[Talk-GB] Tagging Banquetting Halls (neither hotels, not community centres)

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

I've come across a building that provides the sort of facilities that
one might find in some hotels for day time and evening functions
(weddings, posh birthday parties, etc.), but does not have any
overnight accommodation.  It is too commercial/up market for a village
hall type community centre category (I don't believe they'd host local
society meetings or keep fit classes, but without the accommodation,
it doesn't fall into the hotel category, either.  Pubs sometimes
provide this sort of service as well, but this one doesn't take any
walk in trade and and provision and the bar is an optional extra, or
you can go on a corkage basis.

Does anyone have suggestions on how to tag it.

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Re: [Talk-GB] Tagging Banquetting Halls (neither hotels, not community centres)

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 21 August 2013 14:44, Craig Wallace  wrote:

> Banqueting hall seems rather specific.
> These types of places may be used for a wide variety of events, so may be
> known by different names. eg might be used for conferences, exhibition, live
> music etc.
>
> I think a more generic tag for an "event hall" would be useful.
>


That's probably better than banqueting hall.  On the other hand, it
needs to be distinguished from the concept "exposition centre" which
is listed as something that a conference centre is not.

Conference centre was suggested off list, but I think that is
different:  much more strongly B2B, large groups talking together,
rather than lots of small conversations, little connotation of food
and even less of music and dance.

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[Talk-GB] Phone numbers in little England

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

Something I've noticed is that the British seem to be particularly bad
at entering phone numbers properly, in particular, more than half of
them have been entered in national format; even the Americans seem to
get this one right and so do other countries.

Other common problems are:

- the bogus (0) in an attempt to provide a number that works for
Englanders who don't understand international numbers, whilst keeping
all the components of the international number;

- London area codes being given as 207 and 208, rather than 20.

- area codes not being delimited at all.

The last three account for about 5% each of the numbers, in London,
that were already international.  I've already manually fixed these in
London.

My question is, given that I have good programming skills, and would
manipulate a local .osm file, for JOSM, rather than directly using the
API, are there likely to be any objections to my changing  all London,
and later, all UK local format geographic numbers to international,
and adding and correcting area codes for London and director areas (I
assume there are database copyright issues with a table lookup for the
full set of national number group codes, to get the right lengths)?

Would it be reasonable to add the above four cases:

- local numbers (020 7946 0676);
- bogus (0) (+44 (0)20 7946 0676)
- no delimiter (+442079460676)
- misplaced delimiter (+44 207 946 0676)

to the Key:phone wiki entry, or would that bias it too much to the UK case?

Incidentally, one common usage I do agree with, and which Ofcom seem
to use, is the space after the director exchange, as 79460676 is a bit
long to remember as one group, and there is a historical, and some
geographic, significance, in this split.

Note this phone number has been taken from one of Ofcom's reserved
ranges for use in TV, etc., dramas, like the US 555 ones.

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Re: [Talk-GB] Tagging Banquetting Halls (neither hotels, not community centres)

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 22 August 2013 08:07, OpenStreetmap HADW  wrote:
> On 21 August 2013 14:44, Craig Wallace  wrote:
>>

>
> That's probably better than banqueting hall.  On the other hand, it
> needs to be distinguished from the concept "exposition centre" which

One other possible term that I noticed was "function rooms".  This was
being used as a secondary use of a club building in the actual case in
which I saw it used.

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Re: [Talk-GB] Tagging Banquetting Halls (neither hotels, not community centres)

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 22 August 2013 08:41, Lester Caine  wrote:

> specialist market band wagon, 'Banqueting hall' is another use that could be
> applied anywhere, but I can see that being a specialist type of restaurant
> rather than a 'hall' since essentially it's a place to eat with some form of
> themed entertainment?

Whilst "banqueting hall" is used in the PR material for the place in
question, what is actually on sale is the use of the building and some
very basic services.  The patrons are expected to source food and
entertainment from third party contractors.

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Re: [Talk-GB] Phone numbers in little England

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 22 August 2013 08:43, Oliver Jowett  wrote:

>> - no delimiter (+442079460676)
>> - misplaced delimiter (+44 207 946 0676)
>
>
> Aren't these unambiguous already?
>

They breach the existing guidelines, which call for the (UK usage)
area code to be delimited.  In particular, in London, you can dial
this number as 00442079460676, 02079460676 or 79460676.  On the other
hand, dialing it as 9460676 will fail.  (Always assuming it weren't a
bogus number for drama  use.)

In any case, about 90% of people who used international format seemed
to agree that +44 20 7946 0676 was the right grouping, even if some of
them added the (0).

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Re: [Talk-GB] Tagging Banquetting Halls (neither hotels, not community centres)

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 22 August 2013 10:03, Lester Caine  wrote:

> website=xxx - which will give the details (if we could access them from the
> map)

I'm not sure if I can quote the website in this case as Google may
have a database copyright on it.  I generally only quote websites if
they are advertised on the geographic site itself.  In this case, the
building was strangely anonymous, other than the name and the car
parking arrangements.


>
> The bottom line is "do we add the fine detail?" ... places like Lumley are a

My feeling is that the query/rendering tools can throw away excess
detail, but cannot generate detail that is not there.  I think the
limit has to be set by when a reasonably intelligent person cannot
distinguish between two categories (which is not to say that in the
grey world in which we live, many if not most things will fall close
to borderlines).

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Re: [Talk-GB] Tagging Banquetting Halls (neither hotels, not community centres)

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 22 August 2013 15:46, Brian Prangle  wrote:
>
> In the West Midlands we have dozens of these which cater mainly for Asian
> weddings and celebrations where large extended families have to be catered
> for. Probably the same in most large urban areas. I generally just tag them
> as building=yes and  with the name on the display board which usually says
> "banqueting centre" not "banqueting hall"

Whilst, from the part of London that it was in, that was obviously
going to be a significant source of its business, the building itself,
its name, and the website, played that aspect down so much and the
exact nature of the operator was so well hidden on the website (using
initials, with the full name only in microscopic print in an image)
that I didn't discover that it was actually run by a Hindu charity
until yesterday.  I actually wonder if it is under-utilised and they
are seeking a wider market.

I'm not sure that invalidates that it falls into a missing category
with more general applicability.  I, for instance, would tend to
include the places in London, like the Connaught Rooms, which an
ex-employer used for its periodic all staff get togethers (it had a
lot of people working on customer sites).
>

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Re: [Talk-GB] Phone numbers in little England

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 22 August 2013 18:57, Colin Smale  wrote:
> I am not sure what your issue was with highway=path etc, but do you mean
> rationalising as in the sense of reducing the number of tags, thus losing
> (subtle) distinctions? I can't see how that is the same as the phone number
> format issue.
>
> Calling the transformation from OSM data to international format "trivial"
> does not do justice to the creativity of mappers when entering phone numbers
> or to telecoms regulators when defining numbering plans. The "four lines of
> regex" will need to be different for each country, and the code will need to

On a brief sampling, failing to comply with the Key:phone guidelines
is a peculiarly British problem, whence the "little England" in the
subject.  I think, because the USA country code is the same as their
"default carrier long distance" code, it is easy for them to just
prefix +, and the rest of the world seems to me more aware that people
in other countries use phones.

> be aware of what country (and area code) the number belongs to. And that's
> of course not including handling the more esoteric cases like "00+44 (01234)
> 654-321". If you want to minimise the amount of code for handling all these
> variations, you will of course benefit from more consistency and more
> normalisation, not less.

There are a little over 1,000 national format numbers in the M25 area,
so even extrapolating to the whole UK, my strategy would be to select
a small number of cases for automatic conversion, and put all the
difficult cases into a separate file that colud be edited manually.  I
wouldn't try to adjust area codes except in director areas (the old
0x1 areas) as that requires the Ofcom code list, which may have
database copyrights.

