Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
When Avon was dissolved in 1995, some of the new unitaries are actually contained in their own counties. In the SI counties are created for North West Somerset, Bath and North East Somerset, South Gloucestershire and the City of Bristol; these counties are subsequently excused from the obligation for every county to have a council. The new districts which are created are coterminous with the counties of the same name (actually it is defined in the opposite order; the districts are defined by reference to the previous districts, and the extent of the new counties are defined to be the same as the new districts.) http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1995/493/made On 2018-12-18 00:42, Colin Smale wrote: > On 2018-12-17 23:16, Steve Doerr wrote: > On 17/12/2018 09:41, Colin Smale wrote: One other thing: in the UK the > boundaries of the area and the local authority running that area are two > different things. A local authority can run a combination of adjacent admin > areas; some admin areas are defined in law without there being a local > authority; and some admin areas are legally shared between councils. What we > have in the official sources (e.g. OS Boundary-Line) shows the geometry of > the areas, but it tells you nothing about the authority/ies "running" that > area. > > Hi, Colin. I'm British and I have no idea what you're talking about here. > Could you quote some examples that I could relate to? Sure Steve. The laws (often SIs) that create an "admin boundary" do exactly that - they define the boundary. In the case of counties and districts, which are created by primary legislation, it is defined that there must be a council. One of the embryonic council's first jobs is to decide on a name: are we called "X Borough Council" or "Borough of X" (assuming borough status) or something else? Think of Civil Parishes. There are many examples of Joint (or Group) Parish Councils which operate in N (>1) civil parishes as a single entity. The underlying parishes are what is defined in law, in terms of their boundaries, and the information that they share a council is not part of the definition of their boundaries. In Swale district, Sheldwich, Badlesmere and Leaveland Civil Parishes share a parish council. Not all defined Civil Parishes have a council. Some smaller (in terms of population) parishes make do with a Parish Meeting, in which essentially all the electors are "councillors". In Maidstone borough, the parish of Frinsted has only a Parish Meeting. There are a few examples of so-called "Lands Common" which are areas of land which officially belong to 2 or more Civil Parishes, and are therefore governed by multiple Parish Councils. The land concerned is usually sparsely populated, or unpopulated, and the councils find a way of working together when required. These are located in Devon, Yorkshire and County Durham. And of course, there are many "unparished areas" (often in urban areas) which do not fall within the boundary of a Civil Parish at all (e.g. Gravesend and Northfleet). Thinking bigger: The non-metropolitan county of Berkshire exists, although it does not have a council (the entire land area is divided up into Unitary Authorities). In theory this situation applies to e.g. Rutland and Herefordshire as well, but in this case the entire county has been "divided" into a single Unitary Authority (which also calls itself "Herefordshire County Council" / "Rutland County Council") so it is not so noticeable. Hence, looking at a single point and establishing which OSBL polygons contain it, does not tell you which councils have some role for that location. Does that help? Colin___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
On Mon, 17 Dec 2018 14:31:14 +0200 Tomas Straupis wrote: > 2018-12-17, pr, 11:00 Martin Koppenhoefer rašė: > > for admin boundaries there will often be at least 2 "true" document > > sources: one for each party / side. They are also often observable, > > at least punctually. > > I wonder, of those saying that it is a peace of cake to map country > boundaries by physically observing different things on the ground, how > many of them have actually practically MAPPED at least a tiny bit of > country borders (say 50km?). If so, maybe they can come forward and > tell everybody where exactly and how exactly they did that. The US-Canada border was already well-mapped by the time I got here, but somehow, I doubt I'd have any trouble mapping it from aerial imagery: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/US-Canada_border_at_Crawford_State_Park_20130629.jpg -- Mark ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
On 2018-12-17 23:16, Steve Doerr wrote: > On 17/12/2018 09:41, Colin Smale wrote: > >> One other thing: in the UK the boundaries of the area and the local >> authority running that area are two different things. A local authority can >> run a combination of adjacent admin areas; some admin areas are defined in >> law without there being a local authority; and some admin areas are legally >> shared between councils. What we have in the official sources (e.g. OS >> Boundary-Line) shows the geometry of the areas, but it tells you nothing >> about the authority/ies "running" that area. > > Hi, Colin. I'm British and I have no idea what you're talking about here. > Could you quote some examples that I could relate to? Sure Steve. The laws (often SIs) that create an "admin boundary" do exactly that - they define the boundary. In the case of counties and districts, which are created by primary legislation, it is defined that there must be a council. One of the embryonic council's first jobs is to decide on a name: are we called "X Borough Council" or "Borough of X" (assuming borough status) or something else? Think of Civil Parishes. There are many examples of Joint (or Group) Parish Councils which operate in N (>1) civil parishes as a single entity. The underlying parishes are what is defined in law, in terms of their boundaries, and the information that they share a council is not part of the definition of their boundaries. In Swale district, Sheldwich, Badlesmere and Leaveland Civil Parishes share a parish council. Not all defined Civil Parishes have a council. Some smaller (in terms of population) parishes make do with a Parish Meeting, in which essentially all the electors are "councillors". In Maidstone borough, the parish of Frinsted has only a Parish Meeting. There are a few examples of so-called "Lands Common" which are areas of land which officially belong to 2 or more Civil Parishes, and are therefore governed by multiple Parish Councils. The land concerned is usually sparsely populated, or unpopulated, and the councils find a way of working together when required. These are located in Devon, Yorkshire and County Durham. And of course, there are many "unparished areas" (often in urban areas) which do not fall within the boundary of a Civil Parish at all (e.g. Gravesend and Northfleet). Thinking bigger: The non-metropolitan county of Berkshire exists, although it does not have a council (the entire land area is divided up into Unitary Authorities). In theory this situation applies to e.g. Rutland and Herefordshire as well, but in this case the entire county has been "divided" into a single Unitary Authority (which also calls itself "Herefordshire County Council" / "Rutland County Council") so it is not so noticeable. Hence, looking at a single point and establishing which OSBL polygons contain it, does not tell you which councils have some role for that location. Does that help? Colin___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
