[talk-au] place=?

[Hugh Barnes]

On Wednesday 03 December 2008 05:39:30, Jim Croft did write:

> Rather than a categorization, a better value for the tag would be the
> actual population estimate.- the use of a value rather than a category
> is common in metadata (specifying measured precision rather than
> allocating a class, for example). This allows software more potential
> and  flexibility in rendering and display and removes some possibility
> for interpretation error.  In this case it would be a verifiable fact
> that can be corrected without interpretation.
>
> just a thought
>

You're right - this is far superior and I've seen this talked about on the 
wider lists. However, it doesn't take into account other criteria we might 
consider here like remoteness. I think it's useful to record anyway where 
known. I wonder if the ABS data is amenable (license-wise) to import? If not, 
I'd certainly be disappointed, but not surprised.

…

On Wednesday 03 December 2008 06:14:19, Liz did write:

> In NSW the designations of many places are courtesy of an import from the
> NSW Geographical Names Board. Some are simply out of date and some places
> don't exist any more.

Hmm … so the designation can be an administrative one, too. That makes me 
question the meaning of the tag. Should this be a consideration, or should we 
concentrate on giving consumers of the map the best possible picture of 
reality on the ground? Maybe that's where population figures should come in. It 
could be up to renderers which tag they value more in representing a place.

(Just thinking aloud here, in case you hadn't guessed.)

I'd love to say that renderings should be driven by population alone and 
isolated places will stick out by virtue of being remote, but I think it's 
probably a spoiler that they won't show until users reach a certain zoom 
level.

Any advances on these thoughts? I'm getting out of my comfort zoom level.

…

And this thread on OSM talk is still very active. For some reason I thought it 
had run its course a while ago:

http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/2008-November/031816.html

Cheers