The hope would be that before larger numbers of businesses got mapped,
and therefore had phone numbers added, there would be so few
precedents for doing it the wrong way. that most people would get it
right just by following existing examples.
>
> Personally, although I suggested E.164, I don't care that much if it's some
> "national" format either, as long as it is well-defined and consistently
> applied.

I was starting from the position that the correct format had been
chosen, give or take certain internal delimiter use.

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Re: [Talk-GB] Tagging Banquetting Halls (neither hotels, not community centres)

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 22 August 2013 10:03, Lester Caine  wrote:

> website=xxx - which will give the details (if we could access them from the
> map)

If you access it from http://www.openlinkmap.org/ you can access them
from the map (and also phone numbers).

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Re: [Talk-GB] Phone numbers in little England

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 23 August 2013 22:15, Paul Bivand  wrote:

>
> However, I normally ignore spacing because the concept of area code is dying.

There is a secondary reason for spacing and that is that short term
memory can only cope with about 7 things at once, so it is a good idea
to break numbers down into groups of less than 7 digits.  Outside of
London, that tends to happen with the technical breaks in the number.
You have to take account of the historical exchange codes (which are
still geographically significant, in most cases, to avoid an 8 digit
group, in London.  (It's why credit card PANs are in 4 digit groups
and why it is so annoying when websites aren't prepared to strip out
the spaces.)

The other thing about grouping, is that when I went through the
numbers already in +44 format, less than 5% didn't apply any grouping,
and more than 85% used the +44 20   grouping.  That's maybe as
much as 90% as most of the +44 (0) people would have put splits in
those places.

Incidentally, I did capture a rather unusual number for a local bowls
club, which was an outer London number in 7xxx  format, on a
notice board.

Whilst most London people don't realise that they can abbreviated
numbers, I believe it is still common to miss the area code, once you
get outside a director area (although that might just be a
generational thing, with older users less likely to be using mobile
phones).

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[Talk-GB] NaPTAN Stops and Hail and Ride Buses

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

NaPTAN stops can be placed in one of the following categories
(initially the not-verified one):

- not-verified (imported but not surveyed on the ground);
- verified (NaPTAN data has been correlated with a physical stop on
the ground and the location adjusted, if necessary);
- physically not present, customary stop;
- physically not present and no associated stop.

Near me, there is a hail and ride segment of a bus route, i.e. you can
request the bus to stop at any safe place and there are, for some
level of formality, no formal stops.

On that route segment, there is NaPTAN data for a number of stops,
which although it doesn't have local references for the stops, it also
doesn't have a "customary stop flag".  On the ground, most of these
correspond to timetables attached to lamp posts.  These timetables are
not named, but you can deduce the name from the accompanying partial
listing of stops and journey times.  Some do not, and I think those
actually represent the end of of the hail and ride section.  People
wanting to get on the bus, do tend to congregate at the time tables,
to some extent. but they also get on at other places..

My problem, which I've tried asking of the NaPTAN user on the
OpenStreetmap itself, with no reply, is for the two cases:

- time table on lamp post;
- no time table, but probable end of hail and ride,

should they be considered as:

NaPTAN verified;
not physically present, customary stop; or
not physically present, not a stop.

I've got a .osm file, sitting on my disk,with corrected locations,
waiting for an answer to these questions before I commit it.

(Actually, iti is really two back to back sections, as there is a real
stop in the middle.)

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Re: [Talk-GB] NaPTAN Stops and Hail and Ride Buses

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 24 August 2013 12:32, sk53.osm  wrote:
> I doubt if anyone checks the Naptan account: it's an import account largely
> to separate personal mapping from imports. Furthermore I don't know how
> active the user who co-ordinated the imports is these days: info is
> available on the wiki.

The wiki refers to using that account.

In the absence of any definitive, it looks like I will have to take a
conservative approach and just add notes to the effect that the
locations are now correct, for the ones that do have the timetable.  I
will have to make a judgement about whether there is any element of a
customary stop for the others.

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[Talk-GB] Grounds of Places of Worshiip when not Graveyards

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

The rules for places of worship differ from other amenities in that
there is a strong diktat that only the actual building (where there is
a building) should be tagged.  This seems to be partially backed up by
an assumption that all places of worship are medieval churches with
graveyards, so that the surrounding grounds can be tagged as a
cemetery.  That simply isn't true for even most of the Christian
churches around me, let alone for other religions.

The specific case I have in mind is what I call the Ealing Road
Temple** , which was
under construction for a long time, and probably is still not
complete, but has been operating for over a year.  The grounds for
this are tagged as landuse=construction, with no details of the actual
building.  According to the rules, one needs to map the building and
mark that as a place_of_worship, but what does one do with the site
that it is on?  Simply removing it would be destroying real
information.  Leaving it as it is would no longer reflect the true
state.

** It does have a name, but, until I next get down there, I'd have to
rely on Google for that.

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Re: [Talk-GB] Grounds of Places of Worshiip when not Graveyards

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 28 August 2013 09:50, sk53.osm  wrote:

> churchyard (probably the tag you are looking for landuse=churchyard, to
> heavily used but in existence) instead of a church: you need one of the

I was hoping for something with less Christian connotations.  Besides
having a zero taginfor score, landuse=templeyard  (also temple_yard)
is just balkanizing the tagging.  landuse=precinct
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precinct#Religion) might have been
better, but that also has a zero score, and it is maybe not a well
known term ("temple precinct" has 54,000 hits on Google, though
(58,000 with church and 27,000 with cathedral).  Do I have a prima
facie case for proposing precinct, here?

I wonder if there is an efficient way to search for the immediate
containing feature for building=temple, to find precedents.  I guess
one can xapi the temples, then do a bounding box fetch around each.

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Re: [Talk-GB] "Lines of Trees" along river banks etc.

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 28 August 2013 23:15, Dudley Ibbett  wrote:
>
> This would perhaps suggest they should be marked as ways with barrier=hedge
> and hedge=line_of_trees or perhaps just the latter.
>
> An alternative might be to use natural=tree_row which is defined in the wiki
> but the examples seem more to related to trees that have been planted at
> regular intervals and where there isn't generally an overlap in the canopy.
> I have used this a few times but I'm not convinced it is the right way to
> tag this feature given that it seems they are a type of hedgerow.
>

This sort of micro-woodland feature is a case where it would be nice
if Mapnik supported the proposed landcover key.  I found a whole
forest growing in the central reservation of a short section of dual
carriageway, but had to leave it that way as it no longer rendered
when converted to landcover (in most areas, people wouldn't have
bothered to try to make it render, but  since someone had done so,
they would reasonably object if it stopped rendering.

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Re: [Talk-GB] "Lines of Trees" along river banks etc.

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 29 August 2013 09:42, sk53.osm  wrote:

> comparable to the European Environment Agency's Urban Atlas. The slides are
> here. I think there are enough details in the methodology for anyone to

You might have warned me about the size of the document, so I
downloaded it at off peak times!

Unfortunately there seem to be a lot of professional references, which
probably won't make sense to me without further research.  However, my
take on problems with landuse is that they arise from amateur mappers.

>
> Whereas there are some issues with landuse tags, they will not be fixed by
> inventing another category which will be beset by the same problems over
> time. It's much better to try and persuade people that things like
> landuse=grass for farmland pasture is a bad idea.

In particular, this is like the presentational/semantic debate in
HTML.  Landuse is a semantic concept, but amateur mappers tend to
think in presentational terms, and because landuse=forest was the only
way of representing trees, in the rendered Mapnik rendered image, they
coded the central reservation as a forest.  landcover would be a more
presentational coding, and would allow people to achieve the rendering
they wanted without distorting the deep meaning of the data.

The whole history of HTML has shown that when you give the technology
to the masses, you will end up with presentational markup, so, if you
don't provide an alternative way of getting the rendering, you can
expect landuse to be abused for that, and even if you do, a lot of
people will fail to understand the difference.