On 17/12/2018 09:41, Colin Smale wrote: One other thing: in the UK the boundaries of the area and the local authority running that area are two different things. A local authority can run a combination of adjacent admin areas; some admin areas are defined in law without there being a local authority; and some admin areas are legally shared between councils. What we have in the official sources (e.g. OS Boundary-Line) shows the geometry of the areas, but it tells you nothing about the authority/ies "running" that area. Hi, Colin. I'm British and I have no idea what you're talking about here. Could you quote some examples that I could relate to? -- Steve --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
On 2018-12-17 14:14, Martin Koppenhoefer wrote: > sent from a phone > >> On 17. Dec 2018, at 13:31, Tomas Straupis wrote: >> >> Especially interesting and useful would be stories of how maritime >> boundaries or boundaries with no considerable obstructions built have >> been actually mapped by physical observation. > > as these are claims you can't observe them, you have to rely on the baseline > that the claiming country provides/defines and extend it by the buffer that > is claimed. Aren't these maritime boundaries deposited with the UN under UNCLOS[1]? Once that has been done, I would expect that it would be THAT version that is most definitive, and no longer the drafts etc. made by the claiming country. [1] http://www.un.org/Depts/los/LEGISLATIONANDTREATIES/index.htm___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
sent from a phone > On 17. Dec 2018, at 13:31, Tomas Straupis wrote: > > Especially interesting and useful would be stories of how maritime > boundaries or boundaries with no considerable obstructions built have > been actually mapped by physical observation. as these are claims you can’t observe them, you have to rely on the baseline that the claiming country provides/defines and extend it by the buffer that is claimed. Please notice there is a difference in saying mapping something is a piece of cake, and saying it is possible to punctually verify it on the ground. While it is probably not possible to survey all borders on all points, the opposite construct that it is never possible isn’t true either. Cheers, Martin ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
2018-12-17, pr, 11:00 Martin Koppenhoefer rašė: > for admin boundaries there will often be at least 2 "true" document > sources: one for each party / side. They are also often observable, > at least punctually. I wonder, of those saying that it is a peace of cake to map country boundaries by physically observing different things on the ground, how many of them have actually practically MAPPED at least a tiny bit of country borders (say 50km?). If so, maybe they can come forward and tell everybody where exactly and how exactly they did that. Especially interesting and useful would be stories of how maritime boundaries or boundaries with no considerable obstructions built have been actually mapped by physical observation. -- Tomas ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
Am Mo., 17. Dez. 2018 um 10:41 Uhr schrieb Colin Smale < colin.sm...@xs4all.nl>: > On 2018-12-17 09:57, Martin Koppenhoefer wrote: > > > > Am Sa., 15. Dez. 2018 um 16:09 Uhr schrieb Colin Smale < > colin.sm...@xs4all.nl>: > >> "without access to the same sources" ... what if there is only one source >> of truth? With these non-observable items like admin boundaries that is >> often the case. >> > > > for admin boundaries there will often be at least 2 "true" document > sources: one for each party / side. They are also often observable, at > least punctually. > > > Looking at the UK position, I have to disagree with you here. Definitive > admin boundaries are administered by a "higher level". The two parties to a > common boundary do not have the authority to define the boundary > unilaterally. > It will depend on the jurisdiction, agreed. I don't know how globally the majority situation is, but having disputes of municipalities about their common border is definitely not something completely unheard of, e.g. here an example from Switzerland: https://www.rr.be.ch/etc/designs/gr/media.cdwsbinary.RRDOKUMENTE.acq/cf8d94f08bbb4e268658792ba1068cbf-332/3/PDF/2018.RRGR.581-RRB_gescannt-DF-173681.pdf Cheers, Martin ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
On 2018-12-17 09:57, Martin Koppenhoefer wrote: > Am Sa., 15. Dez. 2018 um 16:09 Uhr schrieb Colin Smale > : > >> "without access to the same sources" ... what if there is only one source of >> truth? With these non-observable items like admin boundaries that is often >> the case. > > for admin boundaries there will often be at least 2 "true" document sources: > one for each party / side. They are also often observable, at least > punctually. Looking at the UK position, I have to disagree with you here. Definitive admin boundaries are administered by a "higher level". The two parties to a common boundary do not have the authority to define the boundary unilaterally. The "higher level" will tell them where there boundaries are. Both parties refer to a single legal document (primary or secondary legislation). So there is only one true source, but a variety of way of getting there. You could ask each party for their understanding of where the boundary is, but they don't own that information, they inherit it. They should both point you at the same Statutory Instrument. There are legal processes for making changes to boundaries, which sometimes have to be managed and/or reviewed by the LGBCE (Local government boundary commission for England) or equivalent bodies in the other nations. The result of the consulation process is a recommendation to "change the law" which, on coming into force, becomes binding on the parties named in the Statutory Instrument. One other thing: in the UK the boundaries of the area and the local authority running that area are two different things. A local authority can run a combination of adjacent admin areas; some admin areas are defined in law without there being a local authority; and some admin areas are legally shared between councils. What we have in the official sources (e.g. OS Boundary-Line) shows the geometry of the areas, but it tells you nothing about the authority/ies "running" that area.___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
Am Sa., 15. Dez. 2018 um 16:09 Uhr schrieb Colin Smale < colin.sm...@xs4all.nl>: > "without access to the same sources" ... what if there is only one source > of truth? With these non-observable items like admin boundaries that is > often the case. > for admin boundaries there will often be at least 2 "true" document sources: one for each party / side. They are also often observable, at least punctually. Cheers, Martin ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
