[Talk-us] Proposition for changing the common name tag

Fri Aug 17 01:50:44 UTC 2018

I'll refrain from whether adding (or not) "of America" to the end has anything to do with cabals or sovereignty.  I agree with Kevin (and others) that adding "it is never incorrect to add it" (can't hurt), usually helps and distinguishes Mexican states from the fifty north of the Rio Grande (in some places).  Yes, there are eighty to ninety admin_level=4 entities in North America when you add Canadian provinces and states in Mexico to the fifty in the USA.

I will say that in the USA there are fifty sovereign states AND a Union of these together as a "federal" sovereign state.  In short, "the federal entity" and "one of the fifty" are wholly different legal entities and "Union" is an approximate word.  Our courts agree.

That's OK:  most people know "there's federal law and there's state law" and yeah, that's right.

We do pretty well sorting these things out in OSM, with admin_level and so on.  I don't think we need any major (or minor) changes to how we name countries or states, though sometimes the edges blur and we get better at defining things.  There are some disputes, there are some boundary issues, we are people making a map, we both agree and disagree and we do the best we can.

SteveA
California

> On Aug 16, 2018, at 2:52 PM, talk-us-request at openstreetmap.org wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
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>   1. Re: buggy buildings in Maryland (Elliott Plack)
>   2. Re: Proposition for changing the common name tag (Daniel Koć)
>   3. Re: Proposition for changing the common name tag (Daniel Koć)
>   4. Re: Proposition for changing the common name tag (Kevin Kenny)
> 
> From: Elliott Plack <elliott.plack at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Talk-us] buggy buildings in Maryland
> Date: August 16, 2018 at 11:08:00 AM PDT
> To: Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org>
> Cc: "talk-us at openstreetmap.org Openstreetmap" <talk-us at openstreetmap.org>
> 
> 
> Thanks for bringing this up, Frederik. I reached out to the user in a changeset and a mail thread (links below) and was under the impression that they would fix the problem. Was that really two years ago?
> 
> https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/41375854 - changeset
> https://gist.github.com/talllguy/7d813ece238f359317786a18f7b7bbcb - message thread copy
> 
> I'd say go ahead and remove the extraneous nodes and also any buildings that are either version 0 or do not have any new tags (like names or addresses). The Microsoft buildings could replace any buildings that are only footprints. If you can cull this down to those with some information besides the geometry alone, the community can fill in the blanks.
> 
> 
> On Thu, Aug 16, 2018 at 8:10 AM Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> over the last 2 years, DWG has had a three different complaints about a
> buggy building import that has been run on and off by the user
> "annapolissailor".
> 
> The import was problematic in many ways, most obviously because huge
> batches of un-used nodes were uploaded and later it was attempted to
> connect them, which sometimes failed, leaving lots of un-used nodes in
> the database; also, almost all buildings are over-noded, taking 10 or
> more nodes for a simple rectangular building (eg
> https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/435663194). Buildings that were in the
> area before have been deleted outright, and the data source and legal
> situation is unclear (many buildings are much too precise to have come
> from aerial imagery).
> 
> (Needless to say, had the import been discussed up front as is
> customary, all these issues could have been avoided.)
> 
> I have tried to work with the importer but they seem to be ultimately
> unable or unwilling to fix the problems even though they did seem to
> understand the issue at some point
> (https://www.openstreetmap.org/user_blocks/1587). They asked me a couple
> of times to "hold off reverting data until next steps are discussed on
> the imports list" but never followed up on the promise. They claimed to
> have spent hundreds of hours on the JOSM validator improving problems
> they had introduced.
> 
> I am at the moment deleting about 70,000 untagged and un-used nodes that
> have been left over from this import, which is the uncontroversial part.
> 
> The total amount of buildings created and still visible is 177,151, with
> a total of 1,980,336 nodes, in the general area "East of Washington DC,
> South of Baltimore, North of Chesapeake Beach".
> 
> I think these buildings need to be deleted too, given their technical
> (over-noding) and legal (we don't know where the data came from and what
> license it is under) issues.
> 
> However, given how much work the mapper claims to have invested in this,
> I wonder if there's maybe a way to salvage the data. That would first
> require us to clear up the legal situation, and if it turns out the