(natural also has problems.  There is an area near me currently coded
as natural=trees, but, which on further research turns out to actually
have been landscaped.  Mapnik renders this as solid green, without
tree texturing, so this was not an attempt to control presentation.  A
less sophisticated user would probably coded it as a forest, to get
the texturing, when it is really part of a park.)

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Re: [Talk-GB] HS2 mapping

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 29 August 2013 11:59, Barry Cornelius  wrote:

> adding the information to OSM as the data provided by a council can be
> out-of-date and it is necessary to check whether the data agrees with what's
> on the ground.  There are also licensing issues.

The councils' definitive maps override what is on the ground.  The
real problem is that the councils hold the database copyrights on this
information, so one either has to negotiate a licence, or try to map
from the signing on the ground, which may contradict the definitive
maps.

I actually seem to remember that we are approaching a point where any
public right of way not on a definitive map will cease to be one.

In practice, I doubt that new public rights of way are being created
these days, so being out of date is probably not a problem.   (I'm not
sure if that applies to long distance footpaths.)

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Re: [Talk-GB] Grounds of Places of Worshiip when not Graveyards

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 28 August 2013 09:50, sk53.osm  wrote:

> new-fangled expensive wedding licences. Or telling my local vicar and his
> wife that they live in a place of worship.

That does rather assume the right building has been marked!  I've just
come across a case where the OS have marked the church hall and left
the church as an ordinary building.  Whilst I mapped it using only the
initial sighting on the ground, and OS OpenData (ignoring their PW),
subsequently checking with other resources, they seem to have thought
the lift motor room, for the hall, was a tower (Pathfinder Series) and
missed the small spire on the church itself, even though the church is
the larger, and more impressive, building.  (I will recheck it on the
ground, but nothing so far seems to contradict my initial mapping.)

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[Talk-GB] Urban Mixed Access Ways and Barriers (restricted to motor vehicles, open to foot)

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

I keep coming across cases where marking the access to a way based on
primary category will imply that the way is not suitable for use on
foot.  That becomes particularly interesting with barriers, as in
those cases, the sidewalk may bypass the barrier.

For concrete examples, I'll use Northwick Park and Northwick Part Tube
station, in North West London.

At the North end, there is a stub road
.  This is gated off,
almost permanently, where it joins the local public road, but has
sidewalks and there are gaps in the barrier for each sidewalk.

At the station end, it leads to a permanently open foot tunnel, which
exits to Proyer's Path, which is signposted as mixed foot and cycle,
and was recently re-laid explicitly to make it suitable for mixed use.
 There are also foot routes into Westminster University and Northwick
Park Hospital, from the end of the tunnel.

It seems to me that the stub road has private status for motor
vehicles, and as it is in the form of a road for such vehicles, that
is its primary status.  Is must have destination status on foot and
dismounted bicycles, for the tube station.  The junction with Proyers
Path suggests that it should have at least yes status for foot and
cycle.

At the moment, I've coded it as access=private; foot=yes, which should
result in correct routing decisions, but will cause it not to show as
passable to pedestrians on normal map renderings.

The gate is more of a problem, as my reading of the access rules for
gates is that they specify what can pass when the gate is open, so
don't allow you to specify categories for which the gate effectively
doesn't exist (pedestrians, in this case).  Gates possibly need a way
of indicating types of traffic for which they are really entrances.
(Possibly foot=entrance, or, with more backward compatibility
problems, motor_vehicle=gate.)

At the other end of Proyers path, is a car park, and a roadway leads
South from there, to another gate
, which is open to
authorised vehicles only (as signed on the driveway, beyond the gate,
so really not an attribute of the gate).  The gate is bypassed by
people on the pavement on the public road, but is open from 8am to
nominal dusk.  To add complications, just inside the gate is a PROW
public footpath sign, for a footpath to the park, so, although the
scope of this is very unclear, the bypass probably has PROW status.

Authorised vehicles are, I suspect, ones using the pavilion, by the
car park, but the main reason is probably to stop its use as a station
car park, by long distance commuters.

The road has cycle markings, so there is some presumption that it is
always open to cycles.

If I mark the gate with opening hours and access, it implies these
restrictions apply to pedestrians and cyclists, which they don't.  If
I mark the driveway as private or destination, it will be shown as
that on the standard map, even if the restriction is removed by the
use of foot and cycle keys.

Whilst one could break out the sidewalk paths on each side of the
gate, as explicit features, that will clutter the map (as a side note,
I already see some areas of the map being cluttered by having every
private path and car park).  It doesn't help with the driveway through
the park, as that has no sidewalks, once you get past the gate.

What are peoples thoujghts on the best way of getting the data model
correct, whilst also producing something useful to people using the
standard map rendering, particularly for barriers.

PS There are yellow padlocks on the second gate, so even the opening
hours are not valid for emergency vehicles.

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Re: [Talk-GB] Urban Mixed Access Ways and Barriers (restricted to motor vehicles, open to foot)

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 7 September 2013 12:15, SomeoneElse  wrote:

>
> In that instance isn't there effectively a short footway that runs parallel
> to the short piece of road that has the barrier on it?
>
Micro-mapping tends to clutter the rendered map.  In any case, street
maps are abstractions of the real world and do deliberately simplify.

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[Talk-GB] Wish LIst for Mapnik Stylesheet (overmapping of private features)

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

Is there a mechanism for getting requests onto the wish list for the
Open Street Map Mapnk style sheets?

The particular issue is that now that people can trace quite small
features, some areas are getting overloaded with private foot paths
and private car parks (not to mention alleys and driveways),
particularly where apartment blocks are involved.  These make it
difficult to find public ones and pollute the landuse colouring.

I've added a comment to the access Wiki page, but comments on wiki
pages don't seem to get looked at.  What I'd like to do is to get onto
the wish list that private features like this should require a higher
zoom level, before they render, than equivalent public ones. (A thin,
dotted footpath can be difficult to spot in a sea of dashed ping
lines.

(A secondary problem is that people map these all with no access
restriction, or name them Private, but that can be fixed in the source
data without destroying information - the only problem is that it
needs verifying on the ground, whereas they can map, particularly car
parks, from aerial imagery.)

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Re: [Talk-GB] Urban Mixed Access Ways and Barriers (restricted to motor vehicles, open to foot)

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 7 September 2013 14:46, Philip Barnes  wrote:

>
> Streetmaps do tend to be abstractions of the real world, and
> openstreetmap ceased to be be a mere streetmap several years ago, and is
> a far far better map than a mere streetmap can ever be. The word
> streetmap implies urban, cities.


OS maps are abstractions even when not dealing with streets.

The other problems with micro-mapping are:

- the transition between higher and lower levels of abstraction.  I
have considered mapping certain road areas as areas, because the line
approximation loses important information, but,  unless a road joins
an area perpendicularly, this doesn't work well in the transition
region;

- with things like sidewalks, there is usually a fixed distance
between the two pedestrian ways and the vehicle way, but the current
data structure cannot represent that, and the current tooling doesn't
support it very well, so if everyone started mapping sidewalks
explicitly, there would be big maintenance problems (I've just seen a
transition case where a road both has a separate footpath, with cycle
access and the road itself is marked as having parallel cycle tracks);

- routing software can no longer just operate on a network of edges
and nodes, but needs to know that your can normally cross from one
sidewalk to the other, at arbitrary places. (currently I have seen
explicit footway crossings, where no physical features exists, being
inserted to get round this one.  Basically, the abstraction is adding
value, by showing that the the sidewalks are related.

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Re: [Talk-GB] Urban Mixed Access Ways and Barriers (restricted to motor vehicles, open to foot)

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 7 September 2013 14:36,   wrote:
> Sent from my android device so the quoting is crapp!
>
>
> -Original Message-----
> From: OpenStreetmap HADW 
> To: talk-gb@openstreetmap.org
> Sent: Sat, 07 Sep 2013 13:44
> Subject: Re: [Talk-GB] Urban Mixed Access Ways and Barriers (restricted to
> motor vehicles, open to foot)
>
> On 7 September 2013 12:15, SomeoneElse  wrote:

>
> Then it is up to the rederers to make any simplificatons needed

In practice, there is only one renderer for general users, and my
impression is that that doesn't have that much deep understanding, so
relies on conventional mapping abstractions and a lot of user provided
rules.

