[Talk-us] USPS Post Boxes

[Jmapb]

On 8/28/2018 3:31 PM, Leif Rasmussen wrote:
> 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.

Thanks for looping us in, Leif. Haven't made it to the slack group yet, 
but when I noticed that change I thought to myself "thank the Lord, it's 
over!" Every time I've tagged a post box I've managed to convince myself 
that I did it wrong the previous time. So I rotated between "USPS", 
"usps" and "United States Postal Service" and figured I'd get around to 
fixing them when my brain settled down. Seeing someone else take the 
initiative was a relief, despite the understandable grumbling about 
automated edits.

Now that it's done, I'm in favor of making an exception to the 
no-abbreviations rule for a fixed set of couriers, so sticking with 
USPS. It's easy to tag and read, and I don't think it's truly 
ambiguous... if the United States Power Squadrons start a courier 
service, *they* should be tagged with the fully expanded name.

Another reason is that there are plenty of private company post boxes, 
and I'd like the tagging style to be consistent as possible, with the 
commonly-used compact versions of their names. I feel operator=UPS, 
operator=FedEx, operator=DHL will be easier to write, maintain, and read 
than operator=United Parcel Service, operator=Federal Express, 
operator=.. well, I still can't figure out what DHL actually stands for.

Also -- not an issue for postboxes per se, but I've found occasion to 
tag some some shops with the shipping companies they offer, and the idea 
of a semicolon-seperated list of fully expanded shipping company names 
makes me weary.

(No problem with adding the operator:wikidata tag.)

Thanks, Jason



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