[Talk-ca] What do I poutine the name tag of a road with a suffix?

[Hoser AB]

If "NW" can be (and is, every day) expanded to be understood as
"Northwest", why is it that "NW" can't be reasonably understood to mean
"Northwest" without having to be expanded?

I understand Minh's previous points about text-to-speech engines not being
able to handle it well, with edge cases like "Avenue S" being "Avenue Ess"
not "Avenue South", but who are all these other OSM data consumers for whom
NW/NE/SW/SE is "broken and wrong"?

If this ain't your first rodeo, surely you can then explain to all us
slack-jawed yokels why we need to write out a simple two-letter
abbreviation that is ubiquitously used and universally understood to mean
ordinal directions? Beyond the TTS issues Minh brought up I can't fathom
why it would make any difference to any other data consumer to keep them
abbreviated. In fact if anything I would think most data consumers would
want to keep it abbreviated, given every single existing municipal and
provincial database, every street sign, every home address on a Christmas
card, every office address on a business card, every storefront address on
an advertisement, and every colloquial use between every Tom, Dick and
Harry uses NW/NE/SW/NE. At what point is blindly following an OSM policy
itself becoming "tagging for the data consumer"? If every data input going
into the map has to be unabbreviated just so "the renderer" can abbreviate
it again on the "consumer" side... why are we going to the trouble of
fudging data in the first place?

You wrote earlier, "As far as I can tell, this touches on the main real
argument for abbreviation: 'we like it this way and we're not used to the
other way so shoo'," and ironically you seem blind to the way that you're
making that very same argument for "unabbreviation". You wrote earlier, "If
'SW' is pronounced and translated as 'south west' then I really need the
database to have it expanded if I have a prayer of delivering a good
product," but why is it that your software's limitations are my problem?
Write better software, software that isn't so stupid that it can't suss out
SW = Southwest (= SW).


On Sun, Dec 18, 2022 at 2:52 PM W B <bradley.will at gmail.com> wrote:

> I have no authority, I've just been around the OSM block a few times and
> weighing in as far as what's correct. I also happen to live in a city that
> has ubiquitous directional suffixes. I'm sorry if my tone comes off more
> vinegary than sweet, I'm simply advocating for what works.
>
> The wiki does indeed say that local community and ground truth are
> important. Otherwise we'd be mapping virtual reality and there'd be no
> local buy in or help! But the wiki has also been very clear about name
> abbreviation from the beginning: in 2008 the key:name page said in bold,
> "Do not abbreviate words." Now it says "if a signpost abbreviates the name
> to save space, but the name can reasonably be spelled out in full, the
> name=* should also be spelled out in full."
>
> If there's a compelling reason why that policy shouldn't be followed, then
> great, but "the city's own maps" and the particular naming jurisdiction is
> still not a unique compelling exception: plenty of governments abbreviate
> their streets, that doesn't mean that "NW" can't (and isn't, every day) be
> reasonably expanded out to be understood as Northwest.
>
> I have no authority here, in the end I don't care. But your province's
> data will be broken and wrong as far as OSM data consumers are concerned,
> and ultimately it's Albertans who will end up feeling the brunt of it.
> Again I was initially sympathetic to the local control angle, except that
> every single argument in favor of an exception is not actually exceptional.
> North American streets with ubiquitous directional suffixes are nothing new.
>
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