[Talk-GB] UK addresses

[Will Phillips]

On 13/08/2014 09:11, Lester Caine wrote:
> On 13/08/14 08:58, David Woolley wrote:
>> On 13/08/14 08:29, Lester Caine wrote:
>>> rest can be cloned from the postcode - or some other unique ID for the
>>> related object.
>> Only if you have purchased access to the PAF or National Gazeteer.
>> Capture of the former, on OSM, is patchy, and of the latter is
>> non-existent, or virtually so.
> That data will be available, but it does not stop using the method to
> add it to the OSM data currently. If you are adding 50 house numbers you
> end up using the copy function to add a vast amount of data where one
> only needs a small subset of that in practice! A lot of postcodes are
> currently missing and it would be nice simply to import the raw missing
> stuff, but it does not prevent good practice generally?
>
1. OSM data should be structured so that it is friendly for the people 
who go out and survey it. Having address tags on every object is 
inefficient, but it's also easy for everyone to understand. The option 
of using associatedStreet relations exists if you want to do it more 
efficiently. Personally I have stopped using them for now, because I 
have found inexperienced mappers don't know they are there and just add 
the data again on the individual objects.

2. I don't agree that tagging only postcode and 'addressable object' is 
a good idea. To convert that into a full address requires access to a 
closed database. Surely the whole point about OSM is creating useful 
data that is open? At the moment we don't even have sufficient open data 
available to add an accurate postcode to every address. I hope more 
address data will be made available under an open licence in the future, 
but at the moment we have to work with what we have got.