[Talk-us] USPS Post Boxes

Peter Dobratz peter at dobratz.us
Thu Sep 6 20:30:09 UTC 2018


Leif,

What's the next step in your process on this?

I prefer the "operator"="United States Postal Service".  Not only does it
match the sticker on the side of many blue mail boxes (
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/File:Post_office_drivethrough_lane.jpg
), it follows the general OSM guideline of not putting abbreviations in
names of things (
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Names#Abbreviation_.28don.27t_do_it.29
).  The https://www.usps.com/ website seems to use both USPS and United
States Postal Service.

Thanks,
Peter

On Tue, Aug 28, 2018 at 5:02 PM Jack Burke <burkejf3 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Because they are labeled "United States Postal Service" with big stickers,
> that's how I've been tagging them.
>
> -jack
>
> --
> Typos courtesy of fancy auto spell technology
>
> On August 28, 2018 4:02:40 PM EDT, Jmapb <jmapb at gmx.com> wrote:
>>
>> 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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