[Talk-GB] Amenity Editing

Jack Stringer jack.ixion at googlemail.com
Thu Jul 2 11:32:16 BST 2009


As I have mentioned before I am interested in improving the data on
Amenities such as Pubs, Fast Food places. Most of this data can be
found openly on the companies own website so I doubt they will have
issues with us including the data as they want to be found on the
maps. This also works for pubs and restaurants as they would of
supplied all the info on their website. I am not copying images or the
blurb on the site so I don't think it could be classed as a copyright
issue. I wont be getting data from websites like yellow pages, and
some of the other directory listings[1] because that data has been
collected by a 3rd party and unless they given permission I would
assume they would get grumpy. Copyright data is a complicated one but
in this circumstance I can't see any restaurants or pubs, etc
complaining about their info being available on the best map on the
internet. I could see some issues with small businesses such as
accountants that work from home etc. But for the moment I am not going
near that kind of data.

For the moment I will only be working on GB data as I think taking on
the world atm is just too much for me. I have managed to get the XML
data from XAPI using wget and I have brought the data into JOSM.

An example of data that I would like to add to OSM is this,
name=Burger King
amenity=fast_food
operator=Burger King
cuisine=burger
phone=+44 1179 770791
addr:street=Bath Road
addr:city=Bristol
addr:postcode=BS4 3BD
addr:country=GB
url=http://www.burgerking.co.uk

It would be nice to get enough data together that we could start to do
a similar thing to Google with having a popup when you mouse over the
fast_food icon showing you the extra details. We have the chance to
supply up-to-date and relevant data. If you use the petrol station
lists often found on GPS units the data is often so out of date that
you keep finding closed garages. With OSM I hope this will be
different because we have a large collection of people checking if
places still exist etc. especially if it can be tied in with the
bugs.osm.com idea that is out there. People report a closed shop or
incorrect telephone number.

Should I make a wiki page with my plans on it? I am not much of a wiki
person but I could try and get more people involved. If I was to make
a wiki page I guess I ought to come up with some standards in naming
some restaurants. Some of the big chains such as McDonalds have a
myriad of spellings, This makes it hard for GPS devices.

I have seen people mention that data such as contact should be kept in
a wiki page a referenced by a link but I think that is the wrong way
to do it because there are people who will be using OSM via mobile
devices and GPS units and going to wiki pages on them things is just a
PITA. It does make sense in the case of lets say food reviews of a
restaurant, or background info on a historical location.

That is my current plan, does anyone see any issues with that?[2]

Jack Stringer
[1] These directory listings places have collected data from many
sources and one of them is likely to be companies websites and I doubt
any of them ever asked for permission to copy the address data off the
website. I know I never was asked and I am on several sites.
[2]cmon this is the internet, I know there will be issues ;-)




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