[Talk-GB] Still too many universities in Cambridge

Phillip Barnett phillip.p.barnett at gmail.com
Thu Feb 6 16:49:07 UTC 2020


And here is the email from the guy who did the original mapping, the last time this came up, including his reasoning for the amenity Tag rather than building tag https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-gb/2015-May/017457.html

Sent from my iPhone

> On 6 Feb 2020, at 15:49, Brian Prangle <bprangle at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> "OSM is not beholden to data consumers. 
> They take the data 'as is'. That includes any amendments
> 
> My planned amendment can always be reversed if there is a valid reason.  
> Upsetting CU isn't one"
> 
>  Not a great way to build a community when the data user in question put in a lot of resource in order to create the OSM data in the firstplace
> 
> 
>> On Thu, 6 Feb 2020 at 14:35, Dave F via Talk-GB <talk-gb at openstreetmap.org> wrote:
>> Hi Jerry
>> 
>> On 06/02/2020 10:19, SK53 wrote:
>> > Funnily enough this long-standing issue came up at our pub meeting last
>> > month. Although my reaction has always been to let sleeping dogs lie, this
>> > was clearly not the consensus.
>> 
>> It's detrimental to the quality of the OSM database. it requires sorting 
>> out.
>> 
>> > I've sent a message to University of Cambridge Information Services who run
>> > the map.cam.ac.uk site which consumes the OSM data
>> 
>> Is this their sole use? There was a hint in a university blog there were 
>> other sites
>> 
>> > , to warn them that a
>> > change is impending. It's probably worth holding off for a week or so to
>> > allow them to assess any impact on their map.
>> 
>> I was going to give it a week from my post to allow other OSM 
>> contributors to have their say. I don't want this to fizzle out as has 
>> happened on previous occasions. OSM is not beholden to data consumers. 
>> They take the data 'as is'. That includes any amendments.
>> 
>> My planned amendment can always be reversed if there is a valid reason.  
>> Upsetting CU isn't one.
>> 
>> >   Incidentally, knowing a
>> > specific contact point would help as university IT departments can be big
>> > beasts these days. It does show that having a good contact point is always
>> > a good idea for directed edits when data is in use.
>> 
>> It depends how the institution is set up, but I've found bursar/estates 
>> departments are the more interested in the map's appearance. IT 
>> departments focus more on 0 & 1s.
>> 
>> > As others have said there is a lot of inconsistency: particular with former
>> > houses taken into University or College ownership which sometimes get
>> > building=house/semi and other times building=university. There are other
>> > college buildings of this type which are not hit by amenity=university at
>> > all.
>> 
>> These are to assess what would bel eft after I make my planned amendment.
>> Note these are not all CU (ie Anglia Ruskin)
>> 
>> Buildings=yes, without amenity but have 'university' in the operator tag:
>> https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/QsU
>> 
>> Buildings that aren't '=yes', without amenity but have 'university' in 
>> the operator tag:
>> https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/QsT
>> 
>> Non building, amenity=university, Has 'University of Cambridge' in the 
>> operator tag
>> https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/Qt3
>> 
>> Non building, amenity=university, operator is not 'University of Cambridge'
>> https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/Qt1
>> 
>> Non building, amenity=university, No operator tag
>> https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/Qt4
>> 
>> > Other general points I noticed relating to  inconsistency/issues (largely
>> > arising because Cambridge got mapped earlier than many places or it just
>> > has a lot of things which are otherwise rare):
>> >
>> >     - Theological Colleges are loosely associated with the university, and
>> >     are equally loosely amenity=university in their own right. I don't know if
>> >     we have a regular way of tagging non-degree awarding religious training
>> >     centres. These are something of an Oxbridge speciality. I see the London
>> >     Institute of Theology is tagged
>> >     <https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/524375396> as a college. Years ago I
>> >     mapped Coleg Trefecca as a conference centre, but used old_ tags to
>> >     indicate it's historical role as a college training people for the
>> >     ministry. Fortunately some of the odder places
>> >     <https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/53.18591/-3.02706> of former
>> >     times have similarly changed their roles.
