[Talk-GB] OSM UK address project: tags

[Philip Barnes]

On Wed, 2021-12-22 at 11:28 +0100, Colin Smale wrote:
>  
> >  On 12/21/2021 10:14 PM Dave F via Talk-GB
> > <talk-gb at openstreetmap.org> wrote: 
> >  
> >  
> > General comment: OSM shouldn't become beholden to Royal Mail. They
> > are just one of many delivery services. 
> >  
>  But Royal Mail has an effective monopoly on addressing (the only
> "competitors" I can think of are things like W3W and Google's Plus
> codes and they are very "niche"). All the delivery services use Royal
> Mail's addressing system. 
>  
>  What's so bad about adopting the RM model? Given the huge levels of
> "tradition" in UK addressing (particularly in rural areas) they had a
> big challenge to come up with a data model that would accommodate all
> the quirks while providing an efficient way of uniquely identifying a
> delivery point for post. We are not going to a better job than they
> have done. Are we just being stubborn? 

We are not being stubbon, Royal Mails system works for them but causes
problems and confusion for others. 

The postal addresses are a political issue, something councils spend
time on and treying to pursued Royal Mail to fix. 

Delivery drivers often head for the big town on the address, which is
12 miles away, with deliveries at the wrong 'same address'.

When we navigate to a place, we generally do not care where Royal Mail
say it is.

This sign https://www.mapillary.com/app/?pKey=451520636572556 is here
for a similar reason, to dispell the geographic myths that important
features belong to a different county. We should not proliferate this
myth.

Phil (trigpoint)