[Talk-us] Alt_names on counties

[Paul Johnson]

On Thu, Dec 26, 2019 at 12:55 PM Kevin Kenny <kevin.b.kenny at gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Thu, Dec 26, 2019 at 1:11 PM stevea <steveaOSM at softworkers.com> wrote:
> > The myriad variations of "name" (alt, loc, nat, old, reg, official,
> sorting, int...) show how complex this is.  The issues go back many years
> and will likely continue well into the future, indeed many participants in
> this/these thread(s) are authors of our wiki's name page.
> >
> > Better documenting, continuing dialog, consensus-style agreement,
> changing data in the map to reflect our well- or better-documented
> conventions:  all of these get us closer to perfection.  Although I think
> everybody agrees, perfection is nigh on impossible, as "the map is never
> 'done.'"
> >
> > "Do our best."  If there is contention, discuss it.  If there is
> misunderstanding or disagreement, discuss it.  If there is agreement,
> document it and use it in the map and even write code that depends on it.
> We get there, we will better get there as we continue to do these things.
>
> Exactly. There is a plethora of name variations in the database
> because there is a plethora of names in the field.
>
> I joke that in New York City, most of the freeways have three names:
> the highway number, which is on the signs but nobody ever uses it in
> speaking, the name of the highway (e.g., "Jackie Robinson Parkway",
> "Avenue of the Americas", "Robert F. Kennedy Bridge") that's on all
> the signs (but the locals don't remember the name!), and the name that
> the locals call it (e.g., "Interborough Parkway", "Sixth Avenue",
> "Triboro Bridge") which isn't on the signs. (Not quite true - New York
> gave up some years ago and posted signs reading  both Sixth Avenue and
> Avenue of the Americas, but give me some poetic license here.)
>

I'll have to reiterate that "the name is not the reference", and highway
numbers are best reserved not for the name, but for the ref=* (or even
better yet, the route=road relation), except for addressing.  For example,
US 412/US 59 in Siloam Springs, AR really shouldn't have a name (but at the
time of this writing is tagged name=Highway 412 West/East).  This is wrong,
should be noname=yes instead.  Now, to use a random car wash on the road as
a handy example, *that* is where this localism should appear, with that
building being tagged as addr:housenumber=1402 and addr:street=Highway 412
West.  This comes up a *lot*, given that the US Postal Service needs to
have a canonical name for any particular street with mail delivery, even if
the street has no name, even if the street is absurdly long.  A good
example of this in action would be addresses on a road that was renamed
after two police officers, with their full titles and expanded names, but
the postal service rejected that with the address names still being "New
Sapulpa Road".  Or another example where a nameless road passes the Farm
Credit of Western Oklahoma branch in Guymon, the road has no name and
ref=US 64;US 412;OK 3;OK 136, but the bank branch has addr:street=North
Highway 64.  The Karlsruhe address schema handles these complex situations
*flawlessly*.

The situation is similar to ZIP codes provided by the US Census versus ZIP
codes provided by the US Postal Service, with in both cases, the USPS
having it's own specific reality that is a result of trivializing
complicated situations to provide specific georeferencing within their
service network.  Yes, I'm aware E911 also has addressing that often
doesn't perfectly reflect the street situation but given that it was
modeled after the USPS system *and* covers areas the USPS doesn't (filling
in the Census ZIP where the USPS doesn't have ZIPs), I'm lumping it into
the USPS for purposes of this discussion.


> Back to counties, specifically:
>
> Three of the five counties that make up New York City absolutely need
> alt_names.  The Borough of Manhattan is New York County; the Borough
> of Brooklyn is Kings County, and the Borough of Staten Island is
> Richmond County. Both sets of names are official - the county courts
> still go by the county names, while the executive branch of the city
> government uses the borough names.
>

+1
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