[Talk-GB] Unsigned road names (was "Fix the road name!")

SomeoneElse lists at atownsend.org.uk
Sat Jan 24 20:33:15 UTC 2015


Hijacking the thread somewhat, but something that I was wondering about 
recently...

There are many roads that are signed, and we can add them to OSM. Great!

There are some roads that are signed, and the sign differs from what the 
local authority thinks that a road is called (usually just common typos 
- no surprise, everyone makes mistakes), and we can add the "wrong" name 
as a "not:name".  Also great!

Sometimes something that isn't a name that anyone would ever use to 
refer to something creeps into OSM.  These usually (eventually) get 
shunted off into another key - perhaps "official_name", or something else.

However, there are names where the name in OSM is what the local 
authority uses, and what local people would agree that it is called, but 
there's no sign on the ground.  How do we reflect that?  It's useful to 
know from a routing perpective because "turn right on foo street" is of 
no use if "foo street" isn't signed as such.  It still makes sense for 
"foo street" to be in OSM as the name rather than any other key, because 
everyone agrees that it is the name - there just isn't a sign for it.

What's the best way to tag this?  Currently I've been using 
"name:signed=no" (and "ref:signed=no" where the road ref isn't signed).  
Is there a better / more accepted way of doing this?

Cheers,

Andy




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