[OSM-talk] automated abbreviation changes?!

[AJ Ashton]

When I'm editing and area with abbreviated names (usually untouched
TIGER) I will manually expand them because I agree with the OSM wiki's
take on things [0]. For most (all?) uses other than rendering text on
maps, the full expansion makes more sense than the abbreviation.
Granted, I would rarely write out, eg, "14th Street Northwest", but
that *is* how I pronounce it, and it's probably more useful for
translations or other things you would want to do with the data.

Its much easier for tools to automatically abbreviate words than the
other way around. (We've done automatic abbreviations for the latest
MapBox map [1].) I agree that abbreviations should not be
automatically expanded by bots, but it doesn't sound like that's
what's happening here.

[0]: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Names#Abbreviation_.28don.27t_do_it.29
[1]: http://a.tiles.mapbox.com/v3/mapbox.mapbox-streets.html#17.00/38.92490/-77.04019

-- AJ Ashton