[Talk-us] TIGER considered harmful

[Paul Johnson]

Christopher Covington wrote:

> On Sun, 2009-11-15 at 10:59 -0800, Paul Johnson wrote:
>> Dave Hansen wrote:
>> 
>> 2) The TIGER import violates one of the most basic principals of OSM: 
>> "Abbreviations:  DO NOT DO IT."
> I really don't understand this. If the United States Postal Service and
> the Census Bureau have been abbreviating names for centuries, why can't
> we? It obviously works well enough. 

Abbreviate it in the renderer.  OSM's audience is more international
than the Postal Service and 

> Maybe abbreviations are an issue on
> the Continent but I have never seen any confusion caused by using
> USPS-recommended abbreviations in the United States.

If you live in Portland, Oregon or Portland, Arkansas, on a numbered
avenue with a four-digit house number, expect some of your mail to go to
the wrong Portland and to receive mail that was supposed to go to the
other one.  Apparently a lot of people write "AR" and "OR" too
similarly, and the postal service apparently ignores zip codes if all
nine digits aren't there.