[Talk-us-massachusetts] A simple check for addresses before the import, iteration #2

[Greg Troxel]

Yury Yatsynovich <yury.yatsynovich at gmail.com> writes:

> I would suggest that we add/correct names of the streets (350 towns, 5-10
> streets in each town -- sounds doable for manual edits), re-run the fuzzy
> matching code again and whatever MassGIS points are marked as problematic
> after that -- will be inspected individually.

That's interesting that it's fewer when you allow some fuzz.

When you say "add/correct", I don't really follow this.  We can't make
large-scale changes based on a data set without import/mechanical-edit
approval.  We don't really know that what's in the address dataaset is
right, vs

  - what was in OSM (from the previous roads import, or from hand
    editing), vs
  - what's in the current roads layer, vs
  - what's in the current L3 Parcels layer, vs
  - what the local people and government call it, vs
  - what's on the road signs

In looking at the one example I mentioned earlier (on the Cape), it was
highly unclear what ought to be, and overwriting with one database what
came from another seems messy.

I don't have a problem with expanding abbreviations semi-mechanically;
while that technically needs mechanical edit approval, it's a normal
thing to do and we are the locals.

So, please don't say "correct" without addressing the basis for making
changes and why it's an ok thing to do.  In particular, we cannot assume
that the Master Address Database is an unerring source of truth.

If you mean "flag this street as having conflicting data and ask locals
to look into it and really figure out the right answer", that's totally
fine of course.  But it's not armchair work.

Also, there is a notion that if an address (on a building) in OSM has an
addr:street that doesn't match a nearby road, some apps will not deal
with it.  That's not a reason to put things in the DB that aren't right.
It is entirely possible that one town department has assigned a street
name with one value and a different town department has assigned an
address with a name that is different.   If so, we should probably enter
it that way.   This is of course messy and I'm open to discussion, but
"App X chokes if property Y doesn't hold" does not lead to "we must make
property Y hold in the DB, even if it isn't really true".

As Jason said earlier, I think we should be taking the approach of
identifying the subset of data that can be imported without difficulty,
and doing that, and then working on the complicated stuff, which will
take how long it takes.
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