[Talk-us] Fixing TIGER street name abbreviations

[Anthony]

On Tue, May 1, 2012 at 1:17 PM, Mike N <niceman at att.net> wrote:
> On 5/1/2012 12:59 PM, Anthony wrote:
>>
>> I'm not sure what you're saying.
>>
>> Automatically expanding abbreviations is a terrible idea.  If an
>> abbreviation is unambiguous, then it can be expanded during the
>> preprocessing step.  If, on the other hand, it is ambiguous, then you
>> are turning ambiguous data into incorrect data, which certainly
>> diminishes the data.
>
>
>  What preprocessing step?

The preprocessing step between downloading the data from OSM and doing
something with it.

What that is differs between applications.  In many applications it is
called osm2pgsql.

> The types
> of errors I'm referring to are where you go to upload from JOSM, then decide
> to slavishly submit to the validator's warnings about abbreviated street
> names.  What person manually types 2 - 3 dozen versions of Street , Avenue,
> Boulevard, Point, Circle without any typos?

Typos are much easier to fix than improper "abbreviation expansions".