On Saturday 15 December 2018, Colin Smale wrote: > "without access to the same sources" ... what if there is only one > source of truth? With these non-observable items like admin > boundaries that is often the case. Does "independent verifiability" > now mean that there must be at least two sources that agree before > this criterion is fulfilled? What qualifies as a source, anyway? If > two people look at the same tree, is that one source or two? Such > observations are always ephemeral anyway. Independent verifiability means exactly what it says - that anyone needs to be able to independently verify if a statement is true or false based on observations of the geographic reality. If you think about it in terms of sources you are either on a completely wrong track in terms of understanding the fundamental concept of verifiability or you are specifically thinking about things outside the domain of verifiable statements. Verifiability of administrative boundaries varies but most national (admin_level=2) land boundaries are verifiable. > The link to your blog was useful, thanks. I will read through it all > later, but my immediate reaction was that it is not a good idea to > have parallel fora, especially when discussing something as > fundamental as this. Either we do it here on the ML, or on your blog > post, or on the OSM wiki; but please, not in three places at once. The blog post was written before this discussion started here. I included the link to not unecessarily have to repeat myself in the discussion. -- Christoph Hormann http://www.imagico.de/ ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
"without access to the same sources" ... what if there is only one source of truth? With these non-observable items like admin boundaries that is often the case. Does "independent verifiability" now mean that there must be at least two sources that agree before this criterion is fulfilled? What qualifies as a source, anyway? If two people look at the same tree, is that one source or two? Such observations are always ephemeral anyway. The link to your blog was useful, thanks. I will read through it all later, but my immediate reaction was that it is not a good idea to have parallel fora, especially when discussing something as fundamental as this. Either we do it here on the ML, or on your blog post, or on the OSM wiki; but please, not in three places at once. On 2018-12-15 15:24, Christoph Hormann wrote: > On Saturday 15 December 2018, Colin Smale wrote: > >> Please choose your words more carefully. Sounds like [...] > > I meant exactly what i wrote here. > > For more details: > > https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Verifiability > http://blog.imagico.de/verifiability-and-the-wikipediarization-of-openstreetmap/___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
On Saturday 15 December 2018, Colin Smale wrote: > Please choose your words more carefully. Sounds like [...] I meant exactly what i wrote here. For more details: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Verifiability http://blog.imagico.de/verifiability-and-the-wikipediarization-of-openstreetmap/ -- Christoph Hormann http://www.imagico.de/ ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
Please choose your words more carefully. Sounds like you are suggesting that everything needs to be dual sourced now. This kind of fundamental principle needs to be expressed with the same degree of care as a law, so it should be as simple as possible (but no simpler) and unambiguous. On 15 December 2018 14:53:31 CET, Christoph Hormann wrote: >On Saturday 15 December 2018, Colin Smale wrote: >> > The whole point of the "verifiability" and "ground truth" >> > principles is so as _not_ to have to rely on documents. >> >> First time I have heard that as a (documented) rationale behind >> "ground truth". > >Independent verifiability, i.e. that you can verify statements through >independent observation without access to the same sources is and has >always been the core of verifiability in OSM. > >-- >Christoph Hormann >http://www.imagico.de/ > >___ >talk mailing list >talk@openstreetmap.org >https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
On Saturday 15 December 2018, Colin Smale wrote: > > The whole point of the "verifiability" and "ground truth" > > principles is so as _not_ to have to rely on documents. > > First time I have heard that as a (documented) rationale behind > "ground truth". Independent verifiability, i.e. that you can verify statements through independent observation without access to the same sources is and has always been the core of verifiability in OSM. -- Christoph Hormann http://www.imagico.de/ ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
Le sam. 15 déc. 2018 à 14:04, Colin Smale a écrit : > First time I have heard that as a (documented) rationale behind "ground > truth". > > Surely the stronger requirement is public verifiability, from a freely > accessible, objectively reliable source. What is physically present in situ > is a subset of that - but so are public records. This would make the > mapping objective, in the sense that a random second mapper would be able > to verify the correctness of the data and/or come to the same conclusion. > +1 In France underground power lines maps are publicly available (and it should be a standard practice, INSPIRE from EU encourage it) https://opendata.reseaux-energies.fr/explore/dataset/lignes-souterraines-rte/map/?disjunctive.etat=13,47.2096,-1.51929=f91575 Most of them aren't visible from the surface, sometimes you have red markers and that's all. Nevertheless it's useful to add them (with careful integration as to not interfer with roads or something not related to) in OSM and there are no issue with verifiability since the operator gives many information https://openinframap.org/#13.22/48.85796/2.41832 All the best François ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
On 2018-12-15 12:54, Andy Townsend wrote: > The whole point of the "verifiability" and "ground truth" principles is so as > _not_ to have to rely on documents. First time I have heard that as a (documented) rationale behind "ground truth". Surely the stronger requirement is public verifiability, from a freely accessible, objectively reliable source. What is physically present in situ is a subset of that - but so are public records. This would make the mapping objective, in the sense that a random second mapper would be able to verify the correctness of the data and/or come to the same conclusion.___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
2018-12-15, št, 13:57 Andy Townsend rašė: > If I want to find the border > between Ireland and Northern Ireland, for example, I might not (yet) > find anything stopping me driving through but I will see something along > the lines of "speed limits now in mph" or the reverse. And then the borderline in OSM will be drawn by simply connecting those scarce points on the roads with straight lines? > The fact that we can't get some boundaries from an on the ground survey > doesn't mean that we have to rely on "documents" for all of them, and > for a good reason - "documents" often contradict each other, even from > the same organisation. If you find an error in "documents" - why don't you inform the owner of the document so that they could fix the error (and maybe fix data in OSM until official document is fixed)? My opinion is that OpenStreetMap should COLLABORATE, not ISOLATE itself. Collaboration does NOT mean OSM will become just a fusion of data from different official documents. The fact that there are some errors in official documents means that we want to resort to guesswork and extremely simplified geometry for ALL non-physical objects? How many border vertexes are actually mapped by observing physical reflections in OpenStreetMap? 0,1% or less? And if I was to use an "ad absurdum" argument type: a lot is mapped by using so called "satellite imagery", which is not a photography, but a number of them processed and merged to produce an "Orthophotographic MAP" which is a DOCUMENT. Where will it lead us to? To methods of ~2006 when in order to map a building we had to walk around the building with GPSR (with some distance in order to minimise building obstruction to GPS signal), then measure the building and use that information to map ONE building? And note, building is a physical object which can be observed directly, but is quite difficult to measure with tools most mappers have... (Note: the point of ad absurdum argument in discussion is to point out flaws in initial statement, not to ridicule, so please do not take is as an offence) -- Tomas ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
