[OSM-talk] is_in and similar tags

[Donald Allwright]

>But until we do, the existing mechanism does no harm, and as I said, you 
>don't always know the boundary while you do know where the place is.
>
>Determining the inclusion of every place in the database, even if we had 
>complete information, is massively more complex than simply being told 
>the information. If you have it, why not give it.

Given that there is currently quite a high probability that some of the boundaries will be wrong (having moved since the NPE maps were published), there's another good reason to have what amounts to essentially duplicated information in the is_in= tag  - there will be a number of cases where the two sources will contradict each other. It will then only be a matter of time before someone motivated writes a checker to compare the two and generate a list of errors, then motivated individuals will then check their local area and fix the errors in whichever source is wrong. It worked for coastlines and  is working for things like nearly-junctions now - so could work quite well here.

(I'm not volunteering to write the checker, but I would certainly be willing to spend time looking at any errors thus detected).

Donald


      
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