Although technical users may use special renderers for special tasks,
to be generally useful, the map has to provide as much useful
information to the user as possible using a relatively simple minded
renderer.

(I did actually chance on a paper discussion how Mapnik's placing and
selection of labels is far from ideal, which is probably one of the
more difficult things that it actually tries to do.)

The maps also have to work with mappers who don't understand the
difference between the rendered map and the internal representation,
so will not provide the rich metadata needed for an intelligent
renderer (as mentioned on another thread, they will load the map with
footpaths and car parks, but not add the access=* tags needed to
distinguish between those that can and cannot be used).

If a render tries to get too clever on data that doesn't have
consistent and rich meta-data, it is likely to guess wrong and
introduce artefacts as a result.  That's OK if the result will be
cleaned up by a human, the machines will have done a lot of let work,
but that is not the case here.

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Re: [Talk-GB] bing image alignment

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 9 September 2013 20:05, Lester Caine  wrote:
> I'm currently playing in an area where the highest resolution imagery is
> still an older view, while as I zoom out we step to newer imagery which is
> some distance off from the map tracks. I'm fairly happy with the map as I
> have had some older gps tracks which it follows, and I'll run over in the
> morning and gather a new track as a cross reference, but are people in
> general finding that these new images are out of alignment with what is
> currently mapped? Can I assume that they need realigning before using them?



I find that current BIng is usually mis-allgned by two or three metres
relative to OS StreetView, which I believe is good to better than 1
metre.

One reason for this is parallax error, because the images aren't taken
square on to the ground (that may be because the camera is taking in
quite a large area.  You can see this with building, you can end up
with a metre or more difference depending on whether you use the top
or bottom of the building.  It also presumably means that alignment
changes with the height of the land.

On the the other hand, individual GPS points usually have larger error
than this.  With commercial grade GPS, you probably need several hours
averaging to get down to a metre accuracy.

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Re: [Talk-GB] Urban Mixed Access Ways and Barriers (restricted to motor vehicles, open to foot)

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 7 September 2013 21:41, SomeoneElse  wrote:
> OpenStreetmap HADW wrote:
>>
>> In practice, there is only one renderer for general users
>
>
> That's a statement that could provoke some discussion, I suspect.
>
> If you have a look at the questions on help.osm.org you'll see lots of "why
> doesn't X do Y" type questions, but it isn't always immediately obvious what
> X is. Sometimes it's one of the four main layers on www.osm.org, but if so
> very often it's the Cycle Map rather than the "standard" layer.  Sometimes

Most of these ultimately use Mapnik as the render, and therefore have
its limitation imposed on them.

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[Talk-GB] OSM Evangelism Opportunity in Burnt Oak

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

If anyone is able to attend a club meeting in Burnt Oak, Edgware
between 8 and 10 this evening with evangelism materials for
OpenStreetMap, ideally a live demo, could they contact me off list.  I
didn't check the club programme until I was in the office, so won't be
able to collect any any materials myself, but they are having a
meeting entitled "Maps and Atlases Evening with members
participation".

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Re: [Talk-GB] bing image alignment

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 10 September 2013 10:09,   wrote:

> This has been discussed on the list before. Bing image alignment can be
> quite poor

One unfortunate consequence of this is that there are areas of the map
where the majority of features are out of position by 15 or more feet,
because people have added large numbers of buildings, from Bing,
whilst treating the Bing locations as gospel.

A couple of days ago, I walked a footpath, which turned out, along
with the preceding private road, to be a PROW on foot.  As I wanted to
detail map it to show steps, I first calibrated Bing against OS
StreetView, and moved both the road and path accordingly.  The result
is that it now goes right though the last building to actually be
mapped on the road where the path ends.  Looking at all the,
un-sourced, (another gripe is the amount of material going in with no
source and often no comment, but often quite extensive) buildings in
the area, they seem to align perfectly with uncorrected Bing images.

It is easy to perpetuate such problems by using the existing buildings
to calibrate further additions.

I'm reluctant to correct such bulk errors unless I can find somewhere
to safely sit a GPS for several hours, with a clear view of the sky
and good landmarks on  aerial imagery photographs, to get absolute
proof of the error.  (I don't plan to hire a DGPS receiver!).  Also,
without an explicit source, everything needs carefully checking to
make sure that it is consistent with the same flawed source.

Often the main roads are more accurate in these areas, because they
come from older sources, although I sometimes wonder what those were,
too.

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Re: [Talk-GB] bing image alignment

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 13 September 2013 12:31, Colin Smale  wrote:
> Which is the higher priority, consistency or accuracy? Is it better to have
> an internally consistent map, where everything is topologically correct but
> possibly a little displaced by a uniform vector, or is it better to have
> some of the objects positioned with high accuracy, despite the apparent
> conflicts with the rest?

The case in question is not internally consistent!  The main roads are
more correctly placed than the buildings.  This doesn't stand out like
a sore thumb because the roads and pavements are wide enough to take
up the slack.  However, a 1m wide footpath, sandwiched between two
buildings, and displaced by about 6m does stand out.

The other risk is of a gradual, but not as gradual as continental
drift, creep as features get added relative to misplaced features
placed relative to misplaced features.

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Re: [Talk-GB] bing image alignment

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 13 September 2013 12:55, Chris Hill  wrote:
> Why do you suppose OS Streetview is correct? I find that compared to multiple 
> GPS tracks it is not always well aligned and more recent Bing imagery is 
> often better.

I did consider that possibility, but I did a search for that  and it
came up suggesting StreetView was mostly good to about 1m (although I
can't re-find that reference).  On the other hand, that is a reason
for requiring more evidence before correcting things which assume zero
offset for Bing.

As noted elsewhere on this thread, Bing clearly shows parallax errors,
and it looks like it hasn't been corrected for height variations, at
least not on a local scale.

I don't think I would trust commercial GPS much below 5m unless it was
averaged over at least an hour, with a clear  view of the sky
(reflections off builidngs could systematically distort the position
solution - see http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Accuracy#Systematic_errors).
 Where I've looked into calibrating against GPS I've tended to find
that there are good places that are accurately locatable on Bing where
you can sit with GPS for a long time without looking suspicious, and
which are near to  points of interest and have a clear view of the
sky.

On the other hand, pre-OpenData specifications for StreetView suggest
worst case errors of 4.1m
, so, maybe
 I'm still going to have to do long averaged GPS calibrations.

That still doesn't mean that unsourced BIng tracings, with zero
offsets are good things.

Fortunately, OSM hasn't been around enough for continental drift to
become a severe problem.  Even the error since 1984 should be less
than about one foot.

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Re: [Talk-GB] bing image alignment

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 13 September 2013 13:38, Phil Endecott  wrote:
> OpenStreetmap HADW wrote:

> When using any OS data it's important to be certain of the method used
> for the datum conversion.  If it's not using the OSTN02 table-driven


How does one find that out for the tiles served by
os.openstreetmap.org, and if they are not using the high accuracy
conversions, why not?  (OS' own online viewer also uses WGS84
coordinates to label their tiles - suggesting that they should be
using the high quality WGS-84 calibration.)

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Re: [Talk-GB] bing image alignment

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 13 September 2013 14:22, Colin Smale  wrote:
> Cm-level GPS accuracy is coming within our grasp... My attention was
> recently drawn to this:
>
> http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/swiftnav/piksi-the-rtk-gps-receiver
>

You need to operate in differential mode to get the full accuracy,
which means you still need an accurately surveyed datum.

I don't see that it will help with reflections.