On 13/12/2018 10:40, Tomas Straupis wrote: What is "ground" in this term for non physical objects: 1. Physical place which could have some traces of an actual object. 2. Ground where non-physical objects actually live - documents. The whole point of the "verifiability" and "ground truth" principles is so as _not_ to have to rely on documents. If I want to find the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, for example, I might not (yet) find anything stopping me driving through but I will see something along the lines of "speed limits now in mph" or the reverse. Reliance on non-physical objects is only necessary where you really can't see something on the ground (such as the border between lower and upper Rossnowlagh at https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=13/54.5702/-8.2369 ). The fact that we can't get some boundaries from an on the ground survey doesn't mean that we have to rely on "documents" for all of them, and for a good reason - "documents" often contradict each other, even from the same organisation. Best Regards, Andy ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
sent from a phone > On 13. Dec 2018, at 11:40, Tomas Straupis wrote: > > > I was never for indiscriminate, automated imports without manual > checks. Accepting documents as source does not necessary mean allowing > such imports. When doing manual checks you can find (and we DO find) > errors in official documents. Then OpenStreetMap gets correct data, > not official version. > > I'm also not saying to remove the ground truth rule as such. I'm > only saying that the term "ground truth" in the context of > non-physical objects must be clarified because currently it is being > interpreted in a lot of different ways. I would not exclude documents as source for mapping, e.g. you could copy information from a company website, but I would value ground truth higher if there are contradictions. You shouldn’t probably change some existing information based solely on remote research. We even have established specific tags for these, e.g. „official_name“ for a legal name vs. name for the most suitable/common name. Recently we have been discussing an import of housenumbers in Italy and some people were advocating the removal of housenumbers that the city has suspended, while I was advocating to do this only after a ground survey and having confirmed that the sign has been physically removed (=almost never). Imagine someone standing in front of a housenumber telling her position on the phone, it doesn’t matter if the city thinks it is a valid address, it still serves its purpose, and the person seeing the number will not be able to see whether that number is „valid“ or not. Cheers, Martin ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
2018-12-12, tr, 15:47 Andy Townsend rašė: > If you're looking for a project that essentially mirrors "official" data > without actually checking that its valid then OpenStreetMap might not be > the project for you. I was never for indiscriminate, automated imports without manual checks. Accepting documents as source does not necessary mean allowing such imports. When doing manual checks you can find (and we DO find) errors in official documents. Then OpenStreetMap gets correct data, not official version. I'm also not saying to remove the ground truth rule as such. I'm only saying that the term "ground truth" in the context of non-physical objects must be clarified because currently it is being interpreted in a lot of different ways. What is "ground" in this term for non physical objects: 1. Physical place which could have some traces of an actual object. 2. Ground where non-physical objects actually live - documents. > the general view, which I think we can see from the balance of the posts > in this thread, is that most people back the "on the ground" principle - > if there's a housename that looks like looks like a house name, it's a > house name, even if it's not in an "official" list. Balance of posts could mean one of these: 1. You're right and majority is against usage of documents as sources for non-physical objects. 2. People just do not see it possible to change your interpretation or do not see the point in this discussion at all and simply continue doing what they have been doing. But even if we would be able to vote, count, elect here in talk mailing list, what authority would that have? In my opinion - close to none. As in most open source/data projects people "vote" with their actions. In this case by creating data in the OpenStreetMap database. And most non-physical data today does not come from physical observation. -- Tomas ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
Am Mi., 12. Dez. 2018 um 16:36 Uhr schrieb Florian Lohoff : > I know that because i have caused ~100 residents to > get new id cards because they all had a wrong street name in their ID. This would merit a diary entry ;-) Cheers, Martin ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
Hi, On 12/12/18 6:15 PM, Richard Fairhurst wrote: > Sure, in the UK, you could do that and I know people who have done so. If > you invent a street name here in Charlbury and then post a letter to it, > Carla the post-lady will ask around until she finds out where the street is > (or until she sees the sign you've erected), and then she'll deliver you the > letter. A working postcode will speed the process up but isn't absolutely > necessary. And then it will go into OSM, and all the firefighters use OSM nowadays anyway because their official maps are outdated. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
Hi, I would not be surprised if this was more of a rural/urban divide than a country divide. We had run a building for 15 years without an official address here in Germany, Wuppertal (has more than 350k inhabitants): https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/190295244 To cut the story short: It had been a former signal box, and as such it had been under federal control. The local government simply had not even been allowed to assign an official address, because the land parcel had been exempt from its administration. We've got utility supply, received post and had a phone landline. All to the never-offical address. The local council did naturalize the address once they were allowed to because the designation of the railway line's land changed. Similar cases can stem from: - other laws interfering - pending court trials - boundaries across the premises - human error - internal technical requirements (Florian Lohoff's example) - historical reasons - acccumulating update delays and probably more. On another premises, the garbage collection address has been distinct from the signposted address, because the house had been located on a street corner and the utility had a meaningful idea where the trash collection did least degradation to general traffic. The different address meant a different collection schedule. I'm pretty confident that similar cases exist in Cologne (more than 1M inhabitants) and Berlin (more than 5M inhabitants). I would be surprised not to find them all over the world. For other types of data, I remeber at least three larger issues where the flow of information is reversed: the owing entity deemed its data so unreliable that they re-surveyed the data in OSM and copied it back to their database. Best regards, Roland ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
