Re: [talk-au] admin_level, suburbs and rendering; should the order be updated?

[stevea]

I'm mighty obliged to you for that excellent synopsis; thank you.

Yes, at a certain point such "proposals" have to "be discussed amongst 
yourselves," of course, I've seen this and you are in a "certain stage" of such 
things.  Then there is your primer on "Aussie 2, 4, 6," excellent.  Yeh, the 
odd numbers can be odd ducks.  Odd you haven't any 8s.  OK, I'll keep my mouth 
shut after that.  Watching from a distance (quite a distance, from California) 
and waving g'day, mate.
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Re: [talk-au] admin_level, suburbs and rendering; should the order be updated?

[Dian Ågesson]

Hi Steve,

You are looking in the right spot, although the confusion is 
understandable-the proposal (for lack of a better word) is for ACT 
Districts to be moved from Level 7 to Level 5, and for the other 
"districts" to not be included at all.


Forgive me if I over-explain some of these points, but for your benefit 
as a non-Australian:


Australia's government is generally broken into three levels of 
government: Federal, State/Territory (6 states, 9 territories), and 
Local (539 LGAs and Unincorporated Areas). These are currently: 
admin_level=2, admin_level=4, and admin_level=6.  LGAs are the 
second-level subdivision, and provide basic services: 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_government_in_Australia Counties are 
very much an anachronism, and exist only on paper as part of the 
cadastral land title system for some states.


The ACT does not contain any local government areas. It does, however 
have "districts": 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suburbs_of_Canberra#Districts. ACT 
Districts are subdivisions that are used for land titles, but also form 
part of the ACT government's provision of local services and planning 
strategies.


Dian

See, what I'm getting at is saying ACT District is 5, yet 7 means 
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Re: [talk-au] admin_level, suburbs and rendering; should the order be updated?

[stevea]

See, what I'm getting at is saying ACT District is 5, yet 7 means District, 
well, that ambiguity trips me up.
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Re: [talk-au] admin_level, suburbs and rendering; should the order be updated?

[stevea]

On Apr 10, 2022, at 5:53 PM, Dian Ågesson  wrote:
> Thanks Andrew,
> 
> I'll make the adjustments to level 7 and 9 in the update guidelines as I 
> prepare them.
> 
> I can also add the Districts of the ACT in at Level 5 as well, although 
> should it be documented for all states' counties? 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lands_administrative_divisions_of_New_South_Wales
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadastral_divisions_of_Victoria

Thank you Dian.

I'm not sure which "update guidelines" you are preparing, I'd love to see a 
link to our wiki about these data, if that's what you mean (and when they are 
ready, beyond your preparation and shared with the world, of course!)

You mention both administrative divisions and cadastral divisions.  The former 
enter OSM while the latter do not.  Well, that's my understanding.  It may be 
that ini Australia these do blur and it is simply "understood" that there are 
"matches" between admin and cadastral "levels" of boundaries, so admin_level 5, 
7 and 9 are appropriate for "certain things."  If I'm being noob-ish and 
blurring what "everybody already knows," please excuse me, I'm not from around 
there.  Maybe one way to say it is "called cadastral because of history, now de 
facto and de jure administrative."  I really don't know.

I do want to make sure I'm looking at the right row in the table [1] about what 
these numbers mean (or maybe look elsewhere...in our wiki?  something 
AU-specific?):

For 5, I don't (our wiki doesn't) see anything specific noted
For 7, I see "District or Region Border (e.g Perthshire, Fitzroy, Canning, 
Greater Sydney, Greater Melbourne, etc.)" and
For 9, I see "Locality Border (Suburbs or Towns) (ONLY where larger than ABS 
boundary)"

Am I ship-shape here?  Where might I discover ACT Districts are admin_level=5?  
Is there a wiki?  Thanks.

[1] 
https://wiki.osm.org/wiki/Tag:boundary%3Dadministrative#10_admin_level_values_for_specific_countries
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Re: [talk-au] admin_level, suburbs and rendering; should the order be updated?

[Dian Ågesson]

Thanks Andrew,

I'll make the adjustments to level 7 and 9 in the update guidelines as I 
prepare them.