I also wonder if it will prompt the re-introduction of selective
availability, as it gives some of the advantages of the higher
chipping rates on the, encrypted, find mode GPS signal, and probably
doesn't have the velocity and altitude caps normally applied to
commercial receivers.  I believe the military have the advantage that
they can use the second frequency to help do large area ionosphere
corrections.

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Re: [Talk-GB] bing image alignment

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 13 September 2013 14:46, Tom Hughes  wrote:
> On 13/09/13 14:28, OpenStreetmap HADW wrote:
>
>> How does one find that out for the tiles served by
>> os.openstreetmap.org, and if they are not using the high accuracy
>> conversions, why not?  (OS' own online viewer also uses WGS84
>> coordinates to label their tiles - suggesting that they should be
>> using the high quality WGS-84 calibration.)
>
>
> They are produced using mapserv from a gdal vrt with the source projection

Does mapserv use OSTN02?

> defined by:
>
> PROJCS["OSGB 1936 / British National Grid",

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Re: [Talk-GB] bing image alignment

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 13 September 2013 14:58, SK53  wrote:

Whilst most of the error terms may well, unfortunately, be true...
>
> OSSV scale is 1 pixel / metre, so accuracy is less than that.

That's a common misunderstanding about spatially, or time quantised
data.  If it were really true, the 300m chip length in GPS would limit
GPS accuracy to much worse than 5m.  This is not just true of
photographic imagery.  It is also true of anti-aliased line art, like
StreetView, or even non-anti-aliased material, as long as lines are
not parallel to the primary axes.  Providing you know what has been
reduced to 1m pixels, and it has sufficient high spatial frequency
component, e.g. footpath edges in aerial imagery and the underlying
vector lines in the maps, one can interpolate to rather better than
1m.
>
> So sources of error are:
>
> Feature generalisation in OSSV, noticeable on buildings & roads

These tend to be local distortions.  By choosing features carefully, I
think you can avoid them when aligning aerial imagery with StreetView.

> Re-projection of OSSV tiles using proj4 using OSGB36, errors of +/- 5m

Errors in the OS survey.

> Given an average road is about 7-8 metres across we are less likely to
> notice this with roads anyway.

Which is why the problem only really starts to show now that there is
extensive, armchair, mapping of individual buildings.


> If one looks at GPS traces for the same footpath walked again and again,
> their spread is quite considerable, perhaps as much as 20 m, although an
> average would probably be close to the actual 2 m path.

Many are mapped on a single pass.

>
> So just like any other survey organisation, ultimately we will need our own
> set of convenient reference points.

Unfortunately, StreetView doesn't seem to have OS' trig points!

My feeling is, that, until we can get our own grid of accurately
surveyed reference points, we ought choose one source that is better
than GPS.  As the US probably uses government maps, for this, now that
they are available to us, they would seem to be the best option.

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Re: [Talk-GB] bing image alignment

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 13 September 2013 19:59, ael  wrote:

> No one has mentioned the OS gps (passive) stations: for example
> http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/node/472420260
> http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-and-government/help-and-support/navigation-technology/os-net/surveying.html
>
> Can we not use them at least for some reference points?
>

Interesting.  Unfortunately it looks as though OS Net slipped past
their commercial people as they use the term "freely available" on
their web site without giving a precise legal definition of what that
means.  Given the intended use (all high accuracy surveys in the UK)
there seems to be an implication that they aren't claiming a database
copyright, but OSM will probably need a clearer legal statement.
OSTN02 seems to have the same licensing uncertainty.

I would note that even if a relatively restrictive licence were to
apply, OS allow checking of accuracy, as long as you don't use the
measured error to correct the inaccurate data.

Depending on exactly which ground feature represents the station, BIng
datum), Bing and the consumer grade GPS survey differ by between 5.2
and 6.2m.   Bing and StreetView agree quite well at that point, but
diverge towards the West.  The BIng error in the typical range, at
this point.

Are the ETRS89 coordinates given on the monument itself, as they would
be individual statements of fact, much like an individual address with
postcode?  (OS Net allows for movement, so the highest accuracy values
will not be fixed.)

Without survey quality GNSS receivers, these points are probably
mainly of use for calibrating imagery.

It's a pity they aren't all clearly visible on the aerial view, my
local one, which appears to be within centimetres of Bing, is only
identifiable because OS have measured the distance from the local
trees.  When the rain stops, I'll have a look at what is on the
ground, and try for a long average GPS reading.  I'll also try and get
on the ground measurements from the trees in case the station
coordinates are considered fair game, but the sketch map details
aren't  (looks like a surveyor's tape is on the shopping list - I
guess class III, at about 0.05% is good enough, compared with GPS).

I note that a lot of them are on private land and require permission
from the landowner to gain physical access.

PS.  The OSTN02 conversion tool, which presumably contains the table,
has a BSD Licence, according to
.
 If that is correct, I can see no reason why the os.openstreetmap
tiles should not be rectified based on OSTN02.  The data also seems to
be available in lat/long to lat/long forrmat, also with a BSD licence.

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Re: [Talk-GB] bing image alignment

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 15 September 2013 11:27, ael  wrote:

>
> It is a few years since I looked at any of this, but it had not occurred
> to me that any copyright issue could arise. They are essentially modern
> trig points. There is a mark on the ground, and their website publishes
> the coordinates. Using these coordinates to position a node on osm
> would constitute republishing? I thought very small extracts of
> copyrighted material were permitted in any case.

It is the standard copyright issue for maps.  There is a relatively
new sort of copyright
called database rights.  Normally for copyright you need to have some
creative input.
Things like addresses and telephone numbers do not have any creative
input.  However
database copyrights mean that the PAF (postcode address file) is
copyright, as is your
 local telephone directory.

With a map, the printed form may be covered by a copyright on the typographical
arrangement, but the individual coordinates of the corners of a
building are matters of fact
and can't, individually be copyrighted.  Nonetheless, once you start
plotting many buildings,
the work involved in compiling the information is recognized by a
database copyright.
 Without database copyrights, there would be on copyright blocks on
converting printed
format maps to vector format.

If you extract a single address from the PAF, to send letter, or a
single number, from the
phone book, to make a call, you are extracting the fact.  If you
create a directory, you
are copying the database.  The former is unrestricted (except by any
contract for confidentiality).
The latter is a copyright infringement.

The OS owns the database copyright on its list of passive stations.
Using the location of one
of them for an isolated survey is just using a fact.  Adding large
numbers of them to OSM is
a copyright infringement unless there is a licence that permits it.
Doing so piecemeal still
creates an infringement (if that were not the case, almost all use of
commercial maps would
be fair game, for a crowd sourced map).

There are hints that the intent was an intent to licence with at most
the equivalent of CC BY,
but I've not seen anything that makes that explicit.

On the other hand some of the references to OSTN02, which is actually
a larger database,
explicitly assert the database copyright, but also seem to release
under a BSD licence, which,
 at most, would require some slight tweaking of copyright
attributions. Please do not do
 anything based on this interpretation without verifying it yourself.

(The copyright on OSM itself is essentially a database copyright.)

>
>> Depending on exactly which ground feature represents the station,
>
> That one is a small stud at ground level on a small concrete block
> all surrounded by a rectangular metal fence maybe 30cm high, roughly 1m by
> 1/2m. I must dig out a photograph.

Having seen OS' photograph, I'm fairly sure this is the feature at
5.2m from the GPS
plot, when viewed on the local Bing datum.

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[Talk-GB] Using store locator as source

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

I'm pretty sure that store locators pages on chain store web sites are
not safe sources, but can someone confirm this.

I've just come across a, recently added feature, purporting to be an
Asda supermarket building, way 237818118.  As its only purported
source it quotes the URL of the store locator page for that store on
Asda's corporate web site.