>> >     - Sports facilities (especially isolated playing fields and boathouses)
>> >     are just tagged with a ref and operator. Pavilions are often tagged
>> >     building=university, as is the sports centre.
>> >     - Cambridge colleges are independent corporations in their own right, so
>> >     probably should have separate amenity=university relations (although the
>> >     world is unlikely to end if not).
>> 
>> They maybe financially independent, but still stand under the umbrella 
>> of CU. Why can't they have separate college or faculty relations?
>> 
>> >   They mostly form discrete campuses.
>> >     Isolated parts are named separately so just replacing these with a relation
>> >     doesn't work. North Court, Emma is one such example. There are similarly
>> >     very well known parts of the university with their own widely used names:
>> >     Downing Site, New Museums, West Cambridge etc. This is true of most
>> >     universities now that many are multi-campus. I don't think we have a good
>> >     approach to these: roles in relations, campus_name … are all possibilities.
>> >     (This also applies to schools now that one academy can take over another).
>> >     - There's plenty of (non-public accessible) student accommodation which
>> >     is not mapped as such. I presume this is intentional. Examples the Trinity
>> >     staircase above the bike shop on Jesus Lane, most of Lower Park St (Jesus),
>> >     and Portugal Place,
>> >     -  Multiple buildings mapped as one
>> >     <https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/147487988>. There are probably
>> >     others, but this one I know. The larger part of the building is the
>> > former Cambridgeshire
>> >     County Hall
>> >     <https://britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/101265198-county-hall-cambridge#.Xjr8Fm52u01>,
>> >     built around 1910 and Grade II listed, the S part is a 17th century house
>> >     <https://britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/101332167-christs-college-x-staircase-cambridge-market-ward#.Xjr7yG52u00>
>> >     (formerly 'X' staircase), also Grade II. The two buildings form a single
>> >     unit of student accommodation which presumably reflects the mapping.
>> >
>> > Cheers,
>> >
>> > Jerry
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On Tue, 4 Feb 2020 at 15:15, Dave F via Talk-GB <talk-gb at openstreetmap.org>
>> > wrote:
>> >
>> >> On 04/02/2020 14:28, Dan S wrote:
>> >>> Hi Dave,
>> >>>
>> >>> I agree with what you suggest. Can we be a bit precise though about
>> >>> what you propose? You're proposing to remove amenity=university from
>> >>> building=university in Cambridge, and make no other tagging changes?
>> >> That's correct. I'm going to load the 1050 return by this overpass query
>> >> into JOSM:
>> >> [bbox:{{bbox}}];
>> >> nwr[amenity=university][building=university];
>> >> out meta geom;
>> >>
>> >> plus another 7 which are still tagged as building=yes.
>> >>
>> >>> (Ironically, the current tagging makes it hard for me to search to see
>> >>> if there's a "proper" amenity=university in there somewhere, e.g. as a
>> >>> relation or area covering a large swathe of them.)
>> >> There isn't, I'm afraid.. it's a right hotchpotch
>> >>
>> >> https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/QnH
>> >>
>> >> These are the remaining 117 amenity=university which will need to be
>> >> rectified at a later date..
>> >>
>> >> Cheers
>> >> DaveF
>> >>> Op di 4 feb. 2020 om 14:15 schreef Dave F via Talk-GB
>> >>> <talk-gb at openstreetmap.org>:
>> >>>> Hi
>> >>>> There was a discussion 5 years ago. There may have been others.
>> >>>> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-gb/2015-May/017455.html
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Many amenity=university tags were added unnecessarily to building=yes
>> >>>> A contributor had converted these to building=university, in accordance
>> >>>> with the wiki.
>> >> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:building%3Duniversity
>> >>>> https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/40649767
>> >>>> This allows the removal of the amenity tags without loss of data.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> The user who created his disparate tagging schema has had plenty of time
>> >>>> to rectify.  I think this should be performed now.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> _______________________________________________
>> >>>> Talk-GB mailing list
>> >>>> Talk-GB at openstreetmap.org
>> >>>> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
>> >>
>> >> _______________________________________________
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>> >>
>> 
>> 
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