[Talk-us] LAST CALL - Retagging of place nodes in NewYork State

[stevea]

On Sep 8, 2022, at 11:22 AM, D. Joe <osm+joe at etrumeus.com> wrote:
> contrary to the recent challenge that I review >10 years worth of discussion about administrative levels, I also see that, appreciate that, and have no quibble with it, either. Well, none that I'm willing to engage at the moment here. 

It sounds like you wish to "reserve the right to do so at a future time."  That's fine with me.

> But as I've been reminded, this proposal is about the individual place nodes, not the polygons.
> 
>> But tagging the status on the boundary relation is consistent with
>> counties and other cases where a boundary does not correspond to a distinct
>> populated place and therefore doesn't have a place node as a member.
> 
> I'm rising to this mention of counties, after numerous false starts at various replies and retreats from them, because it most closely, cleanly, and constructively bears on my remaining concern, which I tried to raise in my first response, only to see it get buried under a barrage about all the hard work that's gone into the boundaries, and into places about which I have nothing to offer. Even though, to be clear, this is about the single nodes tagged as place= and I'm trying to address the question of how nodes are tagged only to get buried in. all. this. other. stuff. It's been very discouraging.

I'd say part of this is a lack of clarity as to your point.  If others "go wide" because you haven't "narrowed focus," that's on you, not us.  It's a big topic and if you wish to keep it tight and small, please do so succinctly.

> I tried to address this by my analogy of calling Montana a city. But this mention of practice around counties is better, since apparently it's not a contrived example, but an established practice.

The Montana example was a bit out there, but I did find it an apt analogy to what I believe is a major point of yours.  However, when you call something an "established practice," I believe it important to recognize that an established practice (or one that can be described as analogous) "here" isn't necessarily (and frequently so!) apt to analogize to another "there."  Sometimes it is, frequently it is not.  That is what makes this difficult and requires an almost one-by-one sifting through of the issues at a pretty low level of granularity.  This takes time, knowledge, sharing of findings, documentation and consensus that "in our state (county, city, town...) we do it like this."

An important point to glean from the years of wrangling about admin_level (and related topics, place=* being one of them) is that while there are "prototypical" aspects that can be said to be true of many areas (like, "states subdivide into counties" or "townships completely subdivide counties") there are almost as many examples of something different, or even completely contrary.  A discussion of this simply cannot glibly ignore such considerations, they are real and matter, never really going away, but needing to be kept on the table as topics that are not subordinate, but parallel.  Many people are not accustomed to solving problems like this, but we ignore such parallel topics at our peril.

> I would submit that tagging a New York State town that does not have an identifiable center with a node *can* be analogous to the county situation, depending on the town. The case is perhaps even stronger, since, so far as I know, a great many, if not most, counties have a county seat, at least. A NYS town has ... a town hall, maybe. Maybe it has other government buildings, maybe not, but even then not necessarily in the same, single place.

Yes, it seems you've got it:  the possibilities are literally "all over the map."

> ...maybe it should have no place-tagged node at all, as is (not) done with a county?

I believe, once again, counties both do and don't "place tag" in OSM.  This may be more-to-do with "completeness" (or lack thereof) of data entry rather than what is strictly accurate for any given state or county.

> I see Kevin Kenny has brought up his Town vs. City of Plattsburg work. Without the experience of the last several days, I'd be tempted to say that that is an excellent example of just what I am, and have been trying to say. The difference, I'm afraid, is that we still gets stuck on towns-have-centers model, that Plattsburg is a unique exception and that it's because there was a center, and it was removed. Maybe for Plattsburg. But for *some* other towns, maybe there never *was* a center to begin with? Or maybe whatever modest center it might have had, that it long has been diffused away from any distinct, identifiable importance as the town gained population and development.

I appreciate that you "muse out loud" here like this, as gaining insights into the thought process of others can help the wider community better understand what it takes to arrive at a good answer.  Sometimes, the finish line of a real answer remains hazy and ambiguous, despite deep chin-stroking, substantial research, serious local knowledge, consultation with experts, etc.

> I am *very* familiar with another New York town that has also had its center removed. I mentioned it earlier along with several that either never had a center, so far as I can tell, or had centers that have now been diffused away in developmental sprawl. I don't know whether they should just not have a place node at all, or whether they should get =municipality, or what, just that they don't have a center in the same way that Plattsburg once did and that Pittsford still does. At this stage, I'm disinclined to wade back into the weeds on any of those just now, content to decide later and just make the edits as I see fit, or leave it to others to sort out.

Again, good:  think, put thinking "up on a shelf," think with others, think in the future when you've given yourself (and the community) a break from thinking.  All kinds of strategies are applied (in problems with some difficulty or intractability) and some of them even work well.  We are volunteers, not paid experts who must solve a problem by the time a deadline falls.  Moving towards a solution is just as important at arriving at one.

> As great as the work here in New York has been, it is a vast project. To expect a single person to be able to grasp it all with any mastery is, I think, asking too much. That is the sense that I originally brought to this discussion.

And it is good that you do/did, as we are a community who crowdsources:  "many hands make light work."

> Though I am by far not new to OSM or to mapping, I am new to participation at this level. While a *lot* of the discussion has been constructive I am less surprised than I might once have been that the word "fragile" has appeared. To which point I'll say this: In terms of community participation tips, when someone tries to back away from a nerdfight? Just let them!

I'm happy to "let" others solve problems.  If I am in the way, I'm happy to get out of the way.  If I can help, I'll be the first to roll up my sleeves.  If/as problems are undeniably difficult and are held together from real experiences of walking right up to the edge of rancor, edit wars and outright hostility with disagreement (as they did in some of the edge cases of these topic), I'll call the results fragile, as that's not a word I shy away from.  Let's not be afraid to call things as they are, while knowing that "don't sweat the small stuff" and "by the way, it's all small stuff" continue to (both) remain true.

We're fine, OSM (-US).  I'll end by saying "good work here" and I look forward to that continuing.