In fact, it seems to show mapping details that could not have come
from that site (which uses a Bing map, which is, itself, actually
somewhat misleading), so I don't believe that page is the only source
used.  (On OSM, it has been mapped wrongly in ways that are not
relevant here.)

I've left a message pointing out that it has been incorrectly mapped,
and expressing concern about the source claimed,and also set a fixme,
but I wanted to double check that the source is generally unsafe (the
Bing map it contains is certainly unsafe, but may not actually have
been used).

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Re: [Talk-GB] Using store locator as source

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 15 September 2013 22:24, Dave F.  wrote:
> On 15/09/2013 21:41, OpenStreetmap HADW wrote:
>>
>> I'm pretty sure that store locators pages on chain store web sites are
>> not safe sources, but can someone confirm this.
>
>
> What do mean by "safe"? Inaccurate? Unlawful?

Likely to be an infringement of the operator's copyrights (a store
locator will have database rights, like a map), and if a map had
actually been used from the site, which seems unlikely in this case,
of the rights in the map (store locators often have rather better maps
than the Bing one used in this case).  If it is OK to use store
locators, I can see people exporting all the big name store locators
into the map.
>
> There's nothing really wrong with the closed polygon that can't be fixed by

These are side issues.  The issue I was consulting on here was the
copyright one.

> removing the building tag. The mapper's clearly used the Bing aerial
> background imagery to trace the area & used Asda's website for other data.
> Seeing the car park originates from '09, I'm going to guess the supermarket
> polygon was expanded from a POI. I can't think of any data being more

I can't remember.  However the current mapper has left at least two
POIs behind when they have mapped buildings, so I have a feeling it
wasn't mapped at all.  Also, I seem to remember thinking about mapping
this myself, but holding back because I would have had to use the weak
source, local_knowledge, to identify it as Asda, so I would have
wanted to re-visit it on the ground, first.  The reasons I didn't just
remove building=yes were:

- I felt uncomfortable about building on something that might have
come from a copyright map (I was half expecting a usable map of the
site on Asda's web site);

- the site outline is wrong.  It takes in a health centre and
community centre and some blocks of flats  that are not part of the
Asda site - I felt getting that right was something for another day;

- getting the mapper to fix it would be more likely to avoid the same
mistake being made again, and get them to fix their other instances -
I know of at least one other with the building tag on a site

Incidentally, the building tag may be an Id issue.  JOSM doesn't set
building by default on shops.

> accurate than the operator's web page. I'm not sure why you so concerned
> about this instance. Nothing in OSM is completely accurate. If you know ways
> to improve the data, do so.

However, the accuracy is a side issue, that can be handled offline.
My concern is about the principle of whether store locators are a
special case of a database that is exempt from the normal rule about
not importing databases, even piecemeal.  If they are, I would expect
a source code of something like "store_locator", rather than the full
URL, or, if the full URL for that store were visible on geographic
site, simply "website".

(In this case, I suspect the real sources were survey (by eye, not
GPS), Bing, and then only using the web site for phone numbers,
website and address.  Although they didn't have opening hours at all,
those should have been available on site.)

(What made me look at it was that it was local and had no changeset comment.)

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Re: [Talk-GB] Using store locator as source

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 16 September 2013 16:14, Andy Allan  wrote:
> On 16 September 2013 14:18, Adam Hoyle  wrote:
>
>> If there is no license on their website regarding the information, then 
>> shouldn't it be considered public domain?
>
> Err, no. That's not how the law works - either on copyright or on
> database rights.


As well as full copyright restrictions being the default position, it
is not possible to get copyright material into the pubic domain early
in the UK, or Europe in general.  (Even in the US, there is some doubt
as to whether anyone but the government to do so, and even whether
government produced material is public domain outside the USA.)

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Re: [Talk-GB] Using store locator as source

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 16 September 2013 19:18, David Earl  wrote:
> On 16/09/2013 17:35, Adam Hoyle wrote:
>>
>> On 16 Sep 2013, at 16:14, Andy Allan  wrote:
>>>

> Almost all retail sites will claim blanket copyright in every page of their
> websites. Just to take one at random, I went to http://www.boots.com/ . See
> the bottom of the page, and you'll see the copyright statement.

It would be difficult to find any commercial or large business that
doesn't.  In this case, Asda do.

>
> Furthermore, any maps or use of postcode location they use may also be
> copyright to someone else, like Royal Mail.

Asda certainly look as though they must have used postcode centres, as
their marker is at the back of the site and so far off the actual
store that Bing's icon for store is outside the frame!  However, basic
postcode centre locations are part of the OS OpenData releases.  What
is still kept under lock and key by the Post Office is the allocation
of street addresses to postcodes and the, detailed, Walksort(TM) level
codes used in the bar codes on mail from institutions.

Providing an interface to add a business by postcode might actually be
a useful way of getting a first cut set of data without risking an
inexperienced marketing person using copyright mapping data.


> copyright to do that, as long as they understand the implications, that the
> specific information referred would be released under the ODbL. I'd have
> thought most stores would be only too glad for their locations to be
> published, but because of the blanket copyright claimed, they'd each need to
> be asked.

The best approach would be to encourage them to submit the information
directly to OSM, so that they go through the standard OSM licence
grant process.  The problem may be in getting a share out o what may
be a very small marketing budget for maintaining the store locator.
Of course, the benefit to them may be that they get detailed mapping
of the correct geometry of their site out of OSM, at the slight risk
of occasional vandalism and good intentions gone wrong.  OSM gets the
risk that they may not really understand the licence, although I fear
that the latest generation of mappers may have the same problem.

>
> The caveat is that they may not be in a position to give you permission if
> the data is itself tied up in copyright to someone else - for example if it
> is derived using the Royal Mail postcode to location database. Depending who

As noted above, getting postcodes rather than full geo-refs would
reduce the risk of third party copyright breaches.  In the Asda case,
the OSM mapping doesn't seem to have used the store locator mapping.

>
> The kind of stores we're talking about are in sizeable places, and the
> numbers aren't huge, so doing it on foot is surely perfectly do-able and

Unfortunately, OSM is becoming an armchair exercise.  I don't know if
the existing car park, at Asda, was armchair mapping, but in some
areas, any place where two or more cars gather together gets mapped as
a car park, without any access restrictions.

> quicker and easier than approaching every chain for a complicated permission
> which they may themselves get wrong. Doing it on the ground means you get
> them all, systematically, in one place too irrespective of size or whether
> they have an online branch finder.

You also get the right information, not what the marketing department
thought they knew.  I recently mapped a PFI for NHA health centre
which had both a sketch map and one of the standard online maps
identifying a building on the wrong side of the service road as the
centre (it is hosted within a sport centre).

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Re: [Talk-GB] Using store locator as source

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 17 September 2013 09:01, Robert Whittaker (OSM lists)
 wrote:
s.
>
> Unfortunately, CodePoint Open is the one dataset in the OS OpenData
> collection that hasn't been cleared for use in OSM. See
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-gb/2013-July/015028.html
>

Fortunately I haven't used it, although I thought I'd seem some
postcode centroids actually on the map.

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Re: [Talk-GB] Using store locator as source

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 17 September 2013 09:15, SK53  wrote:
> Just a general point about shops. There is a perfectly good OPEN data source
> containing address (& postcode centroid as lat/lon) available for all food
> outlets covering most UK local authorities.

Aren't the postcode centroids subject to the Post Office rights?
>
> This is the Food Standards Agency's Food Hygiene Rating Scheme. I don't in
> general use it for armchair mapping (the exceptions being places I used to
> know well, where I have used FHRS to verify that a pub/restaurant/cafe is
> still in business), but it is very powerful for a) finding places to survey;
> and b) adding address data.
>
> It is certainly likely to cover major chains such as : Tesco, Morrison,
> Sainsbury's, Waitrose, Asda, Boots, Superdrug, W.H. Smith.

