[Talk-GB] Non-intuitive addresses

[Mark Goodge]

On 14/02/2022 17:12, Sarah Hoffmann wrote:

> Works like a charm with
> 
> addr:housenumber=2
> addr:place=Great Moreton Terrace
> addr:parentstreet=New Road
 >
> Will be found when searching for "2 Great Moreton Terrace" and
> "2 Great Moreton Terrace, New Road". "New Road" won't be shown in the
> result at the moment but that'll be fixed once addr:parentstreet is well
> enough established as a standard.

It's not particularly intuitive to use addr:parentstreet when there's no 
addr:street to be a parent of, though. And, if we want to be consistent, 
then we do need to be reasonably intuitive, as not every casual mapper 
is going to read this mailing list.

> I've followed this discussion closely and see no reason to lift the
> requirement that the street referred to in addr:street must exist. If you
> want to convince me otherwise, then you have to do a lot better than "I
> don't like the sound of addr:place" and "RM names it like this so OSM has to do
> the same".
> 
> Also, please don't use addr:block. This has a very distinct use in the
> Japanese addressing system which has nothing to do with your use case. See
> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/JA:%E4%BD%8F%E6%89%80#.E8.A1.97.E5.8C.BA_Block_number_address_system.E3.81.AB.E3.81.A4.E3.81.84.E3.81.A6

I thought the whole point of OSM's data structure was that we didn't 
have country-specific tags? Or, at least, we don't have country-specific 
tags unless they are indicated to be country-specific in the tagging 
system (eg, addr:jp:block or whatever). The term "block", for a 
building, is common to many countries, particularly English-speaking 
ones that use a grid layout for streets (eg, much of urban USA). If you 
really don't want people using addr:block for non-Japanese addresses 
then, at the very least, that needs to be clear on the English-language 
wiki and the English front-end to the popular editors.

At the moment, the description of addr:block on the English-language 
wiki says that it's "The city block, if part of the address", and goes 
on to give an example of Japan where addresses are typically in the 
block, not the street. But, while less common here, that also happens in 
the UK, too - the Edinburgh colonies being probably the best-known 
example. There's nothing there to suggest that addr:block shouldn't be 
used for those circumstances.

Mark