[Talk-ca] Community mailboxes

Fri Sep 10 19:25:02 UTC 2021

I would either stick to option 2 or 3, but leaning to option 2. We can
assume all community mailboxes are under Canada Post/Postes Canada even if
FedEx, Purolator or UPS doesn’t have something like that, but I would still
like to keep the operator tag for completeness.

On Fri, Sep 10, 2021 at 5:02 AM <talk-ca-request at openstreetmap.org> wrote:

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> Today's Topics:
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>    1. Community mailboxes (Andrew Lester)
>    2. Re: Community mailboxes (Jarek Pi?rkowski)
>    3. Re: Community mailboxes (Jarek Pi?rkowski)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2021 15:52:33 -0600 (MDT)
> From: Andrew Lester <a-lester at shaw.ca>
> To: talk-ca <talk-ca at openstreetmap.org>
> Subject: [Talk-ca] Community mailboxes
> Message-ID:
>         <686760212.400042543.1631224353185.JavaMail.zimbra at shaw.ca>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Hi all,
>
> Back in March, Dartmouthmapmaker made a mechanical edit (
> https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/100559754) where they changed all
> community mailboxes in Canada tagged with type=cmb and:
> -Gave them the name "Canada Post Community Mailbox"
> -Added the operator tag with the value "Canada Post/ Poste Canada"
> -Changed type=cmb to post_box:type=community
>
> I made a comment on that changeset at the time expressing my disapproval
> of the changes, but didn't pursue it any further. However, I think it's
> time we deal with the situation.
>
> Here are the problems I see with the change and how I propose that they be
> resolved:
> -Name: These mailboxes don't have names in reality. If any particular
> mailbox does indeed have a name (which I find unlikely), I highly doubt
> it's "Canada Post Community Mailbox". This artificial label should be
> removed from any mailboxes.
> -Operator: The operator value currently contains both of the bilingual
> versions of "Canada Post". I believe this should be split out into
> operator:en=Canada Post and operator:fr=Poste Canada
> -Type: While type=cmb was the documented recommendation for these for many
> years, I see that the Canadian tagging guidelines (
> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Canadian_tagging_guidelines#Community_mailboxes)
> have since been updated to instead recommend post_box:type=community.
> Considering this change to the guidelines, I would support retaining this
> part of the original changeset.
>
> In summary, what I'm proposing is a mechanical edit where:
> -An Overpass search is performed for "amenity=post_box and name="Canada
> Post Community Mailbox" in Canada"
> -The name tag is removed
> -The operator tag is removed (or should this contain "Canada Post"?)
> -The tag operator:en is set to "Canada Post"
> -The tag operator:fr is set to "Poste Canada"
> -The tag post_box:type is retained, or set to post_box:type=community if
> not present
>
> The original changeset modified 8487 nodes, but an Overpass search now
> finds only 871 that still have that name, so it seems like many
> contributors have the same opinion as me and have already made some changes
> in their areas.
>
> What are your thoughts on the proposed actions? If there isn't any
> opposition in the next couple of weeks, I plan to go ahead and make these
> changes.
>
> Andrew Lester
> Victoria, BC
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2021 23:42:50 -0400
> From: Jarek Pi?rkowski <jarek at piorkowski.ca>
> To: talk-ca <talk-ca at openstreetmap.org>
> Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Community mailboxes
> Message-ID:
>         <CACV3h2kW-BAKCE6tnNJa3TwCVDAwF3=
> uzcNmcRuatABdz-d0uQ at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>
> Hi Andrew,
>
> Thanks for writing in. This sounds good to me. The description "Canada
> Post Community Mailbox" clearly needs to be removed from the name tag.
>
> For operator, I suppose the slash name satisfies no one, as in much of
> English-speaking Canada asking for Postes Canada would get you blank
> looks, and I expect French-speaking Canada is not entirely thrilled
> with having the English name first in their territory. That's before
> getting into the fact that the French name is Postes Canada but the
> tag says "Poste Canada".
>
> Some possible options:
> - Option 1: remove the operator altogether. While it can be useful on
> normal postboxes to distinguish from FedEx drop-boxes or whatever, to
> my knowledge no one else operates community mailboxes in Canada so
> this tag is not necessary. The closest thing that comes to mind is
> parcel pickup lockers but those are usually tagged
> amenity=vending_machine + vending=parcel_pickup.
