[Talk-us] Remember the "On the Ground" addendum

[Alan Mintz]

At 2010-08-04 06:33, Lord-Castillo, Brett wrote:
>...
>Moral of my little story. Remember the addendum to the on the ground rule:
>"In the case where there are multiple local names, then if the government 
>with effective and sustained control of the area has an official source of 
>names or an official stance on a naming dispute, then that name is default."
>And don't assume that the name on the sign is the correct local name. Odds 
>are the agency that put it there is not the agency responsible for 
>official names.

Interesting story.

In my experience in SoCal, the accuracy of the signs varies by city, but 
it's usually the sign that is wrong in the case of an inconsistency with 
county records (tract, parcel, survey maps). In these cases, I've informed 
the city (who is generally responsible for the signage), and they generally 
respond with a signage fix (or intend to, anyway). I put the correct name 
in the name tag and the incorrectly signed name in the alt_name tag and add 
a FIXME to recheck in the future.

On a few occasions, I've found inconsistencies among multiple county 
records and the signage, and come to the conclusion that one of the records 
is wrong, which I then report to the county and/or city involved. These 
take more time to get fixed, but there's no need to tag the incorrect name 
at all.

Occasionally, I've stumbled on a naming dispute like the one Brett 
described, where a name given by a city doesn't match the records or the 
signs. These are difficult to resolve (certainly for me with no official 
capacity), and are always just a subjective call as far as tagging.

Basically, my goal is that the name on the signage should be in the map in 
either the alt_name or name tags, since that's how most people will know it.

--
Alan Mintz <Alan_Mintz+OSM at Earthlink.net>