[Talk-GB] addr:place cleanup process

[Rob Nickerson]

Hi all,

There has not really been any comments on the process steps in JOSM so I
don't know if I should proceed or not. I guess I will wait a bit longer as
it's only been a day so far.

In the meantime, I was thinking about what other approaches we could use to
help with this clean up effort. I realised that there is the OS Open Names
data set which includes a list of populated places (i.e. settlements). If
these values match an addr:place tag then it is a good indication that the
addr:place tag is wrong and should be addr:suburb or addr:city instead.

I have therefore made a spreadsheet of all the addr:place tag values
(downloaded from TagInfo GB) that match an OS Open Names "populatedPlace"
value.

I've marked a few  rows as fixed in the spreadsheet based on the edits I
made to test the JOSM approach. The spreadsheet is open access so feel free
to use this tracker. It is sorted by highest to lowest use of the
addr:place tag.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BGeIyhlL-UODGOVJK543Iy699guc3C6Z0udFE57tYu0/edit?usp=sharing

Thanks,
*Rob*


On Thu, 13 Jan 2022 at 23:51, Rob Nickerson <rob.j.nickerson at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> As we learnt the other week, the addr:place tag has often been incorrectly
> used here in the UK. The tag addr:place is meant to be used when the
> address does *not* reference a street (tagged with addr:street) at all.
> This is frequently seen in small villages in continental Europe which often
> don't have any street names at all.
>
> In the UK most cases of addr:place and addr:street being used together are
> incorrect and are cases where addr:suburb should have been used instead of
> addr:place. You can browse the Nominatim QA
> <https://nominatim.org/qa/#map=8.06/53.26/-0.64&layer=addr_place_and_street>
> to find examples and help clean these up.
>
> To help with this clean up effort I have tested an approach in JOSM that
> some might consider as captured by the Automated Edits code of conduct. I
> therefore wanted to share this process before proceeding.
>
> Step 1:
> Identify a potentially incorrect use of the addr:place tag. To do this I
> am looking at the list of values used on TagInfo GB and checking if any of
> these are villages/towns. If they are then there is a high chance that the
> addr:place tag is incorrect.
> https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org.uk/keys/addr%3Aplace#values
>
> Step 2:
> Open the data in JOSM using an overpass query. An example query I am using
> to download the data is:
>
> [out:xml][timeout:90];
> {{geocodeArea:England}}->.searchArea;
> (
>   nwr["addr:place"="Eccleston"](area.searchArea);
> );
> (._;>;);
> out meta;
>
> Step 3:
> Inspect the data in JOSM paying particular attention to other addr:* tags.
> To do this I start by doing a Ctrl+F and search for e.g.
> "addr:place"="Eccleston". This selects all the features with this tag. I
> can then see the full range of addr:* tags used on these features. High use
> of addr:street reiterates the incorrect use of addr:place. I can also see
> if the addr:suburb tag has been used on any features -> if it has then I go
> investigate this separately. I also investigate uses of all other addr tags
> except housenumber/name, unit, flats and street.
>
> Step 4
> Change addr:place to add:suburb. I get to this stage quicker if step 3
> does not identify any conflicting addr:* tags (e.g. if the only other addr
> tags are housenumber/name and street). The more addr:* tags there are the
> more I look into individual OSM features before making this change.
>
> As always, if in doubt then I don't proceed.
>
> How do you feel about this sort of approach? With proper time spent
> carefully looking at the other addr tags that have been used, then I
> believe it is a low risk edit.
>
> P.S. Feel free to check out the results of a couple trials I made. e.g.
> https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/116122672#map=14/53.6500/-2.7281
> I'll pause on making more as I realise I should get the discussion going
> first.
>
> Thank you,
> *Rob*
>
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