I can also add the Districts of the ACT in at Level 5 as well, although 
should it be documented for all states' counties? 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lands_administrative_divisions_of_New_South_Wales


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadastral_divisions_of_Victoria

Dian

On 2022-04-09 10:44, Andrew Davidson wrote:


On 8/4/22 21:57, Dian Ågesson wrote:


Hey Andrew,

I don't believe anything was decided with regards to ACT districts. 
However, after looking into the details I don't think they actually 
fit in the administration boundary set up at all; seems closer to 
parishes/counties on other states than a "council" or locality.


I was going to suggest that they get moved to admin_level 5 which could 
be also used for counties in other states (that still have them).


Otherwise no problem with getting rid of level 7 and moving suburbs to 
9.


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Re: [talk-au] admin_level, suburbs and rendering; should the order be updated?

[stevea]

Speaking from personal experience as only one participant over many years 
(between say, 2012 with some agreement in 2015 and some refinement 2020) in a 
big country with a lot of states and dozens of their idiosyncrasies, getting 
admin_level values "right" can be a true, multi-year-long wrangle to get these 
"more or less correct by wide agreement" in any given country. Keep up the 
dialog, it can only get better.

Although, there are circumstances where it simply breaks down (in the USA, 
there is a "concurrent sovereignty" with aboriginal boundaries that isn't 
really mathematically / geographically / geometrically accurately capture-able 
with admin_level, so it isn't perfect and likely never will be). A "do our 
best" approach (in any given country, admin_level=2, down to the 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 
9 and 10 levels) often has to go right down to the "here's what we do here, at 
this relatively-medium-low-level, and that's how it is" and OSM does its best 
to accurately fit that into the country-wide scheme (via wide agreement among 
that country's region's mappers). Tables with state-by-state entries can help, 
expect lots of footnotes as in [1], although, [2] is a "novice-friendlier" 
version. There are places where OSM agrees with and mimics what our USA Census 
Bureau does, there are places where it doesn't, though the reasons OSM does 
that (and where) are explained clearly in our wiki. That helps, too.

Local knowledge is good here. Wide agreement is good here. Some edges where 
minor disagreement happens is likely inevitable, but I think Australia can 
"largely get this correct" even down to the neighborhood level (10). It takes 
years, it takes a great deal of dialog. It can be hard to say "how done it is."

[1] www.osm.org/wiki/United_States_admin_level
[2] www.osm.org/wiki/United_States/Boundaries
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Re: [talk-au] admin_level, suburbs and rendering; should the order be updated?

[Andrew Davidson]

On 8/4/22 21:57, Dian Ågesson wrote:

Hey Andrew,

I don’t believe anything was decided with regards to ACT districts. 
However, after looking into the details I don’t think they actually fit 
in the administration boundary set up at all; seems closer to 
parishes/counties on other states than a “council” or locality.




I was going to suggest that they get moved to admin_level 5 which could 
be also used for counties in other states (that still have them).


Otherwise no problem with getting rid of level 7 and moving suburbs to 9.

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Re: [talk-au] admin_level, suburbs and rendering; should the order be updated?

[Dian Ågesson]

Hey Andrew,

I don't believe anything was decided with regards to ACT districts. 
However, after looking into the details I don't think they actually fit 
in the administration boundary set up at all; seems closer to 
parishes/counties on other states than a "council" or locality.


Dian

On 2022-04-08 02:47, Andrew Harvey wrote:


On Fri, 8 Apr 2022 at 09:33, Dian Ågesson  wrote:


Hey all,

Resurrecting this thread to see if there are any objections to 
implementing the following changes as part of the cleanup:


-Removing admin_level=7


Was there a resolution for Andrew Davidson's comment about ACT 
districts being admin_level=7?


What's the resolution for the other existing items tagged admin_level=7 
Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart, Adelaide, etc.?


I think these aren't sufficiently administrative boundaries so we could 
remove the admin_level, boundary tags and replace type=boundary with 
type=multipolygon?



-Moving localities to admin_level=9


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Re: [talk-au] admin_level, suburbs and rendering; should the order be updated?