2018-12-12, tr 19:18 Richard Fairhurst rašė: > Tomas Straupis wrote: > > Ad absurdum argument: can you invent your own street name or even > > placename and expect post, police, ambulance, firefighters, taxi to > > arrive (on time or at all)? > > Sure, in the UK, you could do that and I know people who have done so. If > you invent a street name here in Charlbury and then post a letter to it, > Carla the post-lady will ask around until she finds out where the street is > (or until she sees the sign you've erected), and then she'll deliver you > the > letter. A working postcode will speed the process up but isn't absolutely > necessary. > Cool. We live in a stone age down here in Lithuania. I cannot ask pizza guy to deliver me beer to Ipaville, Humulupulus street number "-42 babalas". (For some Afrikaans taste) And still... this proves my point of multiple non agreeable subjective opinions with inconsistent final result and extremely unnecessary hard means of collecting information. In environment, where absolute majority of info about non physical objects is collected by using official documents... Say this, do that... > ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
I would not be surprised if this was more of a rural/urban divide than a country divide. I cannot imagine that I could put a name on my house and then address a letter to that new name and city and ever expect it to get there. (I have a hard time imagining this would work in Berlin or London either, but if you have tested it then I would believe you.) But if I lived in a town of 1000 people, yeah, I'd believe they'd figure it out, and over time just accept the name of the house even though it's not in any official record, since there are still towns in the US where most buildings don't have street addresses. Best, Kathleen On Wed, Dec 12, 2018 at 9:17 AM Richard Fairhurst wrote: > Tomas Straupis wrote: > > Ad absurdum argument: can you invent your own street name or even > > placename and expect post, police, ambulance, firefighters, taxi to > > arrive (on time or at all)? > > Sure, in the UK, you could do that and I know people who have done so. If > you invent a street name here in Charlbury and then post a letter to it, > Carla the post-lady will ask around until she finds out where the street is > (or until she sees the sign you've erected), and then she'll deliver you > the > letter. A working postcode will speed the process up but isn't absolutely > necessary. > > Richard > > > > -- > Sent from: http://gis.19327.n8.nabble.com/General-Discussion-f5171242.html > > ___ > talk mailing list > talk@openstreetmap.org > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk > ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
Tomas Straupis wrote: > Ad absurdum argument: can you invent your own street name or even > placename and expect post, police, ambulance, firefighters, taxi to > arrive (on time or at all)? Sure, in the UK, you could do that and I know people who have done so. If you invent a street name here in Charlbury and then post a letter to it, Carla the post-lady will ask around until she finds out where the street is (or until she sees the sign you've erected), and then she'll deliver you the letter. A working postcode will speed the process up but isn't absolutely necessary. Richard -- Sent from: http://gis.19327.n8.nabble.com/General-Discussion-f5171242.html ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
Ad absurdum argument: can you invent your own street name or even placename and expect post, police, ambulance, firefighters, taxi to arrive (on time or at all)? Thank you for example anyway, I would have never ever believed such a thing could be true in GERMANY. (No sarcasm) in post soviet countries like Lithuania still cleaning the sh - maybe, but not Germany. We're banging heads of officials when we find address of place X outside of X admin limits. And only OSM can identify that and thus improve official data. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
Germany is not the "whole world". If you have multiple datasets for addresses then you have to decide, and physical check could be the solution for your country because of registry collision, whatever German community decides. In Lithuania there is one and only one official source for ANY official dataset. Process, owner and access is approved by law. With all due respect to Germany and ordnung, why a country with strict and not conflicting data should be bound to vague solution because of some other country which does not have such a solution? ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
On Wed, Dec 12, 2018 at 03:05:06PM +0200, Tomas Straupis wrote: > Discussions about mapping invented addresses shows exactly what I > wanted to say: we get drowned in endless pointless > counter-counter-examples of counter-examples. Rules would have to be > invented for addresses separately, and then separately for each > country or even more detailed. We once again get to the same old > example of reflections/shadows in the end of the cave. I think you are down the wrong path. There is no such thing as an invented address. Either it is an address somebody with enough knowledge of the addressing scheme is able to find or not. In the western hemisphere we have had addressing for like ages and we have regulations which make the state and their bodys the source of the official addresses. Nevertheless it is pretty common even in Germany to put up a 10a 10b 10c on your shed, barn or garage. These addresses while not been issued by an official body end up in all the other address sets. You will even be able to get them into your national id card because the "Meldewesen" (State body for registering residents) is not linked to the "Katasteramt" (Geo body on the county level issueing addresses). I know that because i have caused ~100 residents to get new id cards because they all had a wrong street name in their ID. I have been working for some years with addresses from Deutsche Telekom and they differ from the state issued addresses by approx. ~5%. Telekom itself "invents" addresses for difficult to describe locations etc, lists your barn as 10b etc. They do so because there might be no official address, residents describe the location with that address, or they simply need to describe the location they put up a connection. So there is no such thing as an invented address. An address is something people will be able to find with knowledge about the addresses scheme. At least in Germany we might have 95% of the addresses beeing officially issued but the other 5% of addresses in use are unknown to the "Katasteramt" because people use the addressing scheme to put up new Housenumbers whenever they see fit. You will not find 2 address datasets without a significant difference. The question now is - What is Openstreetmap? Are we a copy of one of the datasets? Of which one? Are we trying to merge datasets? Are we having rules what to add? At least in some German "Bundesländer" we have had access to state issued address information and we used it to add a signifikant amount of addresses into OSM. Then we added stuff we observed on the ground which we did not initially get from the "Landesvermessungsamt". Do we now have a better or worse dataset? IMHO we have a much better dataset because we are able to geocode stuff people expect to be addressable which official bodys cant address/geocode. Official address datasets are as incomplete, broken, buggy as all other datasets. There is no such thing as the one and only truth. Flo -- Florian Lohoff f...