> source is legal, then we'd have to go about killing the extra nodes in
> buildings.
> 
> I'm basically looking for volunteers here. Other mappers have tried to
> discuss the issue with the mapper himself and never got far either, but
> of course if someone wanted to try and enlist annapolissailor's support,
> fair enough (perhaps agree here on the list who's doing it though, so
> that we don't have 10 people spamming him...)
> 
> I have prepared a file that contains all the buildings in question:
> 
> http://www.remote.org/frederik/tmp/annapolis.osm.gz
> 
> Bye
> Frederik
> 
> -- 
> Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"
> 
> _______________________________________________
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> Elliott Plack
> http://elliottplack.me
> 
> 
> 
> From: Daniel Koć <daniel at xn--ko-wla.pl>
> Subject: Re: [Talk-us] Proposition for changing the common name tag
> Date: August 16, 2018 at 11:18:47 AM PDT
> To: talk-us at openstreetmap.org
> 
> 
> W dniu 16.08.2018 o 19:43, Volker Schmidt pisze:
> 
>> Looks somewhat strange to me in view of the preamble of the US Constitution:
>> " We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. "
> 
> Could you tell in your words what is strange for you, so we could discuss things in more specific way? 
> 
> -- 
> "My method is uncertain/ It's a mess but it's working" [F. Apple]
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From: Daniel Koć <daniel at xn--ko-wla.pl>
> Subject: Re: [Talk-us] Proposition for changing the common name tag
> Date: August 16, 2018 at 11:51:07 AM PDT
> To: talk-us at openstreetmap.org
> 
> 
> W dniu 16.08.2018 o 19:33, Jack Burke pisze:
>> Yes, when people say "United States" they typically mean America and
>> not Mexico, but the USA is just as often referred to as "America" as
>> it is "United States," which is another reason not to proceed with the
>> change.
> 
> Hi, Jack!
> 
> I think that key word here is "common" - for me "typically mean America
> and not Mexico" is a clear example of common use.
> 
> English is a foreign language for me, but I have also never heard about
> "United States" in the meaning Mexico ("United Mexican States"), which
> makes this case stronger for me.
> 
> -- 
> "My method is uncertain/ It's a mess but it's working" [F. Apple]
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From: Kevin Kenny <kevin.b.kenny+osm at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Talk-us] Proposition for changing the common name tag
> Date: August 16, 2018 at 2:51:46 PM PDT
> To: daniel at xn--ko-wla.pl
> Cc: talk-us <talk-us at openstreetmap.org>
> 
> 
> The Articles of Confederation included the text, "The Stile of this
> Confederation shall be the 'United States of America'"
> 
> The Constitution omits any declaration of the correct name and style,
> and in fact uses both styles, even in the Preamble. as Daniel Koć
> observes.
> 
> There are conspiracy theorists who assert that the two are different
> entities - they spout bizarre nonsense like
> http://supremelaw.org/letters/us-v-usa.htm and http://usavsus.info/ .
> (Ordinarily, these are the 'sovereign citizens' who believe that they
> can get out of paying their taxes if they come up with the correct
> magic words to invalidate the whole body of Federal law. They do not
> enjoy very much success in court, but that doesn't keep them from
> putting reams of material up on the Web.) Their usual contention is
> that the 'United States' is some sort of cabal or corporation that
> established the Constitution for the separate entity of the 'United
> States of America.'
> 
> In practice, it's simply brief writing. The phrase, 'of America,' is
> omitted when it is clear from the context, but it is never incorrect
> to add it.
> 
> More complex is whether the term is singular or plural. It was
> reasonably consistent in the early days of the republic that one would
> write, 'the United States ARE'. After the time of Reconstruction,
> there was a much stronger identity as a nation, and it became
> conventional to write, 'the United States IS.' There is a difference
> there: the first refers to a collection of separate States, while the
> second refers to a singular unified nation. Those who draft the laws
> have followed the common speech, giving the conspiracy theorists more
> ammunition in the claim that the 'United States' and 'the United
> States of America' are separate entities.
> 
> Let's try not to throw any more fuel on that particular fire.
> On Thu, Aug 16, 2018 at 2:33 PM Daniel Koć <daniel at koć.pl> wrote:
>> 
>> W dniu 16.08.2018 o 19:43, Volker Schmidt pisze:
>> 
>> Looks somewhat strange to me in view of the preamble of the US Constitution:
>> " We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. "
>> 
>> 
>> Could you tell in your words what is strange for you, so we could discuss things in more specific way?
>> 
>> --
>> "My method is uncertain/ It's a mess but it's working" [F. Apple]
>> 
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