[Andrew Harvey]

On Fri, 8 Apr 2022 at 09:33, Dian Ågesson  wrote:

> Hey all,
>
> Resurrecting this thread to see if there are any objections to
> implementing the following changes as part of the cleanup:
>
>
> -Removing admin_level=7
>

Was there a resolution for Andrew Davidson's comment about ACT districts
being admin_level=7?

What's the resolution for the other existing items tagged admin_level=7
Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart, Adelaide, etc.?

I think these aren't sufficiently administrative boundaries so we could
remove the admin_level, boundary tags and replace type=boundary with
type=multipolygon?


> -Moving localities to admin_level=9
>

I'm happy with this.
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Re: [talk-au] admin_level, suburbs and rendering; should the order be updated?

[Dian Ågesson]

Hey all,

Resurrecting this thread to see if there are any objections to 
implementing the following changes as part of the cleanup:


-Removing admin_level=7

-Moving localities to admin_level=9

Dian

On 2021-12-04 22:29, Dian Ågesson wrote:


Hey Andrew,

Forgive my ignorance; how should we approach the Nominatim team? I'm 
more than happy to do so, I just don't know where to go.


Dian

On 2021-11-30 09:21, Andrew Davidson wrote:
On 30/11/21 09:55, Andrew Harvey wrote:
Since we don't have formally defined boundaries for 
place=region,district,city,quarter,neighbourhood,city_block should we 
be adding an admin_level at all?


So should we remove 7/5?
I'd be happy to get rid of admin_level 7. It never really had a good 
definition. The ACT district boundaries are currently 7 so we'd have to 
move them. Maybe to 5, or move 6 to 7 and make 6 the "county" level. We 
currently don't have anything at 5.


I checked via the overpass wizard query "admin_level=8 in AU" and there 
are no results, so no australia post borders are mapped that way, and 
I'm not aware of any.
I think that was an accident of history. boundary=postal_code was 
created after someone chose admin_level=8 for AU post codes.


So I'm supportive of removing Australia Post Postode Border from 
admin_level=8.

I second that.

That leaves should we move localities from 9 to 8? I don't think it 
really matters much to be honest.
Looking at other countries 8 appears to be things that have some form 
of administrative body. We should get rid of either 9 or 10 we don't 
really need both. Maybe move localities up to 9?


We should ask the Nominatim team before we go making any changes. We 
don't want to break their stuff.


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Re: [talk-au] admin_level, suburbs and rendering; should the order be updated?

[Dian Ågesson]

Hey Andrew,

Forgive my ignorance; how should we approach the Nominatim team? I'm 
more than happy to do so, I just don't know where to go.


Dian

On 2021-11-30 09:21, Andrew Davidson wrote:


On 30/11/21 09:55, Andrew Harvey wrote:

Since we don't have formally defined boundaries for 
place=region,district,city,quarter,neighbourhood,city_block should we 
be adding an admin_level at all?


So should we remove 7/5?


I'd be happy to get rid of admin_level 7. It never really had a good 
definition. The ACT district boundaries are currently 7 so we'd have to 
move them. Maybe to 5, or move 6 to 7 and make 6 the "county" level. We 
currently don't have anything at 5.


I checked via the overpass wizard query "admin_level=8 in AU" and 
there are no results, so no australia post borders are mapped that 
way, and I'm not aware of any.


I think that was an accident of history. boundary=postal_code was 
created after someone chose admin_level=8 for AU post codes.


So I'm supportive of removing Australia Post Postode Border from 
admin_level=8.


I second that.

That leaves should we move localities from 9 to 8? I don't think it 
really matters much to be honest.


Looking at other countries 8 appears to be things that have some form 
of administrative body. We should get rid of either 9 or 10 we don't 
really need both. Maybe move localities up to 9?


We should ask the Nominatim team before we go making any changes. We 
don't want to break their stuff.


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Re: [talk-au] admin_level, suburbs and rendering; should the order be updated?

[Andrew Harvey]

On Tue, 30 Nov 2021 at 20:26, Andrew Davidson  wrote:

> > I checked via the overpass wizard query "admin_level=8 in AU" and there
> > are no results, so no australia post borders are mapped that way, and
> > I'm not aware of any.
>
> I think that was an accident of history. boundary=postal_code was
> created after someone chose admin_level=8 for AU post codes.
>
> > So I'm supportive of removing Australia Post Postode Border from
> > admin_level=8.
>
> I second that.
>

Okay I've updated the wiki to remove the mention of postcode boundaries at
level 8 given none are actually tagged this way at the moment, nor do we
think per this thread they should be.
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Re: [talk-au] admin_level, suburbs and rendering; should the order be updated?

