On 6 Oct 2009, at 11:20, Paul Waring wrote: > paul perrin wrote: >> For some time I have thought that the public should boycott post >> codes... develop an open source alternative and use that... > > How can you boycott postcodes? If you don't put postcodes on your mail > there's an increased chance that it will be delayed or lost in the > sorting offices of the Royal Mail.
It's slightly more likely to be misdelivered, and quite likely to be delayed. No more likely to be lost (except by misdelivery). Still, a large campaign to not use post codes could cost Royal Mail a significant amount of overhead. Deliberately using the wrong postcode would add even more to their costs. But, make sure you use a postcode for an address that bears no resemblance to the correct address. >> Couldn't postcodes be extracted from a public source via an freedom >> of >> information request? > > How would that help? It's not a problem of getting at the data (you > could just buy a copy of the PAF from the Royal Mail if you really > wanted to), it's being able to use it. Just because you get some > information via FoI, it doesn't mean that you can use it however you > want. > >> It can't be difficult - and if the switch over make is difficult >> for the >> authorities, that is their look out... should have listened earlier. > > If the switch over is made difficult for the authorities then they > simple won't bother doing it. As Royal Mail probably sorts and > delivers > the majority of your mail I think they have the upper hand in > enforcing > a system for identifying addresses. :) > > Besides, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with postcodes as a > concept, the only issue is that the data (more specifically the > mapping > from a location to a postcode and back again) is not freely available > for anyone to use. It would be much better to see the data made > available rather than invent an entirely new and unsupported system to > do the same thing. > > Paul > > -- > Paul Waring > http://www.pwaring.com > > _______________________________________________ > Mailing list [email protected] > Archive, settings, or unsubscribe: > https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/listinfo/developers-public -- Ian Eiloart _______________________________________________ Mailing list [email protected] Archive, settings, or unsubscribe: https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/listinfo/developers-public
