[OSM-talk] [tagging] noname streets

[Richard Fairhurst]

Alex Mauer wrote:

> Richard Fairhurst wrote:
>> That statement is just... wrong. Really, really flabbergastingly  
>> wrong.
>
> Well, it's my opinion.  You're going to have to revisit the route  
> anyway
> to find out the road names, so why not kill 2 birds with 1 stone?

It's not "you're going to", though; it's "the OSM community is going  
to".

On a cross-country bike route like that, I'd actually say there's not  
much point taking down the road names. The rural roads don't have  
names anyway. In the villages and towns, meanwhile, there's not much  
point in one passing cyclist taking down the name of a single through- 
route - you're going to need a "cul-de-sac mapper" to do all the  
adjacent roads anyway.

Same goes for an inter-urban project like http:// 
wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/WikiProject_United_Kingdom_A_Roads .  
It's a very good use of people's time to get this done quickly, even  
at the expense of neglecting street names along the way - it makes  
OSM much more useful for routing and for small-scale maps.

> But you have to accept that in that case you're not doing  
> everything you could be.

Oh sure, I'm not going to dispute that (things like "work" get in the  
way there too). But to say it's "not conscientious" isn't right.

Ultimately many mappers make all completeness issues shallow anyway. ;)

cheers
Richard