> - Option 2: use name="Postes Canada" + name:en="Canada Post" +
> name:fr="Postes Canada" in French-speaking areas, and use name="Canada
> Post" in English-speaking areas. That's the usual way of handling
> multilingual names in OSM, but I can see some difficulties in defining
> what exactly is an "English-speaking" or "French-speaking" area, and
> that's before getting into areas that are genuinely bilingual
> - Option 3: remove all operator tags and instead add only
> operator:wikidata=Q1032001 and let computers fetch the appropriate
> name from Wikidata https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1032001
>
> For the postbox type tag, the post_box:type=community tag appears to
> have won its popularity largely through mechanical means
> (
> https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/tags/?key=post_box%3Atype&value=community#chronology
> see mid-2017 and early 2021), however I find type=cmb is really a
> quite bad tag (type=* is so generic) so I would support standardizing
> on post_box:type=community now that we do have it, however it came
> about.
>
> --Jarek
>
> On Thu, 9 Sept 2021 at 17:55, Andrew Lester <a-lester at shaw.ca> wrote:
> >
> > Hi all,
> >
> > Back in March, Dartmouthmapmaker made a mechanical edit (
> https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/100559754) where they changed all
> community mailboxes in Canada tagged with type=cmb and:
> > -Gave them the name "Canada Post Community Mailbox"
> > -Added the operator tag with the value "Canada Post/ Poste Canada"
> > -Changed type=cmb to post_box:type=community
> >
> > I made a comment on that changeset at the time expressing my disapproval
> of the changes, but didn't pursue it any further. However, I think it's
> time we deal with the situation.
> >
> > Here are the problems I see with the change and how I propose that they
> be resolved:
> > -Name: These mailboxes don't have names in reality. If any particular
> mailbox does indeed have a name (which I find unlikely), I highly doubt
> it's "Canada Post Community Mailbox". This artificial label should be
> removed from any mailboxes.
> > -Operator: The operator value currently contains both of the bilingual
> versions of "Canada Post". I believe this should be split out into
> operator:en=Canada Post and operator:fr=Poste Canada
> > -Type: While type=cmb was the documented recommendation for these for
> many years, I see that the Canadian tagging guidelines (
> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Canadian_tagging_guidelines#Community_mailboxes)
> have since been updated to instead recommend post_box:type=community.
> Considering this change to the guidelines, I would support retaining this
> part of the original changeset.
> >
> > In summary, what I'm proposing is a mechanical edit where:
> > -An Overpass search is performed for "amenity=post_box and name="Canada
> Post Community Mailbox" in Canada"
> > -The name tag is removed
> > -The operator tag is removed (or should this contain "Canada Post"?)
> > -The tag operator:en is set to "Canada Post"
> > -The tag operator:fr is set to "Poste Canada"
> > -The tag post_box:type is retained, or set to post_box:type=community if
> not present
> >
> > The original changeset modified 8487 nodes, but an Overpass search now
> finds only 871 that still have that name, so it seems like many
> contributors have the same opinion as me and have already made some changes
> in their areas.
> >
> > What are your thoughts on the proposed actions? If there isn't any
> opposition in the next couple of weeks, I plan to go ahead and make these
> changes.
> >
> > Andrew Lester
> > Victoria, BC
> > _______________________________________________
> > Talk-ca mailing list
> > Talk-ca at openstreetmap.org
> > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2021 23:52:02 -0400
> From: Jarek Pi?rkowski <jarek at piorkowski.ca>
> To: talk-ca <talk-ca at openstreetmap.org>
> Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Community mailboxes
> Message-ID:
>         <CACV3h2kovwkXtvED9UW=
> ED5i8zo2aztJaGqaPUZL7hNc0yczdg at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>
> Er, Option 2 tags were meant to be operator=*, operator:en=*, and
> operator:fr=*, not name*.
>
> And just to make sure it doesn't get lost, the French name is Postes
> Canada with the final S, not Poste.
>
> --Jarek
>
> On Thu, 9 Sept 2021 at 23:42, Jarek Pi?rkowski <jarek at piorkowski.ca>
> wrote:
> >
> > Hi Andrew,
> >
> > Thanks for writing in. This sounds good to me. The description "Canada
> > Post Community Mailbox" clearly needs to be removed from the name tag.
