property has
> no bylaws). Sure that's just routine maintenance but what is the value with
> that maintenance?
>
> If we know what every individual building is (which is the ideal), what
> information is conveyed by telling me that 80% or some unquantified
> inexplicit percentage of buildings in a grouping are of type Industrial?
>
> And a lot of these polygons cover _only_ one property. Which it seems
> isn't permitted by the wiki, but that also doesn't add any utility over the
> building itself.
>
> Some examples of these nameless sections are,
>
> * w1101484647 by A_Prokopova_lyft
>
> Across the street from that one is three identical polygons by Emey_lyft
> in the same place
>
> * w1101205150
> * w1101204670
> * w1101392713
>
> In case you think that's unique, right below it Emey_lyft did it again
> with three identical polygons.
>
> * w1101205149
> * w1101204669
> * w1101392712
>
> I'm assuming the triplicating is an innocent mistake, and not an attempt
> to inflate a quota. But, I just want to understand what is the use case for
> highlighting *everything on the border of every major highway and primary
> road* with "Retail Area" even without triplicating.
>
> Moreover, with polygons like w1096234140, how is that useful when you lump
> in one motel and three buildings which OSM has *no information about* as a
> "Commercial Area"? Likewise, how is w1096234140 a "Retail Area" it covers
> 12 buildings and we only know one is a Post Office, the other is a Dunken
> Donuts, and "Houston Skate and Dance" exists somewhere inside it?
>
> None of this is relevant to any areas WITH names: I'm all for these. IE,
> "Braeswood Squre", or "Meyer Park". Those "Areas" have a name which is
> useful to the community and the sign is visible for the retail campus, but
> seems most of Lyft's contributions are nameless (all of the ones I've seen)
> .They seem to be outsourcing what could otherwise be done more correctly
> with better data, automatically: if we know what each business is inside
> the polygon, we can create effective "Areas" using spatial clustering.
>
> Should we better define when these areas should be used and not used? Can
> Lyft tell us what the business case is for funding these contributions to
> OSM? How are they used to create value to our users?
>
> (This is not a call out, and I want no part of any corrective action on
> the two people mentioned. I'm only looking to provide concrete examples so
> we can better draft policy.)
>
> --
> In the event this email pertains to Real Estate, Texas law
> <https://texreg.sos.state.tx.us/public/readtac$ext.TacPage?sl=R&app=9&p_dir=&p_rloc=&p_tloc=&p_ploc=&pg=1&p_tac=&ti=22&pt=23&ch=531&rl=20>
> requires all license holders provide to prospective clients the following
> forms: Information About Brokerage Services
> <http://docs.evancarroll.com/realestate/iabs.pdf>, Consumer Protection
> Notice
> <https://www.trec.texas.gov/sites/default/files/pdf-forms/CN%201-2.pdf>.
> My TREC license number is 610570
> <https://www.trec.texas.gov/apps/license-holder-search/?detail_id=881377951>
> and my sponsoring broker is NB Elite Realty LLC.
>
> --
> Evan Carroll - me at evancarroll.com
> System Lord of the Internets
> web: http://www.evancarroll.com
> ph: 281.901.0011 <+1-281-901-0011>
>
>
>

-- 
In the event this email pertains to Real Estate, Texas law
<https://texreg.sos.state.tx.us/public/readtac$ext.TacPage?sl=R&app=9&p_dir=&p_rloc=&p_tloc=&p_ploc=&pg=1&p_tac=&ti=22&pt=23&ch=531&rl=20>
requires all license holders provide to prospective clients the following
forms: Information About Brokerage Services
<http://docs.evancarroll.com/realestate/iabs.pdf>, Consumer Protection
Notice
<https://www.trec.texas.gov/sites/default/files/pdf-forms/CN%201-2.pdf>.
My TREC
license number is 610570
<https://www.trec.texas.gov/apps/license-holder-search/?detail_id=881377951>
and my sponsoring broker is NB Elite Realty LLC.

--
Evan Carroll - me at evancarroll.com
System Lord of the Internets
web: http://www.evancarroll.com
ph: 281.901.0011 <+1-281-901-0011>
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