Awesome, great work David and all. Cheers Andy
On 25/03/2008, David Earl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I'm pleased to say that after a major overhaul of the name finder to > make it possible to update incrementally, and also a move to a different > server (many thanks to Tom for helping set this up), the Name Finder and > home page search box are now working again with a bang up to date index. > > The Name Finder home page is at > http://gazetteer.openstreetmap.org/namefinder and the search API is at > http://gazetteer.openstreetmap.org/namefinder/search.xml > > (I anticipate using the top level of gazetteer.openstreetmap.org for > listings pages in time). > > I will update the namefinder plugin for JOSM in due course. In the > meantime, there is a redirect in place on frankieandshadow.com so this > now works once again. > > As well as main objective of incremental updates (it will be updated > daily now, overnight in UK time), there are some other improvements: > > - searching is more efficient(*), especially for unqualified searches > with only a few results, though there is some way to go still, and gains > are undermined by the much larger number of results you tend to get back > epsecially for English place names (because of the Tiger import). > > - Definite articles(**) are ignored, and "&" and "and" are > equivalent(***), so if someone mapped your favourite pub as "Bull and > Bush" and you search for "The Bull & Bush" it will find it. > Interestingly "The Louvre" will also find "Le Louvre" though this is > more by accident than design. > > - Ways which I know represent areas are located by the centre of their > bounding box not a node on the boundary, (so searching for Edgecombe > House as reported by Tom Chance on December 20 now works properly) > > - All combinations of apostrophe s, singular and plural should now work > (previously it worked if it was mapped with 's and searched without, but > not vice-versa). > > - We now get 100% on the "British Museum Test for public mapping > websites" (though bear in mind "National Gallery" finds those in > Scotland and Ireland as well, Tate Modern catches the one in Liverpool > as well, so qualifying with London is advisable). Unfortunately "disused > station British Museum" comes out ahead of the museum proper in the list > because it is nearer London (****) > > David > > ----------------------------- > > (*) simple cases (like just a place name) are especially faster. It > is also faster for contextualised searches (e.g. "Hinton Road, > Fulbourn"), but this can be undermined for some searches because of the > very large number of similar place names in the US - for example if you > search for "Regent Street, Cambridge" there are now scores of places > called Cambridge in the database, and it has to check for Regent Street > in every on of them. So it is not that these are particularly > inefficient searches, just that there are a lots and lots of them to do. > Many place names in the UK suffer from much-replicated US villages of > the same name - so for example, even searches like "Warwick Avenue, > Woodbridge" are quite slow because there are 16 possible Woodbridges to > search - and indeed there are positive results in or near five of them > (though it's still faster than before the TIGER uploads). Suggestions > for addressing this welcome - incrementally returning results is one > possibility I guess. You can qualify it "..., UK" (provided the is_in is > present - which is almost never is for US places), but that's non-obvious. > > (**) The, Le, La, Der, Die, Das, El and Il. > > (***) Non-English support is limited, but in principle I could extend > this. At present "Arts et Métiers" station in Paris will match exactly; > and were it mapped "Arts & Métiers" would also match itself, but "Arts > et Métiers" would not match "Arts & Métiers" or vice-versa, though > slightly oddly "Arts and Métiers" would match "Arts & Métiers" had it > been mapped like that. > > (****) See talk thread "The British Museum Test" starting Nov 24 2007, > and > > http://povesham.wordpress.com/2007/11/23/the-british-museum-test-for-public-mapping-websites/ > "The Tower of London" fixed by the definite article fix; V&A and British > Airways London Eye fixed on the map; St Paul's Cathedral fixed with the > apostrophe s fix, though actually the mapped name should really have an > apostrophe). > > > > > _______________________________________________ > talk mailing list > talk@openstreetmap.org > http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk > -- Andy Robinson _______________________________________________ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
