[Talk-ca] Cleanup of addr:country, addr:province, addr:state

[Stewart C. Russell]

Hi Matthew -

> If we want to be able generate mailing addresses from OSM (is that a
> valid use case?), then whatever the city address Canada Post thinks we
> are in needs to be tagged in some fashion.

It's *a* valid use case. But the only way to make OSM addresses
consistent with Canada Post addresses is to derive it from Canada Post's
Postal Code(OM) Address Data, which CP keeps adamantly closed. So we
can't have it in OSM.

> … "The name of the city as given in *postal addresses* of the
> building/area."   /(emphasis added)

That piece of your quotation reads like it was added later, and is a
generalization. In some places, the postal town in the town in which the
main sorting takes place. It can be some distance from the delivery
location, and in the case of islands, not always on the same piece of
land. So postal addresses exist for different purposes than geographic
addresses.

Everything beyond the number and street name requires some abstraction,
and then a decision needs to be made over which authority one trusts.
You're doing great work with your consistency edits, but at some point,
completeness/consistency become very tiresome to reconcile.

cheers,
 Stewart