[OSM-talk] Nominatim weakness

[malenki]

On Mon, 14 Dec 2015 09:07:18 -0500,
John Goodman wrote:

> I've tried searching on plenty of common stores and businesses that
> the average user here in the US might -- Dunkin' Donuts, Kohl's,
> PetSmart, Lowe's, Dollar Tree, Sports Authority, Red Roof Inn -- and
> the matching location that is ACTUALLY ON THE MAP in front of me is
> almost never shown in the first page of hits, let alone on the top of
> the list.

Do you realize that the map usually shows the region you did look at
last? This may not necessarily be the region you want to have searched
at thus making a "search on displayed map" quite useless.
Sure looking at the location of the users IP address may help, but in
my case it would locate me to a city 40 km to the west.
For mobile users it may and should help to switch on locating services
and allow OSM to use it.

Just for the fun of it I just threw a "Starbucks" at Google and guess
what? After clicking on "maps" it showed me results thousands
kilometers away – in Washington DC.

Because I know of the fallability of men and IT when I search for
anything depending on a location I always give the location, too.
On OSM, a simple "nyc starbucks" or "starbucks nyc" or "NYC, Starbucks"
results in tons of Starbucks.

hth
Thomas