> >
> > For operator, I suppose the slash name satisfies no one, as in much of
> > English-speaking Canada asking for Postes Canada would get you blank
> > looks, and I expect French-speaking Canada is not entirely thrilled
> > with having the English name first in their territory. That's before
> > getting into the fact that the French name is Postes Canada but the
> > tag says "Poste Canada".
> >
> > Some possible options:
> > - Option 1: remove the operator altogether. While it can be useful on
> > normal postboxes to distinguish from FedEx drop-boxes or whatever, to
> > my knowledge no one else operates community mailboxes in Canada so
> > this tag is not necessary. The closest thing that comes to mind is
> > parcel pickup lockers but those are usually tagged
> > amenity=vending_machine + vending=parcel_pickup.
> > - Option 2: use name="Postes Canada" + name:en="Canada Post" +
> > name:fr="Postes Canada" in French-speaking areas, and use name="Canada
> > Post" in English-speaking areas. That's the usual way of handling
> > multilingual names in OSM, but I can see some difficulties in defining
> > what exactly is an "English-speaking" or "French-speaking" area, and
> > that's before getting into areas that are genuinely bilingual
> > - Option 3: remove all operator tags and instead add only
> > operator:wikidata=Q1032001 and let computers fetch the appropriate
> > name from Wikidata https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1032001
> >
> > For the postbox type tag, the post_box:type=community tag appears to
> > have won its popularity largely through mechanical means
> > (
> https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/tags/?key=post_box%3Atype&value=community#chronology
> > see mid-2017 and early 2021), however I find type=cmb is really a
> > quite bad tag (type=* is so generic) so I would support standardizing
> > on post_box:type=community now that we do have it, however it came
> > about.
> >
> > --Jarek
> >
> > On Thu, 9 Sept 2021 at 17:55, Andrew Lester <a-lester at shaw.ca> wrote:
> > >
> > > Hi all,
> > >
> > > Back in March, Dartmouthmapmaker made a mechanical edit (
> https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/100559754) where they changed all
> community mailboxes in Canada tagged with type=cmb and:
> > > -Gave them the name "Canada Post Community Mailbox"
> > > -Added the operator tag with the value "Canada Post/ Poste Canada"
> > > -Changed type=cmb to post_box:type=community
> > >
> > > I made a comment on that changeset at the time expressing my
> disapproval of the changes, but didn't pursue it any further. However, I
> think it's time we deal with the situation.
> > >
> > > Here are the problems I see with the change and how I propose that
> they be resolved:
> > > -Name: These mailboxes don't have names in reality. If any particular
> mailbox does indeed have a name (which I find unlikely), I highly doubt
> it's "Canada Post Community Mailbox". This artificial label should be
> removed from any mailboxes.
> > > -Operator: The operator value currently contains both of the bilingual
> versions of "Canada Post". I believe this should be split out into
> operator:en=Canada Post and operator:fr=Poste Canada
> > > -Type: While type=cmb was the documented recommendation for these for
> many years, I see that the Canadian tagging guidelines (
> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Canadian_tagging_guidelines#Community_mailboxes)
> have since been updated to instead recommend post_box:type=community.
> Considering this change to the guidelines, I would support retaining this
> part of the original changeset.
> > >
> > > In summary, what I'm proposing is a mechanical edit where:
> > > -An Overpass search is performed for "amenity=post_box and
> name="Canada Post Community Mailbox" in Canada"
> > > -The name tag is removed
> > > -The operator tag is removed (or should this contain "Canada Post"?)
> > > -The tag operator:en is set to "Canada Post"
> > > -The tag operator:fr is set to "Poste Canada"
> > > -The tag post_box:type is retained, or set to post_box:type=community
> if not present
> > >
> > > The original changeset modified 8487 nodes, but an Overpass search now
> finds only 871 that still have that name, so it seems like many
> contributors have the same opinion as me and have already made some changes
> in their areas.
> > >
> > > What are your thoughts on the proposed actions? If there isn't any
> opposition in the next couple of weeks, I plan to go ahead and make these
> changes.
> > >
> > > Andrew Lester
> > > Victoria, BC
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Talk-ca mailing list
> > > Talk-ca at openstreetmap.org
> > > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca
>
>
>
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