[OSM-talk] is_in

[David Earl]

Following the discussion of is_in a couple of weeks ago, I have some
suggestions to make:

is_in has the potential to be a very useful source of relationship data. But
I wonder whether applying more structure to the data may make linking up and
using the data easier. We also have a problem with languages and is_in at
present. People have used is_in in differing orders, and have started
overloading it with other things (e.g. is_in=...,capital cities) Also, minor
thing, is_in is hard to type quickly!

Depending on the reaction I'll consider putting this into the proposals page
at some point:

Deprecate is_in and instead use things like:

isin:city=Cambridge  // applied to suburbs, for example
isin:district=South Cambridgeshire
isin:county=Cambridgeshire
isin:nation=England
isin:country=Deutschland
isin:state=Texas

Now, we only need one of these isins in practice for any one place,
providing the parent exists with the same categorisation

place=village
name=Fulbourn
isin:district=South Cambridgeshire

place=district
name=South Cambridgeshire
isin:county=Cambridgeshire

place=county
name=Cambridgeshire
isin:nation=England  //or region or some such

place=nation
name=England
isin:country=UK

Languages are solved too by using isin only in local language: München
isin:state=Bavaria which in turn isin:country=Deutschland and then picking
up foreign language forms from the referenced place as usual:

place=country
name=Deutschland
name:en=Germany
name:fr=Frankreich

Also things can be in overlapping isins of different kinds in the future if
we want:

place=suburb
name=Newtown
isin:city:Cambridge
isin:parliamentaryconstituency=South Cambridgeshire
isin:electoralward=Trumpington

Finally capital cities might be better done as
capital_city=yes

David