[Andrew Davidson]

On 30/11/21 09:55, Andrew Harvey wrote:


Since we don't have formally defined boundaries for 
place=region,district,city,quarter,neighbourhood,city_block should we be 
adding an admin_level at all?


So should we remove 7/5?


I'd be happy to get rid of admin_level 7. It never really had a good 
definition. The ACT district boundaries are currently 7 so we'd have to 
move them. Maybe to 5, or move 6 to 7 and make 6 the "county" level. We 
currently don't have anything at 5.


I checked via the overpass wizard query "admin_level=8 in AU" and there 
are no results, so no australia post borders are mapped that way, and 
I'm not aware of any.


I think that was an accident of history. boundary=postal_code was 
created after someone chose admin_level=8 for AU post codes.


So I'm supportive of removing Australia Post Postode Border from 
admin_level=8.


I second that.

That leaves should we move localities from 9 to 8? I don't think it 
really matters much to be honest.


Looking at other countries 8 appears to be things that have some form of 
administrative body. We should get rid of either 9 or 10 we don't really 
need both. Maybe move localities up to 9?


We should ask the Nominatim team before we go making any changes. We 
don't want to break their stuff.


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Re: [talk-au] admin_level, suburbs and rendering; should the order be updated?

[Dian Ågesson]

From my (admittedly limited) understanding, there are several different 
forms of recognition and ownership of land by Australia's First Peoples, 
and it varies from state to state. I don't believe the specific 
boundary=administrative tag is appropriate for any of the use cases, but 
I want to make clear that I don't believe using a different tag should 
in any way detract from the legitimacy, ownership or importance of these 
areas. Because the legal framework is complicated, unfortunately I think 
the tags will inevitably be complicated as well


Traditional Owners

Most (all?) states recognise particular Indigenous Corporations as the 
"Traditional Owners" of areas of land. As Traditional Owners, these 
corporations are given certain rights (often a requirement to be 
consulted on land changes) but don't necessarily have any specific legal 
power or self-governance over land in the same way as an LGA might. For 
this reason, I don't believe Traditional Ownership boundaries are suited 
to "administrative" boundaries, for the same reason that planning 
overlays wouldn't be appropriate as "administrative" boundaries. The 
boundary=aboriginal_lands tag seems to be more targeted towards 
"reservations", which doesn't seem to suited to Traditional Owner 
Recognition. My suggestion would be either:


boundary=protected_area
heritage=3 _(as is state recognition)_
protection_title=Registered Traditional Ownership
heritage:operator=_Traditional Owners Corporation_
protect_class=24
name=Traditional Owners
name:aus=_Traditional Owners_

_or, to coin a tag_

boundary=aboriginal_lands
aboriginal_lands=traditional_ownership

Native Title

Native Title is separate to Traditional Ownership as defined by the 
states, but tends to afford more rights over the land (and compensation, 
if I recall correctly). Again though, I don't believe it is equivalent 
to an administration area.


boundary=protected_area
heritage=2 _(as is federal recognition, not state)_
protection_title=Native Title
heritage:operator=_Traditional Owners Corporation_
protect_class=24
name=Traditional Owners
name:aus=_Traditional Owners_

_or, _

boundary=aboriginal_lands
aboriginal_lands=native title

Indigenous Protected Areas

This is another volunteary arrangement between Indigenous Organisations 
and Australian Government, but is also focussed on conservation. To be 
an Indigenous Protected Area, the land must be owned by First Peoples. 
(it's not clear whether ownership is akin to sovereignty or land 
ownership.)


These appear to already be mapped as Nature Reserves 
(https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/8317126#map=8/-28.507/134.436)


Aboriginal LGAs

There are also Indigenous Land Councils that operate and administer land 
as the LGA. They will already be captured as an administrative boundary 
(See APY lands https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/6792088)


They could perhaps be enriched with an additional tag indicating their 
unique status, but should probably stay the same as other LGAs?


