On 08/07/2017 12:32, OSM Volunteer stevea wrote:
Kind of long and complex ahead; apologies in advance for the length.
I've been documenting our
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/United_States_admin_level wiki over much of
the last year with careful research on how US states and territories carve
themselves up into administrative subdivisions. My thrust has been how states
actually do this via their state constitutions, state legislation, real-world
practice and in some cases on-the-ground signage (e.g. city limit or township
boundary signs). Research indicates minor differences in the way that the US
Census bureau does something quite similar, and as noted in that wiki, OSM
largely aligns, but there are minor exceptions (e.g. census boundaries in
Alaska may be valuable enough to keep, but let's not call them administrative
boundaries, they are not, but it's OK if the Census Bureau does so if we note
that minor difference and tag in a way we discuss and document).
Whether those results (that wiki and its necessarily complex table and Notes) are fortunate or
unfortunate, this prompted another OSM mapper (Minh Nguyen, he has kindly given me implicit
permission to name him and explicit permission to cite his recent WikiProject addition) to create
"his" https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_United_States/Boundaries wiki.
Minh's thrust there has been to carefully document what admin_level tags OSM actually DOES HAVE.
Even if those tags are "incorrect" in some legal sense, he documents what actually IS in
the map. OK, fine: that is a noble goal and he has largely achieved it with this wiki in short
order.
Without going through the sausage-making details of the flurry of our recent dialog (in wiki, talk-pages and private
email exchanges), I am taking Minh up on his offer to "propose a change on the mailing list. Rally the OSM
community behind your cause. You can even hold up the WikiProject United States/Boundaries page as a testament to how
incorrect the map is right now." (I quote Minh exactly there). By doing so, I hope to generate more light than
heat, essentially harmonizing both of our efforts and as a result, significantly improving our map. Perhaps along the
way, we hopefully better clarify what we mean by consensus: what "the People" say via law and practice and
what "we actually do in OSM as we put data into our map." These are not and should not be fundamentally
disharmonious, but the distinction seems to have created some friction I'd like to "solve."
Thank you for starting this discussion, Steve. I hope looping in the
community will get us past the impasse that occurred in private e-mail.
Whatever the outcome, I hope it'll result in a more accurate wiki. After
all, the wiki works best when its pages closely reflect the state of the
map, tagging proposals are clearly marked as such, and retagging
proposals come with a gameplan. (The wiki has a reputation of being a
blue-sky wishlist among some software developers, but I'd like to change
that.)
Just to avoid misunderstanding: the quotes are around "his" because I
don't own the "WikiProject United States/Boundaries" page, I merely
wrote the first draft. It and "United States admin level" are two
different wiki pages with different goals, but anyone can contribute
towards those goals.
Briefly (re-)stated, Minh characterizes this dichotomy as "prescriptive vs. descriptive."
In other words, Minh and I both claim the US_admin_level wiki prescribes how we SHOULD tag
admin_level in the USA and the US/Boundaries wiki describes how OSM now DOES map them. Our dialog
has allowed me to identify specific differences, what appear to be deficiencies in our map,
actually. These are limited to nine US states (eight with deficiencies, a ninth with what appears
to be a deficiency and perhaps an "off-by-one" error). I now list these issues.
Here are what exist in state constitutions/statutes/the real world, map well
onto OSM's admin_level scheme, yet do not exist in OSM's data:
Rhode Island 7/Town, 9/Village: all are marked as 8/City when perhaps some are
7/Town or 9/Village
Massachusetts 7/Town: all are marked as 8/City when perhaps some are 7/Town
Maine 6/Unorganized territory and 6/(unincorporated) Plantation
Vermont 8/Village: all are marked as 8/City when perhaps there are 9/Villages
in some 8/Cities
Pennsylvania 7/Township, 7/Borough are missing throughout, 8/Town subordinates
to Borough, 8/Village and 8/Hamlet both subordinate to 7/Township
Connecticut 6/Region (not County), or both? Harmonize these
Minnesota 7/Township, 7/Town (it appears simply that none have been entered)
Illinois 7/Township, 7/Precinct?
New Hampshire, 8/Town: shouldn't these be 7/Town (as inTownship)? Are there
7/Organized Locations?
I want to call attention to three additional regions, beyond the nine
Steve listed, because they were the subject of drive-by edits.
In the couple days since he and I last exchanged e-mails, Steve has made
the following systematic changes to the map, along with corresponding
edits to "WikiProject United States/Boundaries" to more closely match
"United States admin level" [1]:
* Removed the admin_level=6 tag from Rhode Island's counties, leaving
boundary=administrative in place:
http://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/50107085
http://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/50107160
http://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/50107182
http://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/50107200
http://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/50107218
This confuses Nominatim, which continues to respect the county
boundaries but assumes admin_level=15. [2] The openstreetmap-carto
renderer no longer displays these boundaries, but it's possible that
some renderers draw admin_level-less boundaries as solid lines, as
openstreetmap-carto used to.
* Moved American Samoa's counties from admin_level=6 to 7:
http://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/50121874
* Added American Samoa's districts to admin_level=6 where counties used
to be (only in the wiki)
* Moved Guam's villages from admin_level=8 to 6:
http://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/50122576
They may well be the right edits to make, but mappers who focus on these
regions deserve a heads-up and an opportunity to agree or disagree.
[1]
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=WikiProject_United_States%2FBoundaries&type=revision&diff=1489329&oldid=1488779
[2] http://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/details.php?place_id=496879
--
m...@nguyen.cincinnati.oh.us
_______________________________________________
Talk-us mailing list
Talk-us@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
