[Talk-us] USPS Post Boxes

Leif Rasmussen 354lbr at gmail.com
Tue Aug 28 19:31:32 UTC 2018


Hi everyone,
A couple of days ago, I noticed that different post boxes in the United
States had different ways of tagging that they were part of the USPS
system.  Roughly 60% had "operator"="USPS", 40% "operator"="United States
Postal Service", and about 15 similar to "operator"="United States Post
Services" or "United States Post Office".  I wanted to make them all the
same, so I asked on the OSMUS Slack group about the tags, and most people
supported "USPS".  I then proceeded to upload a changeset manually
converting 1500 "United States Postal Service" or similar to "USPS".  I
should have waited longer before uploading.
https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/62020302
https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/Boq
All post boxes in the USPS system now have "operator"="USPS".
After uploading, people expressed concern about the choice of "USPS" over
"United States Postal Service".  The wiki states that abbreviations should
be expanded, "USPS" could be confused with other agencies
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Power_Squadrons>, and this
counted as an automated edit, which should have had better planning with
the OSM community.
I would now like to propose converting all post boxes with the tag
"operator"="USPS" to "operator"="United States Postal Service".  I would
also like to add the tag "operator:wikidata"="Q668687" to the post boxes
that currently have "operator"="USPS".  Please reply with any feedback or
concerns you have with this proposal.
Thank you,
Leif Rasmussen
OSM username: LeifRasmussen <https://www.osm.org/user/LeifRasmussen>
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