Aboriginal Land Permits

Separate to that legal mechanism, there are areas where a perit is 
required to enter private land owned by Indigenous Organisations. These 
are probably the closest equivalent to the standard 
boundary=aboriginal_land tags, but I'm really not sure of the legal 
distinction between state to state.


If the data can be sourced appropriately and respectfully with First 
Peoples I would wholeheartedly support their inclusion.


Dian

On 2021-11-30 17:51, stevea wrote:

On 2021-11-30 18:21, Graeme Fitzpatrick wrote:


On Tue, 30 Nov 2021 at 16:55, stevea  wrote:


On Nov 29, 2021, at 10:39 PM, Ewen Hill  wrote:

Indigenous nations/country
I have a strong belief that we should allocate an entry around level 
three to six for indigenous country. There will be discussion on 
fuzziness of boundaries and ownership, a number of these have been 
resolved already by the Registered Aboriginal Parties (RAP) for an 
area however I don't see that being a huge issue. My key issue is 
appropriation of the country and area polygons for the ability for 
others to commercialise this or reduce the purchasing of indigenous 
materials.


I don't see that all RAPs and others would update the map, however I 
see having the ability to add this data and be able to index it, is 
important to OSM in Australia.


Ewen

Yep, great idea!

We did discuss this briefly a little while ago, when Aus Post started 
pushing for / allowing "Country" names to be included in mailing 
addresses.


https://auspost.com.au/about-us/supporting-communities/rachael-mcphail-making-traditional-place-names-part-of-mailing-addresses

I agree that it may not be something that is very usable "now", but 
it's something that will only gain in popularity over time, so let's 
get in early with OSM!



"Um," (he begins timidly)...


It's alright Steve, we don't bite! (that hard anyway :-))

To sum it up simply - it's complicated!

Re: [talk-au] admin_level, suburbs and rendering; should the order be updated?

[Graeme Fitzpatrick]

On Tue, 30 Nov 2021 at 16:55, stevea  wrote:

> On Nov 29, 2021, at 10:39 PM, Ewen Hill  wrote:
> > Indigenous nations/country
> > I have a strong belief that we should allocate an entry around level
> three to six for indigenous country. There will be discussion on fuzziness
> of boundaries and ownership, a number of these have been resolved already
> by the Registered Aboriginal Parties (RAP) for an area however I don't see
> that being a huge issue. My key issue is appropriation of the country and
> area polygons for the ability for others to commercialise this or reduce
> the purchasing of indigenous materials.
> >
> > I don't see that all RAPs and others would update the map, however I see
> having the ability to add this data and be able to index it, is important
> to OSM in Australia.
>

Ewen

Yep, great idea!

We did discuss this briefly a little while ago, when Aus Post started
pushing for / allowing "Country" names to be included in mailing addresses.

https://auspost.com.au/about-us/supporting-communities/rachael-mcphail-making-traditional-place-names-part-of-mailing-addresses

I agree that it may not be something that is very usable "now", but it's
something that will only gain in popularity over time, so let's get in
early with OSM!

"Um," (he begins timidly)...
>

It's alright Steve, we don't bite! (that hard anyway :-))

To sum it up simply - it's complicated!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_land_rights_in_Australia

So some areas could be aboriginal lands, but most aren't.

What I was talking about (& possibly Ewen) was to include the original
"nations" lands eg
https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/map-indigenous-australia

Unfortunately, I'd think the chances of being allowed to use that map are
pretty well non-existent :-(
https://aiatsis.gov.au/form/permission/map

the challenges to OSM's admin_level scheme are great, and so far, not
> completely "solved." ... Really, this can be a challenging problem to solve
> (where there are "overlapping" or "shared" political areas and it isn't
> "neat, clean and easy" to delineate one from the other).
>

Yep! :-(

Thanks

Graeme
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Re: [talk-au] admin_level, suburbs and rendering; should the order be updated?

