Over the last few months user 'country_wide' has been systematically
adding branches of estate agents as well as adding data to already
mapped ones. Following recent communication I have confirmed that this
is an official account for Countrywide PLC who own these branches.
I have been mildly concerned by some of their changes to my ground
surveyed edits. Specifically:
1. The word 'lettings' was added to several branch names despite the
fact it doesn't appear on the signs displayed outside. Also, the ones I
have checked are not primarily letting agents. These changes have now
been reserved as far as I can see.
2. Deleting building tags or changing building=shop/retail/office to
building=yes. A minor matter, but still problematic when done
systematically.
3. An incident where a branch was added at a location that closed a year
or two ago. I then corrected this following a ground survey, but it has
since been put back at the wrong location despite me appropriately
tagging the now vacant shop at the old location.
Questions:
1. Is there an official policy regarding systematic edits of this sort?
- i.e. companies who wish to add all their own shops/offices/etc.
2. Could these edits be considered an import? In this case hundreds of
branches have been added over several months in separate changesets.
My view is that such data should be welcome and encouraged if things are
done in the right way, but there should be as much transparency as
possible. I think OSM accounts operated by commercial bodies should make
this clear. Also, they should not be absolved from treating existing
ground surveyed data with care.
Has this already been discussed elsewhere?
Cheers,
Will (will_p)
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