[Talk-GB] 'historic' county boundaries added to the database

Frederik Ramm frederik at remote.org
Thu Sep 20 06:24:53 UTC 2018


Richard,

On 20.09.2018 00:01, Richard Fairhurst wrote:
> From 1974 to 1997, the county of Rutland didn't exist.

It's nice to see such a passionate plea for one particular historic
boundary, and pleas like that are what can give rise to the exceptions I
was talking about.

These exceptions do not, however, mean that it's a free-for-all for all
kinds of historic boundaries. I don't know about Rutland - the way you
say it sounds as if it is, and has always been, crystal clear what is
part of Rutland and what is not. But one participant in this thread has
stated that their particular county boundary has changed many times over
the years. I don't know if the people inhabiting the areas that have
changed hands each time kept a stubborn affection for "their *real*
county" just as you describe the people of Rutland to have done. For the
sake of the argument, let's assume there had been a couple of minor
changes to the boundary of "Rutland County Council District Council"
since 1997. Surely your argument which seems to be based on the romantic
"Rutland that people feel in their hearts" could not be applied as a
reason to store "Rutland County Council District Council in the borders
of 1997", plus "Rutland County Council District Council in the borders
of 1999", and also "Rutland County Council District Council in the
borders of 2003"...?

A line needs to be drawn, because otherwise there *will* be people
mapping these things ("for historic interest"), and they won't stop at
historic administrative boundaries; they will include electoral wards of
all EU elections back to god knows when, parish boundaries from 1905,
and school districts for good measure. And each time it will become more
different to maintain the data. How is someone who moves a river to be
more in line with current aerial imagery supposed to know which of the
23 boundaries using that river should be affected and which not?

All the reasons you have listed were based on popular use. You said
things like "pretty much everyone put their address as ...", "no-one
thinks they live in ..." etc.; at the same time such things are often
not very precise and don't easily lend themselves to drawing boundaries.
The "West Hampstead" you mention is mapped as a point - perhaps
precisely because it has no documented administrative boundary to go
with it but is a "property speculator's construct" as you say?

I think that if case-by-case exceptions are made from our "verifiable on
the ground" rule, then at the very least the object in question must be
important enough (an admin boundary that 30.000 people believe to live
in would qualify, an electoral ward that was abolished in 1905 and is
only remembered by those of the age 120+, not so much), and if someone
wants to map it as a relation (which cannot be done in a fuzzy way) then
it must be sufficiently clear where the boundary is because else we'll
have 10 mappers edit-warring over if a certain address still belongs to
the posh neighbourhood of Silver Springs or to its seedy neighbour,
Golden Showers.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"



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