[Talk-GB] OSM UK address project: tags

[James Derrick]

Hi,

On 23/12/2021 11:13, Sarah Hoffmann via Talk-GB wrote:
> And that's why the addr:street and addr:place tags should not be on the
> same object. It's sending mixed messages.

Thank you for such a clear explanation of both OSM history and 
semantics. I've only been mapping for 14 years, so am still learning 
such lovely detail! :-)


On 23/12/2021 11:45, Robert Whittaker (OSM lists) wrote:
> I think this distinction between addr:unit and addr:housenumber is
> really important when it comes to interpreting and rendering
> addresses. It's something we need to be really sure everyone is on the
> same page with.

Taking your comments together, there's a lot of carefully distilled 
thought in each tag beyond the text of a wiki which is invaluable.

This is a messy real-world trade-off between semantic meaning, historic 
institutional power, and years of individual mappers trying to do the 
right thing. Lets not forget either that profitable businesses exist to 
product just this logic so it isn't easy for anyone (e.g. 
https://www.melissa.com/ ).

Whatever the debate converges on, the larger challenge is communication 
- I've personally seen JOSM validation suggest "suspicious tag 
combination" many times but without the context of the WHY, the WHAT was 
incomplete.


This thread has already started collecting challenging worked examples, 
together with pseudo-code logic which go way beyond a dry wiki 
definition of a key-value pair. Let's not loose the utility - how about 
creating a 'UK addressing improvement' project under 
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/United_Kingdom#Wiki_projects with 
this test data for use as examples later?


Forced data entry checks are not part of OSM culture as we trust 
individual mappers to use their own judgement to capture rich data, but 
a JOSM validator style helper might take the edges off some of the 
corner cases by suggesting new tags.

I'd much prefer an info message on an entry field with a wiki-link, to a 
later validator message as it gives assistance in the moment. No idea if 
this is possible in a Java JOSM plug-in or JS web-helper but some tools 
exist:

     https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/JOSM/Plugins/FixAddresses
     https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/nickjohnston/diary/395216 - 
coloured streets visualisation

Human understanding might also be helped by a "reverse validation tool" 
to produce a mailing label from an object - stealing Sarah's example of 
'The Nest 14 at Main St'.
If we design hierarchical tagging to assist data consumers, wouldn't be 
useful to see the data through their eyes?

Any thoughts?



PS I still dislike post town - we should model geography and human 
society, not a 1970's red Commer van route which got a bypass in 1980. :-)

James
-- 
James Derrick
     lists at jamesderrick.org, Cramlington, England
     I wouldn't be a volunteer if you paid me...
     https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/James%20Derrick