[Talk-GB] Names on Power Lines

[SK53]

This morning I came across a name tag on a power
line<http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=17/53.18607/-1.14961>.
I believe this is now quite a common practice (> 8% of lines in an 3-month
old data-set). Personally I deplore it:

   - I have never found a convenient sign on a power line giving it's name.
   - It is not derived from ground-truth.
   - It is not verifiable by other mappers.
   - It's tagging for the renderer (which may not work once the rules for
   "name" have been revised in CartoCSS)
   - The names appear not to be names, but descriptions, we have a suitable
   key for this, oddly enough called "description".
   - Some name tags include "National Grid". we have a perfectly suitable
   tag called "operator" for this information.
   - I very much doubt that National Grid use names of this type for
   sending out line engineers.
   - Most of these names just appear to describe the two end points of the
   line. OSM is a geo-database this information can be found by suitable
   queries.

Given that adding non-verifiable names seems to *de rigueur* I propose that
in homage to Edmund Crispin I propose we name a random selection of
power=pylon as "The Pisser".

More seriously I suggest that these name tags be removed and replaced by
suitable use of "operator" and "description".

Jerry

P.S. I am not wholly against using "name" for what are in reality
"description", but such usage *MUST* relate to something which can be
verified on the ground. Brownfield sites which may still be visible as
buildings on Bing come to mind: in the form name="former XYZ Factory".
However, perhaps we should discuss this type of usage too.
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