[stevea]

On Nov 29, 2021, at 10:39 PM, Ewen Hill  wrote:
> Indigenous nations/country
> I have a strong belief that we should allocate an entry around level three to 
> six for indigenous country. There will be discussion on fuzziness of 
> boundaries and ownership, a number of these have been resolved already by the 
> Registered Aboriginal Parties (RAP) for an area however I don't see that 
> being a huge issue. My key issue is appropriation of the country and area 
> polygons for the ability for others to commercialise this or reduce the 
> purchasing of indigenous materials.
> 
> I don't see that all RAPs and others would update the map, however I see 
> having the ability to add this data and be able to index it, is important to 
> OSM in Australia.

"Um," (he begins timidly)...

This is REALLY going to be different in Oz than USA, but please consider 
boundary=aboriginal_lands.  This tag is widely used, was voted upon with great 
acclaim and really "seems correct" (to my parochial view of things there).  It 
renders in Carto (same as boundary=protected_area + protect_class=24, but don't 
use that, please!) with a light tan color and a thicker outline at its edge, 
looks quite nice actually.

Also, this is QUITE complicated in the USA and I'm not sure if it applies 
there, but if even a whiff of it seems familiar, please consider this.  What we 
say in the USA about these lands is:

"Wikipedia states 'tribal sovereignty is a form of parallel sovereignty within 
the U.S. constitutional framework, constrained by but not subordinate to other 
sovereign entities,' where a map of the contiguous US (lower 48 states) with 
reservation lands excluded displays. In that light, admin_level=2 or even no 
admin_level=* may be appropriate on these (called "First Nations" in Canada, to 
give a neighboring flavor to the semantics). Several tagging solutions have 
been proposed, though many have challenges."

So, if there is anything like that in Australia's aboriginal_lands, the 
challenges to OSM's admin_level scheme are great, and so far, not completely 
"solved."  On the other hand, if these are indeed "sovereign," then you're in 
better luck than we are!  Really, this can be a challenging problem to solve 
(where there are "overlapping" or "shared" political areas and it isn't "neat, 
clean and easy" to delineate one from the other).

Best,
SteveA
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Re: [talk-au] admin_level, suburbs and rendering; should the order be updated?

[Ewen Hill]

Hi all,
  A great discussion and can I thank Dian for raising this.

*Postcodes*
As well as SteveA's comments, postcode boundaries are proprietary and
Auspost are never going to sign a waiver or have it as an open source
service and no, I don't really understand this logic. The best you can get
is an "interpretation" of postcodes every 5 years from the ABS. Auspost
don't have a process to identify alterations within those five years
(assuming the ABS postcodes are very close) so we are really up a creek
without a paddle postcode wise.

*Indigenous nations/country*
I have a strong belief that we should allocate an entry around level three
to six for indigenous country. There will be discussion on fuzziness of
boundaries and ownership, a number of these have been resolved already by
the Registered Aboriginal Parties (RAP) for an area however I don't see
that being a huge issue. My key issue is appropriation of the country and
area polygons for the ability for others to commercialise this or reduce
the purchasing of indigenous materials.

I don't see that all RAPs and others would update the map, however I see
having the ability to add this data and be able to index it, is important
to OSM in Australia.

Ewen



On Tue, 30 Nov 2021 at 10:53, stevea  wrote:

> I will and do (cautiously, as an "outsider" from the USA, but as an
> "insider" being one who seriously coordinated the USA [1] getting our 4-10
> admin_level table(s) [2] about as hammered-into-submission-and-consensus as
> is humanly OSM-possible, over months and years and sweat and tears) say one
> thing:
>
> Assigning admin_level=8 to Postcode Borders simply isn't correct.  Mail
> delivery areas are not administrative boundaries.  They might be
> convenient, but they should be boundary=postal_code, not
> boundary=admin_level (see, that is a direct collision in the key boundary
> for exactly the right reason:  one is not the other).
>
> (In the USA, postal_codes, what we call ZIP Codes — Zone/Improvement/Plan
> — are more like routing algorithms for efficient mail delivery.  They
> absolutely do not describe geographic regions and it is essentially
> geographically impossible to make them do so).
>
> The other proposed changes to Australia's table?  I step aside, good
> Australian OSM Contributors.
>
> SteveA
>
> [1] https://wiki.osm.org/wiki/United_States_admin_level
> [2] https://wiki.osm.org/wiki/United_States/Boundaries
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> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
>


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Ewen Hill
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Re: [talk-au] admin_level, suburbs and rendering; should the order be updated?