@zz.de UTF-8 Test: The ran after a , but the ran away signature.asc Description: PGP signature ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
Discussions about mapping invented addresses shows exactly what I wanted to say: we get drowned in endless pointless counter-counter-examples of counter-examples. Rules would have to be invented for addresses separately, and then separately for each country or even more detailed. We once again get to the same old example of reflections/shadows in the end of the cave. Vilnius is not a large city, with 0,5M population it has only ~60K addresses. Still EACH week ~50-100 addresses change (changes, additions, deletions). I do not imagine how would it be possible to capture all that "on the ground" without an army of mappers devoted specifically to this very boring and uninteresting but useful class - addresses. Correct me if I'm wrong, but regions (larger than 1 square km) with best (accurate and up to date) address coverage are the ones which use official address registries. P.S. I agree that when there is no open official source, physical observation is the only thing we have. -- Tomas ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
Mail will not arrive there as mail will be stopped in post-office because of incorrect (not existing) address. Nope - Try it yourself. If you live in Examplestreet 10 and you start sending yourself postcards with Examplestreet 10a they'll reach you. Post offices often have a good time trying to decipher incorrect addresses. Sometimes they even decipher a map [1] - other times they get a name, town and country and go from there - playing detective can be fun. [1] http://skessuhorn.is/2016/05/20/frumleg-aritun-sendibrefs-en-dugdi-tho/ ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
On Tue, Dec 11, 2018 at 01:38:37PM +0200, Tomas Straupis wrote: > 2018-12-11, an, 13:27 Jochen Topf rašė: > > It seems you haven't understood the on-the-ground rule 5 years ago and > > you still haven't. For all intents and purposes there is such an > > address. Mail will arrive there, people can find the house when looking > > for it. > > Mail will not arrive there as mail will be stopped in post-office > because of incorrect (not existing) address. Nope - Try it yourself. If you live in Examplestreet 10 and you start sending yourself postcards with Examplestreet 10a they'll reach you. Deutsche Post has its complete own address record set than the State and if Examplestreet 1-100 go into a certain post delivery district any of those addresses, existant or not will be on the Desk of the right guy to take your postcard. Otherwise it'll take 2 years for new construction areas to be able to receive post - It works from day 1. It may take a day longer on the first occurance of an address - but it works. I used this for a couple years to taint address databases so i could track who actually leaked the address to mail spam companies. Flo -- Florian Lohoff f...@zz.de UTF-8 Test: The ran after a , but the ran away signature.asc Description: PGP signature ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
On Tue, Dec 11, 2018 at 01:08:35PM +0200, Tomas Straupis wrote: > This is a very good example of possibly misleading reflection. > What if a driver is stopping in unofficial position somewhere > outside of large city to let local people he knows out/in even when > there is no official stop? > What if a national park had a small sign in the forest track and the > sign was not moved when national park boundaries have moved? > I had an actual situation 5 or so years ago when an address was > mapped in Vilnius. Address does not exist in official records. The > user sent me a picture of this house number. I contacted municipality > ant they explained that the sign is not an official one, it means > nothing, there is no such address. There is no such address in municipal records. Does not mean a lot in 95% of the World. In the other 5% of the World it means someone is using an inofficial address. Still it works. So we document its existance by mapping it. We are not a replica of some other dataset which is as error prone as ours. Flo -- Florian Lohoff f...@zz.de UTF-8 Test: The ran after a , but the ran away signature.asc Description: PGP signature ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
On 11/12/2018 16:49, Jmapb wrote: On 12/11/2018 9:41 AM, Rory McCann wrote: On 11/12/2018 12:38, Tomas Straupis wrote: If someone puts a label "Military academy" on their house, would we map it as an actual military academy? No, but you would put "addr:housename=Military academy". Sidebar, according to my reading of the address tagging standards, one should only tag addr:housename=* when it's an official (or at least de facto) part of the postal address. It's not for people who just decide their house has a name and write that name on a sign -- though you can use name=* for that. J If you put a sign on your house and use that to direct people, and the postal worker delivers you post, then it is de facto the name. In Ireland house names, as opposed to numbers, are very common in rural areas. There is no official registry. On 11/12/2018 16:03, Tomas Straupis wrote:> 2018-12-11, an, 16:41 Rory McCann rašė: >> No, but you would put "addr:housename=Military academy". > >Well IF you know it is not actually a Military academy. But if > you're not allowed to enter it would be difficult to say. Use your head. Does it look like a military academy? Or someone's house. Do you see military students coming in and out. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
On 12/11/2018 9:41 AM, Rory McCann wrote: On 11/12/2018 12:38, Tomas Straupis wrote: If someone puts a label "Military academy" on their house, would we map it as an actual military academy? No, but you would put "addr:housename=Military academy". Sidebar, according to my reading of the address tagging standards, one should only tag addr:housename=* when it's an official (or at least de facto) part of the postal address. It's not for people who just decide their house has a name and write that name on a sign -- though you can use name=* for that. J ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
