[Talk-us] Mass Pike naming convention

[Brian M. Sperlongano]

My read of group consensus is that we have
>
>   - 4 in favor of using the official name
>   - 1 in favor of using the shortened version
>   - wiki and precedent is very strong in "don't abbreviate" (and I
>     realize you are saying it isn't an abbreviation)
>

That tally-up doesn't include the parallel discussion [1] in
#local-massachusetts on Slack.  Don't worry, there's a screenshot below so
you don't have to log into Slack to see it.  With that and by my count, you
have three people that have lived in Massachusetts at some point in their
lives (myself included) understanding Mass Pike as the on-the-ground name,
one opposed, and three folks from out of state who understand it as an
abbreviation.  This is not a play to make statistics work in my favor, just
pointing out that there is legitimate disagreement here, enough that there
certainly isn't anything resembling a consensus in any direction at all.

[1] screen shot: https://ibb.co/FhYPdL7
[1] Slack link
https://osmus.slack.com/archives/CDW2RNQ5D/p1656799044199119?thread_ts=1656799044.199119&cid=CDW2RNQ5D


 It seems to me that the argument in favor of the fully-spelled out
"Massachusetts Turnpike" is at best inconsistent across the name= space.

The data layer published by MassDOT* (which includes all roads) has
> "MASSACHUSETTS TURNPIKE" in the "street name" field.  So it's not an
> anachronism - it is the name of record.


Consider:

1. We use name=Massachusetts on relation/61315 even though the "name of
record" is obviously "Commonwealth of Massachusetts".  However, we've
chosen the short-form "Massachusetts", along with all the other states that
have similar construction (and sadly, as previously noted, I can't even use
RI's formerly absurd "and Providence Plantations" example any more since
our name change).

2. We use name=United States on relation/148838 and not "United States of
America", which is clearly the full, official name.  Likewise, we don't use
"Dominion of Canada" for our northern neighbor, nor "Estados Unidos
Mexicanos" for México.

The logic here is fairly consistent: without any better way to describe it,
we set the value in name= that's most common (and by extension, least
stupid looking) when drawn on the map.  Using "the name of record" isn't an
actual practice, is contrary to the "on the ground rule", and would produce
silly results that we'd all agree are wrong.

Now, if "Mass Pike" is an abbreviation that's just pervasively common, then
of course I have no leg to stand on here.  If it's entrenched to the point
of being a common name and not an abbreviation (my contention), then it's
consistent with the state and country naming examples above.  "Pike" isn't
even the abbreviation for "Turnpike".  Per the FHWA, Turnpike is
abbreviated "Trnpk" [2].  If this road were being abbreviated, it would be
"MA Trnpk" or "Mass. Trnpk" or "Massachusetts Trnpk".

[2] https://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/htm/2003/part1/part1a.htm See table 1A-2

In my opinion, in the absence of a single on-the-ground example of the
fully-spelled-out name, at least that I've been able to find, I think it's
a hard sell to call this a simple abbreviation.  A contemporary example of
"Massachusetts Turnpike" signed on the ground would go a long way to
satisfy my complaint.  Without that, it looks stupid on the map and wrong
compared to on the ground reality that a user would experience.

Now that my whining is out of the way, a practical matter:

If I wanted to build a map that shows roads "as would be locally
experienced", placing "Mass Pike" in alt_name fails miserably at this.  Of
the common options, you really need short_name or loc_name to express the
concept that exists here.  Something like signed_name would be what really
gets the point across, but that's not in a key in common use because the
signed name normally goes in name= !

On that note, I'm pretty sure we want loc_name=Mass Ave to be put on the
road in Boston/Cambridge...
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