[Talk-GB] Suburbs in London/Brum - big edits

[Tom Chance]

Thanks for all the comments.

Could somebody revert the two London changesets? The move to the
alternative hierarchy of suburb/quarter/etc can always be done later after
some more considered thought. These existing hierarchy was a settled
consensus of sorts resulting from years of tweaks. I myself spent quite a
bit of time reviewing all the places in South East London some years ago.

To respond to John, discussions on the wiki have always involved a fairly
small number of mappers, and the convention is that you shouldn't go around
changing long-established data because some people on the wiki decided one
logical approach was the best. As Richard Fairhurst said in the comments to
the changeset, the fact that these place names have been there for a long
time suggests there is a good reason for them to be so. We've not just
overlooked this all those years. The same could be said of that awful tag
"highway=path", which has been around for a long time but which I - and
many others - refuse to use. It's fine if you want to use it, but please
don't go changing highway=footpath and so on to highway=path because some
wiki page says it's better.

Personally, I think it is important to recognise that Peckham, Lewisham,
Brixton, Wimbledon and so on are town centres, they are not just suburbs.
They are recognised as such in planning policy, they fulfil an important
town centre function, and would be considered town centres by many people
who live, work and shop there. This isn't tagging for the renderer, it's
getting the hierarchy correct.

Regards,
Tom

On 19 November 2014 17:47, Andy Robinson <ajrlists at gmail.com> wrote:

> We should not blindly assume that the ordered way as described on the wiki
> is right. It may be entirely logical and reasonable but it might not
> reflect the local situation on the ground. I’ve started a Birmingham
> related thread on the west mids list in order that those of is with a
> detailed knowledge of Brum can work through and see whether any of the
> “place” objects need adjustment. Many were put in as they are many years
> ago so it’s good to have a look again. It’s not about tagging for the
> renderer or even tagging for logic. It’s just tagging for the real world.
>
>
>
> Cheers
>
> Andy
>
>
>
> *From:* John Baker [mailto:rovastar at hotmail.com]
> *Sent:* 19 November 2014 17:27
> *To:* Tom Chance; talk-gb OSM List E-mail
> *Subject:* Re: [Talk-GB] Suburbs in London/Brum - big edits
>
>
>
>
> Lets put some clarity on this.
>
> a) they are not big edits. They are a handful of nodes.
> b) "advice now given in the wiki" and "self-appointed wiki editors"
> implies that suddenly some rouge wiki editor changed something that in
> general the OSM community doesn't agree with. Suburbs are well established.
> In fact that description line is over 3 years old! And from that pages
> inception in September 2006 there is a similar line of text about not using
> village, etc and using suburbs, etc. Even for someone that doesn't like
> change it is hardly a rapid, sweeping one.
>
> To be honest I have never noticed (and have mapped plenty in London)
> before but it sounds like the reasons to keep it as is for, Peckham as a
> village or whatever, is a clear case of mapping for the renderer.
>
> Maybe we should also look at how other large international cities have
> mapped these areas.
>
> I am all for changes some/many/all of these to a more correct and modern
> (well post 09/2006) standard.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> From: tom at acrewoods.net
> Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2014 10:07:16 +0000
> To: talk-gb at openstreetmap.org
> Subject: [Talk-GB] Suburbs in London/Brum - big edits
>
> Hello there,
>
>
>
> As somebody who dislikes change, I was slightly horrified to see these
> edits:
>
> https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/26783815
>
> https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/26795471
>
> https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/26567938
>
>
>
> The user has changed a whole lot of places within London and Birmingham
> that were tagged as town / village / hamlet / etc. to place=suburb. He
> appears to be following the advice now given on the wiki, that:
>
>
>
> "Areas of a town/city should not be tagged with place=town, place=village
> or place=hamlet. These should only be used for distinct settlements."
>
>
>
> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:place%3Dsuburb
>
>
>
> Apart from the fact that I cannot stand it when the work of self-appointed
> wiki editors leads to somebody making sweeping edits of others' work, I
> also really don't like losing the hierarchy of place implicit in Wimbledon
> being marked as a town, Forest Hill a village, Belleden a hamlet, and so
> on, and them all just becoming 'suburb'. Apart from the fact that many
> places in London were historically towns in their own right, they are often
> also regarded as town centres.
>
>
>
> But should we swallow this and move to the use of
> place=suburb/quarter/neighbourhood?
>
>
>
> If so, I'd like to do this properly, instead of the process that this user
> has gone through to just make everything 'suburb'.
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Tom
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> http://tom.acrewoods.net   http://twitter.com/tom_chance
>
>
> _______________________________________________ Talk-GB mailing list
> Talk-GB at openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
>



-- 
http://tom.acrewoods.net   http://twitter.com/tom_chance
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