2018-12-11, an, 16:41 Rory McCann rašė: > On 11/12/2018 12:38, Tomas Straupis wrote: >>If someone puts a label "Military academy" on their house, would we >> map it as an actual military academy? > > No, but you would put "addr:housename=Military academy". Well IF you know it is not actually a Military academy. But if you're not allowed to enter it would be difficult to say. Take any different example, say banner says "Ministry of silly walks", how would it be possible to decide if it is a real ministry or not (if you're not allowed to enter) and decide if it is housename or office=government without looking into official documents? Also following the same logic, number "3A" in my example could go to addr:housename, but not addr:housenumber ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
On 11/12/2018 12:38, Tomas Straupis wrote: If someone puts a label "Military academy" on their house, would we map it as an actual military academy? No, but you would put "addr:housename=Military academy". Sometimes governments won't put actual military installations on "official maps", but you're free to map it as such if it's there on-the-ground. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
I think, the problem that rule says "on-the-ground" and if it doesn't mean on-the-ground and people *cannot find it, * for example there is no sign at all like houses missing the number plate or abandonned houses or forest / national park divisions. Indeed, mail address is one of the possibility to check but they are not consistent. Sending 2 emails to correct-like address could give contradicting results easily because they are human processed. There is no need to discredit the rule, especially where it couldn't applied, there is a need to enhance the rule for a non-physical objects which are mostly driven by documents. And OSM was always fine to accept these imports driven by municipality documents. On Tue, 11 Dec 2018 at 12:28, Jochen Topf wrote: > On Tue, Dec 11, 2018 at 01:08:35PM +0200, Tomas Straupis wrote: > > I had an actual situation 5 or so years ago when an address was > > mapped in Vilnius. Address does not exist in official records. The > > user sent me a picture of this house number. I contacted municipality > > ant they explained that the sign is not an official one, it means > > nothing, there is no such address. > > It seems you haven't understood the on-the-ground rule 5 years ago and > you still haven't. For all intents and purposes there is such an > address. Mail will arrive there, people can find the house when looking > for it. It doesn't matter what the official record says. It doesn't > matter whether the address should be there or not according to some > authority. The address is there and it should be mapped that way. That > is what on-the-ground rule means. It works in practice. It works well. > And, yes, there are always corner cases. But that's no reason to > discredit the rule. > > Jochen > -- > Jochen Topf joc...@remote.org https://www.jochentopf.com/ > +49-351-31778688 > > ___ > talk mailing list > talk@openstreetmap.org > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk > ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
2018-12-11, an, 13:27 Jochen Topf rašė: > It seems you haven't understood the on-the-ground rule 5 years ago and > you still haven't. For all intents and purposes there is such an > address. Mail will arrive there, people can find the house when looking > for it. Mail will not arrive there as mail will be stopped in post-office because of incorrect (not existing) address. People will not find such address in any IT solution. Such "address" is the same as "the red house on the corner with small pool in front of it". If someone puts a label "Military academy" on their house, would we map it as an actual military academy? This whole topic is to clear up what "ground rule" actually means for non-physical objects. But so far I'm not successful in avoiding getting drowned in questionable micro-examples with subjective explanations. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
On Tue, Dec 11, 2018 at 01:08:35PM +0200, Tomas Straupis wrote: > I had an actual situation 5 or so years ago when an address was > mapped in Vilnius. Address does not exist in official records. The > user sent me a picture of this house number. I contacted municipality > ant they explained that the sign is not an official one, it means > nothing, there is no such address. It seems you haven't understood the on-the-ground rule 5 years ago and you still haven't. For all intents and purposes there is such an address. Mail will arrive there, people can find the house when looking for it. It doesn't matter what the official record says. It doesn't matter whether the address should be there or not according to some authority. The address is there and it should be mapped that way. That is what on-the-ground rule means. It works in practice. It works well. And, yes, there are always corner cases. But that's no reason to discredit the rule. Jochen -- Jochen Topf joc...@remote.org https://www.jochentopf.com/ +49-351-31778688 ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
> Note i have explained to Tomas in length the meaning of the concept of > verifiability for not directly physically manifested statements in > > http://blog.imagico.de/verifiability-and-the-wikipediarization-of-openstreetmap/#comments > > Using the example of a bus stop without signs or shelter i wrote: > > > A bus stop, even one without a sign or shelter, can be verified by > > observing that a bus regularly stops at the location. There is > > nothing in the concept of independent verifiability that limits its > > application to physical objects. This is a very good example of possibly misleading reflection. What if a driver is stopping in unofficial position somewhere outside of large city to let local people he knows out/in even when there is no official stop? What if a national park had a small sign in the forest track and the sign was not moved when national park boundaries have moved? I had an actual situation 5 or so years ago when an address was mapped in Vilnius. Address does not exist in official records. The user sent me a picture of this house number. I contacted municipality ant they explained that the sign is not an official one, it means nothing, there is no such address. You can think of a gazillion of such examples and analysing them (in my personal opinion) would lead to pointless endless discussions. The simpler the rules - the better? And in general. While it could be interesting to become some kind of detectives and follow the leads, use deduction to calculate the properties of non-physical object. Does it have to be mandatory/primary way when there is a simpler and more correct way? Isn't there enough of physical objects (or non-physical without open/accessible/official documents) to observe, verify and map? -- Tomas ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
