[OSM-talk] Improving ref=* documentation

[Joseph Eisenberg]

Two of the principles on the "Good Practice" page suggest that the
real-world information, as found on signs or other physical evidence,
rather than the laws in the register office somewhere, are considered the
primary source. This advice has been in the wiki for over 10 years:
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Good_practice

"Map what's on the ground"

Sometimes there's conflicting information about, say, the name of a place.
An old map might call it one thing, current maps another, and the place
name sign something else. People using our maps (for navigation) won't care
about the spelling in other maps, they need to find the names from local
signs in the map and vice versa. ..."

"Don't map your local legislation, if not bound to objects in reality"

"Things such as local traffic rules should only be mapped when there are
objects which represent these rules on the ground, e.g. a traffic sign,
road surface marking. Other rules that can not be seen in some way should
not be mapped, as they are not universally verifiable."



On Wed, Aug 4, 2021 at 5:20 PM Greg Troxel <gdt at lexort.com> wrote:

>
> "Brian M. Sperlongano" <zelonewolf at gmail.com> writes:
>
> > If the sign on the ground doesn't match the government's database, then
> the
> > obvious answer is that the government database is wrong.  I don't see why
> > we would replicate demonstrably wrong data into OSM.
>
> That doesn't follow at all.  It could be that the signs are wrong.
>
> This is often tricky, but when a government authority has the legal
> right to name something, their records of naming decisions are the
> primary source.  That some other government employees made a signing
> mistake is another issue, but it doesn't invalidate the legal status of
> the authority to name.
>
> And, these naming decisions are entirely verifiable; you just go to town
> hall and ask to look at the records.   Which is basically the same thing
> as looking at a sign, just a bit more time consuming.
>
> I've seen this around me, with minor variations from what I think are
> the official names (which would be in the minutes of the Selectboard),
> MassGIS maps, and signs.  It's on my todo list to rationalize it all and
> file what are effectively bug reports.  But it's things like "Deer Field
> Lane" vs "Deerfield Lane" that are not significantly confusing to
> humans.
>
>
> If the database is a map database that is intended to store a copy of
> what the sign is, and the sign is what matters, then you are right.  But
> without figuring out which messy case we're dealing with, I don't think
> we can sign "signs are right" for road names/refs.
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>
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