[stevea]

I will and do (cautiously, as an "outsider" from the USA, but as an "insider" 
being one who seriously coordinated the USA [1] getting our 4-10 admin_level 
table(s) [2] about as hammered-into-submission-and-consensus as is humanly 
OSM-possible, over months and years and sweat and tears) say one thing:

Assigning admin_level=8 to Postcode Borders simply isn't correct.  Mail 
delivery areas are not administrative boundaries.  They might be convenient, 
but they should be boundary=postal_code, not boundary=admin_level (see, that is 
a direct collision in the key boundary for exactly the right reason:  one is 
not the other).

(In the USA, postal_codes, what we call ZIP Codes — Zone/Improvement/Plan — are 
more like routing algorithms for efficient mail delivery.  They absolutely do 
not describe geographic regions and it is essentially geographically impossible 
to make them do so).

The other proposed changes to Australia's table?  I step aside, good Australian 
OSM Contributors.

SteveA

[1] https://wiki.osm.org/wiki/United_States_admin_level
[2] https://wiki.osm.org/wiki/United_States/Boundaries
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Re: [talk-au] admin_level, suburbs and rendering; should the order be updated?

[Andrew Harvey]

On Mon, 29 Nov 2021 at 09:29, Dian Ågesson  wrote:

> Suburbs and Localities in Australia are all using admin_level=10
> ,
> and some changes in early 2020 to the default map rendering (
> https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues/4016)
> significantly reduced the prominence of admin_level 9 and 10 tags. While
> some other countries do use levels 9 and 10 for "suburbs", most seem to use
> it for neighbourhoods, sub-divisions, etc. I feel as though this makes
> Australia's usage a bit of an outlier, as a 'suburb' has more prominence
> than a generic neighbourhood would. There are also a few entries in the
> existing admin_level structure that seem out of place?
>
place=* and admin_level=* from a data consumer and renderer are
independent. So long as they are tagged as place=suburb then the renderer
shouldn't care what admin_level it is associated with.

> I can see this was discussed in September 2020 (
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-au/2020-September/013976.html).
> In that thread, the hierarchy of places was agreed to be generally
> Country>State>LGA>locality (town/suburb)>land parcel, but the implications
> for rendering weren't covered.
>
> I would like to propose that we adjust the admin_level to better align
> with the general usage of suburb within the community, with the additional
> benefit of better rendering consistent with the boundary usage internally.
>
If you look at the Geoscape Administrative Boundaries data
https://geoscape.com.au/data/administrative-boundaries/ it covers

1. Localities
2. Local Government Areas (LGAs)
3. Wards
4. Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Boundaries
5. Electoral Boundaries
6. State Boundaries
7. Town Points

I think the only true administrative boundaries we have are Australia
(place=country), State Boundaries (place=state), LGAs
(place=county/municipality), Wards, Localities (place=suburb within a city,
place=town, village, hamlet outside of cities), Electoral Boundaries.

Town Points aren't boundaries, and ABS Boundaries shouldn't belong in OSM.

Other boundaries like School Intake Zones, Police Local Area Commands,
Health Districts are probably too narrow in scope to belong in OSM.

Given the use of postcodes for addressing we should add them to OSM, but
mostly they've been added as a postal_code tag on a locality boundary or
addr:postcode tag on an address, because the boundaries are not open.

Since we don't have formally defined boundaries for
place=region,district,city,quarter,neighbourhood,city_block should we be
adding an admin_level at all?

So should we remove 7/5?

> *Current Usage*
> 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
> *Australia*  State/Territory Border  LGA Border District or
> Region Border (e.g Greater Sydney, Greater Melbourne, etc.) Australia
> Post Postode Border Locality Border (ONLY where larger than ABS boundary) 
> Locality
> Border (suburbs or towns)
>
> *Proposed Usage*
>
>
> 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
> *Australia* ** State/Territory Border District or Region Border
> (e.g Greater Sydney, Greater Melbourne, etc.) LGA Border (none) Locality
> Border (suburbs or towns) (none) (none)*
>
> * Australia Post Borders would be changed from boundary=administrative to
> boundary=postal_code, or put here if appropriate.
>
I checked via the overpass wizard query "admin_level=8 in AU" and there are
no results, so no australia post borders are mapped that way, and I'm not
aware of any.

boundary=postal_code is only used for one postcode in melbourne where it
didn't follow locality boundaries and couldn't be tagged as postal_code on
the locality.

