[Talk-GB] OSM Analysis New Data and bot

[Ed Avis]

Chris Hill <osm at ...> writes:

>Since it looks likely that a bot is going to be run to add OS Locator 
>names to unnamed British roads - something I strongly disagree with, but 
>I can't stop - I demand that it is tagged with a common-sense, clear tag 
>to show where this has happened. This should not be the bonkers cock-up 
>that was described in the speed limit nonsense, and not a source tag, 
>since many existing roads will have a source tag, e.g. source=survey. 

Would a tag source:name=OS be specific enough?

Perhaps - and I'm just suggesting this as a possibility - the name could be
added as unverified_name=X or name:OS=X or some other scheme.  Then users of the
OSM data could decide for themselves whether they strictly insist on ground
survey (at the expense of coverage completeness) or whether they'd like to have
the most complete set of names, even if some of them have only been surveyed by
Ordnance Survey employees rather than OSM volunteers.

I don't think that's a great idea, because the name is the name, and if we have
good evidence that the name is X then we should just tag name=X.  But it could be
a way to keep everyone reasonably happy.

When going on mapping trips I would then concentrate mostly on roads with no name
at all, but also take a moment to verify the OS-sourced names as I passed those
roads.  I think this would be more efficient and produce a better map faster than
if we ignore the OS names entirely.

-- 
Ed Avis <eda at waniasset.com>