Interestingly the local Sainsbury's and Asda hypermarkets are missing
(as seem to be Tesco and Morrisons)!  (On the other hand church halls
and small businesses which are not basically food related did come
up.)  Many of the "local"/"express" variants of the big ones do turn
up (I wonder if these are actually franchises).
>
> Like most data sources it's not perfect: I've encountered a few omissions
> (including the banqueting hall mentioned in an earlier thread) as well as
> out-of-date information.

There seems to be quite a high omission and error rate in my borough.
>From the confusion an initial report  produced, I'm not sure the
council is actually set up to cope with intelligence about food
businesses not produced by the businesses themselves, except, possibly
if there is a complaint.

On the other hand, in the case of the store locator mapper, they
missed an existing node that had an FHRS address that is more
plausible than the one they hads (might be an Id problem - they had
"15", the original one had "1-5";  maybe Id wants pure numbers), and
one of their that I corrected came up with a more detailed address in
FHRS.
>
> License info on the FHRS site is somewhat opaque, but Open Data gov provides
> this search.
>
> So there is no need to even think about using Store Locator stuff on
> proprietary websites.

Unfortunately, the new breed of mappers probably know about locators,
but not about FHRS, and they are probably not that aware of how all
pervasive copyright is, and how damaging infringements could be.
>

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Re: [Talk-GB] User with long list of slow vandalism

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 23 September 2013 11:39, Tom Chance  wrote:

>
> I'm trying to get this user account suspended/banned:
> http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Quercus1/edits

Whilst, if they fail to respond to a direct approach, such steps may
be needed...

>
> I have tried contacting him/her to no avail. All these edits are bogus and
> many involve the deletion of features.

The edits seem to be seriously incompetent, rather than actually
bogus, or malicious.  They seem to be an attempt to micro-map against
Bing without understanding what they are doing.  Looking at changeset
17769888, what they are doing is trying to plot individual plots,
buildings and the actual carriageway and  pavement boundaries, but
without providing any tags and without closing areas.

At a guess, they are doing a presentational markup in JOSM, possibly
in wire frame mode, and don't realise you need to double trace shared
edges, and that you must map carriageways and sidewalks as areas, if
you are going to micro-map them to this level.  (I'd also argue that
the level of micro-mapping of the pavement and carriageway is
excessive and will only clutter the map, even if done properly.)

It's not clear why they wouldn't set attributes, unless they intend to
come back later.

The building and plot additions are repairable.  I would, personally,
want the road/pavement changes backed out.

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Re: [Talk-GB] User with long list of slow vandalism

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 23/09/13 14:08, Tom Chance wrote:> On 23 September 2013 12:27,
OpenStreetmap HADW  <mailto:osmh...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> The edits seem to be seriously incompetent, rather than actually
> bogus, or malicious.
>
>
> I'm not sure, they are strange edits. On the one hand there are some
> outlines of actual features, on the other hand there are
>
> * random nodes and ways not corresponding to anything in the aerial imagery
> * changesets with the same comment that doesn't correspond with the
> thing they have traced, like "This is a House"

Unfortunately, like subjects on many PC support forums, the average
 contributor doesn't seem to be able to make useful changeset comments.
Whilst they are not useful comments, I'm not sure they are any worse
than maybe the majority.

> * lots of features deleted, in a way that doesn't look like an accident

I only looked in detail at one.  The road appeared to be deleted in order
 to make way for the detailed but incomplete tracing of both edges of
the sidewalks.  Most of the ways that weren't buildings, or kerb edges,
could be interpreted either as fences, or an attempt to complete the
plot boundary, in a presentational way.  The one, way that couldn't
really match to anything visible in Bing was probably the edge of
a private drive.

I did wonder, given the way that one feature was clipped, and the
fact that they are in multiple locations, whether these were custom
maps, being made for people, but what would they use to render
them?  I did think about estate agents, but some claim to be NHS
sites. and I'm not sure why an estate agent would be interested in
detailed mapping of them.

Whilst I can easily see people clicking through JOSM validation
warnings, I always check the standard Mapnik rendering, so I don't
understand why they would have added so much detailed geometry,
but not noticed that it wasn't rendering.

Unfortunately, there is so much valid, detailed, geometry, that simply
reverting is probably not the right approach, so if they can't be made
to see the light, someone is going to have their time cut out tagging
the good bits and undoing the bad ones.

The example I looked at had been traced off Bing, but possibly with
a local survey. for details like drives.  The alignment error to Bing
was unmeasurable.

At least they haven't put in any probable copyright violations.

>
> Plus the user hasn't responded to messages.
>

I think they should be blocked, but I don't think there is sufficient
evidence of mens reus.

Incidentally, is there any easy way of rendering a before image of
a change?  The simple, online tools, just report deleted for
deletions and show the after image for changes.  That's not all
that useful when checking a questionable edit.

On 23 September 2013 14:08, Tom Chance  wrote:
> On 23 September 2013 12:27, OpenStreetmap HADW  wrote:
>>
>> The edits seem to be seriously incompetent, rather than actually
>> bogus, or malicious.
>
>
> I'm not sure, they are strange edits. On the one hand there are some
> outlines of actual features, on the other hand there are
>
> * random nodes and ways not corresponding to anything in the aerial imagery
> * changesets with the same comment that doesn't correspond with the thing
> they have traced, like "This is a House"
> * lots of features deleted, in a way that doesn't look like an accident
>
> Plus the user hasn't responded to messages.
>
> Regards,
> Tom
>
>
> --
> http://tom.acrewoods.net   http://twitter.com/tom_chance

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Re: [Talk-GB] User with long list of slow vandalism

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 23 September 2013 18:47, Peter Oliver  wrote:

>
> Didn't someone mention that this user was using JOSM?  JOSM pre-populates
> the comment field with the previously submitted comment.


The other thing it does is to add to an existing changeset, and the
changeset is left with the last comment used (this has occasionally
caught me out (I do like the open changeset concept, as I can add
afterthoughts and review the rendering).  If they were committing
every small change, you might only be left with the last comment.

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Re: [Talk-GB] Land Registry postcode tool now running

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

I've just noticed (changeset 18037116) someone using this Land
Registry data search tool to actually populate, rather than simply
flag for re-survey postcode data.  Given that the Land Registry
require a copyright notice, and, unlike OS Open Data, there is no such
copyright notice on OSM, is this usage actually legal?

I also note that the source is only given as a changeset comment, not
a source tag.

-- Reply Message --
Nick Allen nick.allen.54 at gmail.com
Thu Sep 13 10:29:23 BST 2012

Matt,

Thanks for your work on this.

I've had a little play & it looks ideal for my purpose & you should
see an improvement in the BR8 area as a direct result.

If your not doing it already, could you put somewhere on the front
page when the data was updated. My initial plan is to have one session
a month correcting & adding postcodes, but you may get other views.

Regards

Nick (Tallguy)
Sent from my HTC

- Reply message -
From: "Matt Williams" 
To: "Talk-GB at openstreetmap.org" 
Subject: [Talk-GB] Land Registry postcode tool now running
Date: Thu, Sep 13, 2012 01:00


Hi all,

During the discussion about the Land Registry 'Price Paid' database
discussions I promised that I'm put together a tool to make it more
useful. As such I've now got working (to a state I'm happy with) a
sub-website on my Postcode Finder to provide an interface to that
data.

Currently running at
http://milliams.dev.openstreetmap.org/postcodefinder/landregistry/
(there's no public link to it yet so you'll have to bookmark it) it
does the following:

Given a postcode (or postcode fragment) it finds all the houses in the
Land Registry database and tries to match each of them up to an
address in my Postcode Finder database.
If it finds a match it classifies it into one of three classes:
 - The postcode matches between OSM and the Land Registry
 - The postcode doesn't match
 - There's no postcode

If you perform a search (like
http://milliams.dev.openstreetmap.org/postcodefinder/landregistry/search/?postcode=CV4+8)
you see that I've sorted the classes by 'importance' order so wrong
postcodes are first, followed by missing postcodes. Then the ones that
couldn't be matched to any address and finally the perfect matches.

