[OSM-talk] What3words

[Colin Smale]

On 2015-11-22 13:18, Maarten Deen wrote: 

> On 2015-11-22 12:07, Colin Smale wrote: 
> 
>> I guess there would be no objections to someone adding
>> addr:w3w:en=nice.place.here ? Or addr:w3w=en:nice.place.here ?
> 
> Reading about what it is, it is just a lookup between some random three words and a location. We don't map addr:latlon=51.34,3.45 in OSM, why would we map addr:w3w? Especially since it is just a lookup. The way I see it, this is something you would add to nominatim.

I see it as a kind of alternative postcode. You advertise your own
location as a w3w, and anyone who needs to get there does a lookup
through 
their apps or API to find out where it is and get the lat/lon. Which is
more or less what the postman does, or any of the millions of
applications which allow you to input 
a postcode to select a location. 

But the core of their ambition seems not to be a direct competitor to
existing addressing/postcode systems in the developed world, but as a 
simple-to-use system for the 75% of the world that doesn't have a decent
system yet. That, and to make money of course. 

> I also don't understand this:"It's a non-hierarchical system. The problem with latitude and longitude coordinates is that if you make a mistake when writing them down you will be completely lost. But with our system similar sounding words are located very far apart so people don't get lost if you hear it wrong."
> First, making a mistake in a lat/lon coordinate does not by definition mean you are completely lost. It is when you make a mistake in significant digits (add one degree to the latitude and you're way off) but it isn't when you make a mistake in the non-significant digits (the difference between 51.3456247 and 51.3456248 is mere centimeters).
> Secondly, if you write a similar sounding word wrong, you are completely off. I mean, they specificaly say "similar sounding words are located very far apart".
> So if someone tells you nice.place.here and you use nice.place.hear, you are by definition not near your intended location.

As I understand it, they have avoided homophones like your example. The
idea of placing similar-sounding words far apart geographically is that
you would be instantly alerted to an error. If you expect a location in
North London and it translates to Peru, a bell would ring an you would
double-check it. But if you the location you hear translates to one 1km
from what was intended, you might be going round in circles for hours
trying to find it. 
  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/attachments/20151122/1adb21c1/attachment.html>