2018-12-11, an, 12:06 Frederik Ramm rašė: > Non-physical (non-observable) things should definitely be the exception > in OSM, and it is my opinion that each class of non-physical things we > add needs a very good reason for adding them. I agree, but that is a different question. My suggestion is to discuss this later as a separate topic so that initial question of "what ground truth means" would not be buried. We could later have either (preferably) a criteria, or (if criteria is not possible) simply a table listing acceptable or not acceptable non-physical objects in the database. > Also, I think you are too fast in discounting the verifiability of > boundaries. Even in the absence of actual marked lines, fences, or > walls, you will often find the "reflections" that you speak of if you > look a bit closer: Which government do I pay my taxes to? Which police > department is responsible for my area? Which local authority do I get my > food stamps from, whatever. Well, the first thing is to decide if boundaries as non-physical objects originate in documents, or physical observation and which one we use. Mixing those is what is introducing subjectivity and thus different interpretation and problems. Then we can decide on priorities (if required at all). For example for all boundaries (except country boundaries) there is a clear candidate - local authority (government for administration division to states, counties, cities, suburbs etc.), same local authority or some national park administration whoever is deciding on official boundaries of national/regional parks, protected areas etc. I cannot think of an example, where some important object worth being in OpenStreetMap database would not have a single authority deciding on its geometry. And this could work with country border only if we accept the possibility of overlapping borders (which sometimes do exist even without conflicts between countries). Tax, police does not look like a firm criteria because: 1. You would need some documents to verify that anyway? 2. Tax/police regions do not necessarily correspond to administrative divisions and they could differ/overlap. Note that while it is relatively easy to spot a missing non-physical object and then add it, it is much harder to notice a change of it. If we would agree on using official documents it would allow to do such checking by local community regularly (which does not necessarily mean updating the data automatically by import, this could simply raise a flag "please check here"). This is what is done in "some" countries currently with ALL sides getting benefit and thus being a very good selling point for OSM and now it is very disturbing to find it is "against the old standing rules" :-) -- Tomas ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
On Tuesday 11 December 2018, Frederik Ramm wrote: > > Also, I think you are too fast in discounting the verifiability of > boundaries. Even in the absence of actual marked lines, fences, or > walls, you will often find the "reflections" that you speak of if you > look a bit closer: Which government do I pay my taxes to? Which > police department is responsible for my area? Which local authority > do I get my food stamps from, whatever. Indeed. Note i have explained to Tomas in length the meaning of the concept of verifiability for not directly physically manifested statements in http://blog.imagico.de/verifiability-and-the-wikipediarization-of-openstreetmap/#comments Using the example of a bus stop without signs or shelter i wrote: > A bus stop, even one without a sign or shelter, can be verified by > observing that a bus regularly stops at the location. There is > nothing in the concept of independent verifiability that limits its > application to physical objects. > > Ultimately most verifiable cultural geography features are related to > human activities and can be verified by either observing these human > activities themselves or physical effects of these activities. -- Christoph Hormann http://www.imagico.de/ ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
Hi, On 11.12.2018 10:37, Tomas Straupis wrote: > 1. Non-physical objects are mapped by observing/verifying their > REFLECTION in physical world. ... > Opinion 1 would mean that we should remove all(most?) non-physical > objects: country, state, county, city, suburb, national/regional park > boundaries (and a lot more) as most of that is unobservable on the > ground and sometimes reflection of small part of them on the ground is > misleading/outdated. I think that we should not have a "fundamental" approach here but one of pragmatism. Non-physical (non-observable) things should definitely be the exception in OSM, and it is my opinion that each class of non-physical things we add needs a very good reason for adding them. For example, certain historic facts are very well documented, sometimes even by old maps or photographs, but we don't want them in OSM if they are not visible on the ground any more. I think that this is the right approach, and we normally don't want things that are not visible on the ground. We are making an exception, though, for some types of boundaries because we think they are important enough to warrant this exception. Not only important for map users, but also for the mapping process itself - for example, boundaries could be important for our own statistics or for knowing whether or not you are even allowed to go somewhere. "Let's delete all boundaries" would certainly be an overreaction; "let's require a very good reason for boundaries to have them in OSM" is better. But "let's map things according to documents" is IMHO worse, and you haven't even touched on the question of authority (whose documents do you believe). You are right in saying that most current boundaries in OSM are actually copied from documents, but we only do that where everyone agrees that the documents actually depict the situation on the ground. As soon as they are out of touch with the situation, we won't consider documents a useful source any more. Also, I think you are too fast in discounting the verifiability of boundaries. Even in the absence of actual marked lines, fences, or walls, you will often find the "reflections" that you speak of if you look a bit closer: Which government do I pay my taxes to? Which police department is responsible for my area? Which local authority do I get my food stamps from, whatever. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
[OSM-talk] Ground truth for non-physical objects
Hello I think we should settle the question of how "ground truth" or "verifiability" applies to NON-PHYSICAL objects (it is clear with physical objects). Because currently I see at least two opinions: 1. Non-physical objects are mapped by observing/verifying their REFLECTION in physical world. 2. Non-physical objects are mapped by observing/verifying them DIRECTLY where they originate and live - in non-physical world - ~documents. It is very demotivating to hear the argument that "opinion X is your personal opinion, but (my) opinion Y is how OpenStreetMap works" without any evidence. Especially by people with not too much actual mapping/usage experience (say < 10 objects done, no application/map created etc.). And without thinking about the impact of it. Opinion 1 would mean that we should remove all(most?) non-physical objects: country, state, county, city, suburb, national/regional park boundaries (and a lot more) as most of that is unobservable on the ground and sometimes reflection of small part of them on the ground is misleading/outdated. Opinion 2 would mean that objects are mapped according to originating documents. De facto situation is that almost all non-physical objects are currently mapped according to documents. Which opinion is chosen has a huge impact on both participation and usage of OpenStreetMap. Decision would be able to remove this burden from OSMF which by definition should not be deciding on such matters. P.S. Wiki while not being authoritative talks about PHYSICAL objects. P.P.S. Let's skip non-physical attributes for the beginning. -- Tomas ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
