[OSM-talk] Name finder and home page search working again

[David Earl]

On 26/03/2008 01:43, Sven Grüner wrote:
> Colin Marquardt schrieb:
>> Since we have people's attention: please everybody extend
>> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Name_finder:Abbreviations
> 
> That brought up another question to my mind, which isn't related to the
> name finder in particular: Is there any agreement on how to tag
> abreviated place names? When there's the 'Volkswagen plant' people would
> also search for 'VW plant'. Obviously no application like the name
> finder can be expected to know the abreviations of all companies and
> institutions of the world. So the data should hold that information itself.

One possibility is e.g. name="Volkswagen Plant [VW Plant]" if you want 
the name to be visible on the map as currently rendered. Name finder 
treats [] slightly specially in that it adds the bit in square brackets 
as a new phrase, in effect as if there were two name= tags 
"name=Volkswagen Plant" and "name=VW Plant". The significance of this is 
that unqualified exact matches are presented ahead of approximate 
matches (thus a search for "Volkswagen Plant" would put "Volkswagen 
Plant" ahead of "Volkswagen Plant Gate 4" for example, and the square 
brackets will not disrupt this ordering).

I had exactly this issue in the BM Test with the London Eye, full name 
British Airways London Eye; you'll notice its name on the map is 
"name=London Eye [British Airways London Eye]". I did it that way rather 
than just "name=British Airways London Eye" so that either search gets 
an exact match. If it wasn't in that test list, I might not have been so 
pedantic, as London Eye would still match the full form. That wasn't 
true, however of "Victoria & Albert Museum" aka "V & A".

> What about 'short_name', just to make that *_name list a little longer?
> 
> BTW, does name finder use loc_name and such?

It uses "name", then "place_name" (but only when name is not given), 
then "ref", "iata", "icao", "old_name", and "loc_name" as if these were 
in square brackets after the name as described above. Hence 
"name=Archway Road; ref=A5; loc_name=Traffic Jam From Hell" is treated 
as if it were "name=Archway Road [A5] [Traffic Jam From Hell]".

I have also just tweaked it to include alt_name in this list, but that 
will only apply to new or touched objects until I do a complete reload 
in a few months time.

and Andy Robinson said:
> I don't see why we can't make use of "known_as=" names. Giving options
> for "The Big Apple" and the like just sets OSM apart from the
> competition. If communities are using these alternative names then it
> would nice to support them in the long run.

Indeed, but why not just use alt_name that we already have. Or to follow 
the pattern, for this kind of name, nick_name=...

(If you do this, I need to know in order to recognize it to add to the 
index).

David