[Talk-GB] Postcodes map

[Laurence Penney]

John McKerrell wrote:
>>> I've made a slippy map showing postcode areas:
>>> http://beerwarmer.randomjunk.co.uk/osm/postcodes/
>> This is awesome. If you need hosting for this do ask us
>> (webmaster at npemap.org.uk) or OSM (on dev.osm?). I'd love to have this
>> featured on the NPEmap web site.
> 
> Agreed, this is really nice. Do you think you could pull in the OSM  
> database as an alternative source of postcode data? I'm not sure if  
> many others are doing it but I've been entering the first half of a  
> postcode for as many roads as possible so that could really improve  
> Liverpool's coverage. I notice one area nearby is missing from your  
> map at the moment as there were no roads there when the NPE map was  
> made!

Another agreement that the postcode overlay is spiffing!

Regarding pulling in postcodes from the OSM database, I am concerned 
about postcodes I've added to OSM. I've been tagging pubs near me 
(Clifton, Bristol) with "postal_code=BS...", based on pages such as:

http://www.beerintheevening.com/pubs/s/64/6407/Eldon_House/Bristol

... since that type of page is what comes up as #1 Google result for 
most pubs.

It seems likely that beerintheevening get their address data from a 
tainted source, so all my postal_codes attached to pubs should 
probably be deleted. :-(

We could do with some guidelines for grabbing postcodes. I've 
therefore added this:

 >>>
Values for postal_code must be obtained from sources compatible with 
the OpenStreetMap License. Royal Mail will react badly if it turns out 
they are derived, even indirectly, from their Postcode Information 
File (PIF). Indirect sources include telephone directories, and also 
many websites that are a kind of directory: they almost certainly had 
access to the PIF or a derivation of it to create their database. For 
example, BeerInTheEvening.com is probably a tainted source of postcode 
data for pubs. By contrast, any pub's own website - if it's clearly 
set up by the pub - would be untainted.
 >>>

to this page:

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Key:place#Key_Variations

-- Laurence