ACT has a good set of boundary=postal_code.

So I'm supportive of removing Australia Post Postode Border from
admin_level=8.

That leaves should we move localities from 9 to 8? I don't think it really
matters much to be honest.
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Re: [talk-au] admin_level, suburbs and rendering; should the order be updated?

[Little Maps]

> Regardless of the outcome of this discussion, thanks for all your work Dian 
> to change the “towns” back to suburbs. I downloaded a copy of the Victorian 
> place names data a little while ago for a GIS exercise and it was a real pain 
> to discover that an enormous number of purported towns were actually just 
> Melb suburbs. It will be fantastic to see them all tagged correctly again. 
> Cheers Ian

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Re: [talk-au] admin_level, suburbs and rendering; should the order be updated?

[Warin]

On 29/11/21 9:34 am, Graeme Fitzpatrick wrote:

Would villages / hamlets ie small country towns, also then be level 8?

If so, that would help with the vast expanses of nothingness as 
villages don't get shown, despite them being the main (only!) centre 
for 00's of k's!




Localities? Level 10?


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Re: [talk-au] admin_level, suburbs and rendering; should the order be updated?

[Graeme Fitzpatrick]

Would villages / hamlets ie small country towns, also then be level 8?

If so, that would help with the vast expanses of nothingness as villages
don't get shown, despite them being the main (only!) centre for 00's of
k's!

Thanks

Graeme
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[talk-au] admin_level, suburbs and rendering; should the order be updated?

[Dian Ågesson]

Hello,

I wanted to prompt a conversation about admin_level tagging in Australia 
and whether the current levels are appropriate.


For context, I have been slowly changing suburbs in suburban Melbourne 
back from place=town to place=suburb following 
(https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-au/2021-September/015042.html) 
this discussion. Metropolitan suburbs are more correctly tagged with the 
"suburb" tag, however without being listed as 'towns' they don't appear 
as a label until a greater zoom is used. You can see the difference in 
this image [1]: the south east is using "place=suburb", but the 
north/west hasn't yet been changed.


Suburbs and Localities in Australia are all using admin_level=10 [2], 
and some changes in early 2020 to the default map rendering 
(https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues/4016) 
significantly reduced the prominence of admin_level 9 and 10 tags. While 
some other countries do use levels 9 and 10 for "suburbs", most seem to 
use it for neighbourhoods, sub-divisions, etc. I feel as though this 
makes Australia's usage a bit of an outlier, as a 'suburb' has more 
prominence than a generic neighbourhood would. There are also a few 
entries in the existing admin_level structure that seem out of place?


I can see this was discussed in September 2020 
(https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-au/2020-September/013976.html). 
In that thread, the hierarchy of places was agreed to be generally 
Country>State>LGA>locality (town/suburb)>land parcel, but the 
implications for rendering weren't covered.


I would like to propose that we adjust the admin_level to better align 
with the general usage of suburb within the community, with the 
additional benefit of better rendering consistent with the boundary 
usage internally.


Current Usage

2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

_Australia_

State/Territory Border

LGA Border
 		District or Region Border (e.g Greater Sydney, Greater Melbourne, 
etc.)

Australia Post Postode Border
Locality Border (ONLY where larger than ABS boundary)
Locality Border (suburbs or towns)

Proposed Usage

2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

_Australia_
__
State/Territory Border
 		District or Region Border (e.g Greater Sydney, Greater Melbourne, 
etc.)

LGA Border
(none)
Locality Border (suburbs or towns)
(none)
(none)*

* Australia Post Borders would be changed from boundary=administrative 
to boundary=postal_code, or put here if appropriate.


Appreciate this is a big topic with lots of complexity. Would love to 
hear your thoughts.


Dian

Links:
--
[1] https://imgur.com/a/QcDMBjv
[2] 
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:boundary%3Dadministrative#10_admin_level_values_for_specific_countries___
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