Give it a try yourself. It should be able to handle anything from
"CV4" level (will take around 10 seconds to load (probably more for
big cities like Birmingham and London) down to "CV4 8DU". It will
almost certainly struggle if you try to put in "B" or something big
like that. If you want to search for all the "B1" postcodes but
exclude "B10", "B11" etc (since that would be a very slow query) then
just put a space after it in the search box ("B1 ") or a plus in the
URL ("?postcode=B1+"). It's probably best to only give it as specific
a postcode as is possible ("XXN N" is quite quick) to keep the load
low on the dev server.

There's still some things I want to do with it but it's now in a
workable state. The data from the OSM database is a few days old now.
I'll wait for Geofabrik's ODbL extracts to be released before I update
again.

It should also be possible for me to extend the service to include and
data source which contains "house number; street name; postcode" so
I'll look into that in the future.

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Re: [Talk-GB] Land Registry postcode tool now running

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 28 September 2013 20:45, Rob Nickerson  wrote:
> == Quote ==
>>I've just noticed (changeset 18037116) someone using this Land
>>Registry data search tool to actually populate, rather than simply
>>flag for re-survey postcode data.  Given that the Land Registry
>>require a copyright notice, and, unlike OS Open Data, there is no such
>>copyright notice on OSM, is this usage actually legal?
> == End Quote ==
>
> Hi,
>
> Short answer= Yes, its fine, no problems.
>
> Long Answer=
> I was expecting that changeset to be mine, but pleased to see that other
> people are now using Matt's postcode tool.
>
> To answer your question:- The data is available under the standard Open
> Government Licence (just like the ONS Postcode Centroids that I am also
> using if it is right above a house), and can therefore be used with

The view has been expressed, recently, on this list that the ONS
postcode centroids are still encumbered by the Post Office copyrights.

> attribution. The attribution is on the Contributors page [1] and has been
> since 31 August 2012. Only a very select few sources are also attributed on
> the Copyright page [2] and the page makes it clear that you should see the
> Contributors page for the other sources.

I must admit that I missed that, but I'm not convinced that LR will be
happy with such a contorted trail.  I think they would like a
prominent notice in any place where the data is used.  In particular,
I can see people creating navigation tools and third party databases
without making their uses adequately aware of the sources.  Reading
the LR FAQ, it is not just about the attribution, but about ensuring
that people only make acceptable use of the data, as it is fairly
clear that some people have objected to the price component of the
data being published.

This sort of information isn't being contributed by people actively
agreeing to its use by OSM, so you can't really cover it by the "and
its contributors" clause.

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Re: [Talk-GB] Land Registry postcode tool now running

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 28 September 2013 23:50, Nick Allen  wrote:

>
> Anyway, if you're looking for a project in OSM, adding addresses is easily
> accomplished. Personally I currently use Keypad-Mapper 3 & OSMTracker to do
> my surveying, and the exercise does me the world of good.
>
> If anyone fancies joining in, I've outlined how I carry out the process at
> http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Tallguy

That's how I started back on OSM.  However, I am coming to have
reservations about the use of GPS for that purpose. I found that I had
to re-align everything to Bing for it to be useful, and, as I was
mapping front door nodes, rather than buildings, I had to make a
second pass to note the layout of the houses and to check for semis
versus detached (the latter because of the GPS wander).

Although it hasn't come back to the top of my list, I'm considering
whether to dispense with the technology for the next tranche and just
make notes to allow me to match up with Bing.

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Re: [Talk-GB] Land Registry postcode tool now running

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 28 September 2013 20:52, Rob Nickerson  wrote:
> Oh I should add that I am a fan of source tags on the objects myself so I
> add a "source:postcode=Land Registry 'Price Paid' data" tag (or =ONS
> Postcode Centroids) to my edits. Not everyone agrees that source tags should
> be added to the objects, preferring instead to add them to the changeset
> comment.

I use a mixture of both, depending on the context.

Both are flawed, though.

Adding to objects doesn't work well when different tags have different
sources, and the geometry may have a different one too.  It is also
very vulnerable to people replacing the whole source with theirs.

Adding it to changeset comments means it doesn't survive splits and
merges.  The database has no knowledge that these actually happened
and doesn't record the audit trail necessary to find the true
provenance of a node, way or relation.  (For this reason, any
mechanical redaction is likely to be quite flawed.)

This lack of good traceability does worry me, as I see one of the
biggest threats to a cloud sourced project like this is people getting
over enthusiastic and importing copyright data, possibly in such small
individual amounts that no alarms sound, but when aggregated, enough
to get a copyright owner angry.  My feeling is that the upcoming
generation of contributors isn't so steeped in the concept of a map
that is untainted by material with restrictive copyrights, so will use
the easiest way of getting the data they want added.

The most important reason for sources may be to limit what has to be
taken down when a take down notice is received.

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[Talk-GB] TfL bus maps as source

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

Have TfL bus maps been cleared as a source?  If so, why aren't they
being more extensively used?

My own assumption is that they are not a valid source, but I've just
discovered one route, by a contributor who has added several bus
routes, where their bus route finder web site has been quoted as a
source from version 1 of the relation.  The relation is 3073309.  My
view is that I need to ride the route, or follow it from stop to stop
on the ground to get copyright safe information.

Sorry to keep raising these copyright issues, but I do see it as the
biggest threat to OSM, given that the new generation of contributors
come from a popular culture that doesn't appreciate copyrights.

(I wasn't looking for copyright issues.  I've been chasing broken  and
missing links from the London bus wiki page, trying to sort out where
people have restarted routes without consulting it, and trying to
complete the repair from the mass deletion of London relations by a
Russian, with the comment 'improve security', a significant number of
which failed to revert first time.)

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Re: [Talk-GB] TfL bus maps as source

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

On 29 September 2013 18:27, Andrew  wrote:
> OpenStreetmap HADW  writes:
>
>> My own assumption is that they are not a valid source, but I've just
>> discovered one route, by a contributor who has added several bus
>> routes, where their bus route finder web site has been quoted as a
>> source from version 1 of the relation.
>
> Have you tried contacting the mapper?

I sent them a message expressing concern just before posting to the list.

I'm really after moral backing that this is a breach, as I'd be surprised if
they took my word for it.  They have an investment in quite a few bus routes
that they, probably, wouldn't want redacted.

(I'm actually a bit concerned that other people have been using such
sources (very prolific and not checking if they are already part mapped),
but haven't given any source, so I can't be sure..)

Where people quote sources like this one (or more generally quote a URL,
rather than a standard source tag), I think they are thinking more in
wikipedia terms. Wikipedia tends not to concern itself with database
copyrights, as long as the exact wording of a source isn't reproduced.
For wikipedia, the source goes to show that the material is not "original
research".  On the other hand, OSM actually prefers original research - a
survey is the highest form of source.

Incidentally, that means that care needs to be taken in using wikipedia to
source OSM; importing from multiple articles may, indirectly import a
copyright database..

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[Talk-GB] Dumbed Down Data Dangers (iD and NaPTAN)

[OpenStreetmap HADW]

A couple of weeks ago, I resurrected a not physically present NaPTAN
stop (one should never  delete or modify naptan: tags, although one
can move them between nodes, in a merge).

I suspect a big part of the reason they deleted it is that they are
using iD, and, unless you explicitly select a view all tags option, it
displays a dumbed down basic list of attributes which includes neither
naptan: attributes, nor the physically_present  one. When you delete
such a node, it doesn't warn you that you have not seen all the tags.
(Even if you do select view all, it does in addition to making the
dumbed down subset prominent.)

As Potlack has a dumbed down mode, it may suffer similar problems.

Incidentally, iD also defaults to building=yes on  potential
buildings, which caused the same mapper problems when they actually
mapped the whole site, and doesn't seem to allow specific building
types.

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