[Talk-GB] Postboxes & Payphones

[Chris Hill]

Ed Loach wrote:
>> As has been
>> mentioned before, the process of hunting down an elusive
>> postbox often has
>> the benefit of some other missing feature getting mapped as
>> well, just
>> because you happen to be in the neighbourhood.
>>     
>
> I'd agree with that (and can also think of two adjacent postboxes
> with different references, which I hadn't considered earlier). This
> morning I was out verifying bus stops before work (more accurately I
> was trying to get to Colchester for 06:30 when Wickes opened, so I
> could be home again before work, but stopped at many of the stops en
> route except for a few where they loomed out of the mist too late
> for me to stop safely with a vehicle close behind me) and found a
> whole new lane I'd missed every other time I'd driven past it, which
> is often. I think I also spotted some recently constructed
> residential cul-de-sacs that I don't remember being there last time
> I passed, so will check and perhaps map those when I go to Wickes
> next (when their forklift driver gets to work they'll move the stock
> from out back into store so I can actually buy it). So probably this
> evening, though might not as I may take a different route to
> Colchester and try and get the route of the 74 verified to the same
> level as the 76 route I followed this morning.
>
> But if I weren't trying to spot bus stops I wouldn't have spotted
> the lane I think I had previously dismissed as a driveway (which as
> it only goes to a farm is perhaps what it effectively is).
>
> Although perhaps bus stops is a bad example as that is a case where
> the data has been imported. 
>
> Ed
>
>   
I have hunted post boxes and bus stops.  I used the RM list to find post 
boxes.  It was a struggle to find some (two seem to have vanished off 
the face of the earth), but in the process I improved all sorts of 
things, POIs, speed limits, corrected some mis-spellings, found closed 
pubs etc.  Post boxes are scattered all over the place; the locations 
given on the RM list are often cryptic and sometimes just plain wrong.  
The Draco site allows anyone to position a box anywhere.  Just pick a 
box off the list and plonk it on the map, which is exactly what some 
people have done.  Some people have used the RM description and assumed 
the location, without checking.  That is why I think loading Draco's 
data is a bad idea. Using the original FoIA response list to find boxes 
on the ground is a completely different process.

I have used the NaPTAN import to find bus stops.  I treat it as a 
similar process, except that the NaPTAN stops were surveyed in the first 
place (yeah I know it doesn't always seem like it).  You can apply 
corrections to the imported data to improve them and by reporting any 
discrepancies to your local council there is a chance that they will 
improve NaPTAN too. 

I am skeptical about the idea that data imports improve OSM.  I think 
they can be valuable, but I think they should be imported for an area 
where someone local to that area can take responsibility for checking 
them, either before or after importing, so that their true value can be 
realised and we don't just import junk.

Cheers, Chris