Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
On Sun, Jun 1, 2008 at 11:38 PM, Shaun McDonald [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 1 Jun 2008, at 22:52, Cartinus wrote: On Sunday 01 June 2008 17:43:11 Karl Newman wrote: The examples that keep being quoted are of 'towns' that straddle state boundaries in the US I don't know any examples of towns straddling state boundaries, but towns straddling county boundaries are common enough to break the model. Here is one example of a city that is part of three counties: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora%2C_Colorado The authority of the municipalities is granted by the states, not by the counties. Here's another. Worcester Park sits on the boundary of 3 English counties http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=51.38053lon=-0.24354zoom=15layers=B00FF How's that relevant? Is there a Worcester Park administrative area that you know of straddling the boundaries? Dave ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
On Sun, Jun 1, 2008 at 11:52 PM, Cartinus [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: For another less obvious example closer to Martijn van Oosterhout: A Dutch waterschap is an administrative level that resorts directly below the national government. Several of them straddle provincial boundaries. In the Netherlands this problem is solved on most maps by just ignoring the waterschap boundaries, because most people ignore the waterschappen anyway. There is however no reason not to put them in the openstreetmap database (if we can get the data). Most people ignore them because they are irrevelent to most people. They make no laws, have no jurisdiction. In that sense they're more like postcode boundaries: a fairly arbitrary division of area for the purposes of optimising some process. Another example would be the area covered by a power substation or gas distribution node. These are well-defined areas, but not interesting to people directly. That isn't to say these boundaries shouldn't be in OSM. It would be interesting to have the local zones associated with schools in AU, for example. I'm just not sure admin_level is the right tag for this. But then, I don't have any other suggestion for tags either. I was kinda assuming that admin_level would only be for legal administrative boundaries, not so much any arbitrary boundary. Have a nice day, -- Martijn van Oosterhout [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://svana.org/kleptog/ ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
On Monday 02 June 2008 10:38:59 Martijn van Oosterhout wrote: Most people ignore them because they are irrevelent to most people. They make no laws, have no jurisdiction. In that sense they're more like postcode boundaries: a fairly arbitrary division of area for the purposes of optimising some process. The waterschap levies taxes. They do have laws, which if you break them, you do get fined. There are elections for the representatives. Legally they are part of the Dutch administration. See e.g.: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterschap (Dutch) http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bestuursrecht_%28Nederland%29#Bestuursorganen (Dutch) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_board_%28The_Netherlands%29 (English) Just the fact that the waterschap mostly deals with farmers and most Dutch people are urbanised and don't realise what the waterschap is and does isn't making it less part of the Dutch administration. Another example would be the area covered by a power substation or gas distribution node. These are well-defined areas, but not interesting to people directly. A powerstation and a gas distribution node are physical things (fenced off areas) and not administrative entities, so this comparison is just weird IMHO. I was kinda assuming that admin_level would only be for legal administrative boundaries, not so much any arbitrary boundary. That is what I think too. -- m.v.g., Cartinus ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
Dave Stubbs wrote: On Sun, Jun 1, 2008 at 11:38 PM, Shaun McDonald [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 1 Jun 2008, at 22:52, Cartinus wrote: On Sunday 01 June 2008 17:43:11 Karl Newman wrote: The examples that keep being quoted are of 'towns' that straddle state boundaries in the US I don't know any examples of towns straddling state boundaries, but towns straddling county boundaries are common enough to break the model. Here is one example of a city that is part of three counties: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora%2C_Colorado The authority of the municipalities is granted by the states, not by the counties. Here's another. Worcester Park sits on the boundary of 3 English counties http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=51.38053lon=-0.24354zoom=15layers=B00FF How's that relevant? Is there a Worcester Park administrative area that you know of straddling the boundaries? ACTUALLY it may well be that one authority is responsible for some aspects even where the area is in a different county. I pay RATES to Gloucestershire, but the Business premises are a Worcestershire postal address. Things are simply not black and white when it comes to abstract concepts like boundaries ;) -- Lester Caine - G8HFL - Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/lsces/wiki/?page=contact L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/ Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk// Firebird - http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
On Mon, Jun 2, 2008 at 4:57 PM, Lester Caine [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Dave Stubbs wrote: On Sun, Jun 1, 2008 at 11:38 PM, Shaun McDonald [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 1 Jun 2008, at 22:52, Cartinus wrote: On Sunday 01 June 2008 17:43:11 Karl Newman wrote: The examples that keep being quoted are of 'towns' that straddle state boundaries in the US I don't know any examples of towns straddling state boundaries, but towns straddling county boundaries are common enough to break the model. Here is one example of a city that is part of three counties: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora%2C_Colorado The authority of the municipalities is granted by the states, not by the counties. Here's another. Worcester Park sits on the boundary of 3 English counties http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=51.38053lon=-0.24354zoom=15layers=B00FF How's that relevant? Is there a Worcester Park administrative area that you know of straddling the boundaries? ACTUALLY it may well be that one authority is responsible for some aspects even where the area is in a different county. I pay RATES to Gloucestershire, but the Business premises are a Worcestershire postal address. Things are simply not black and white when it comes to abstract concepts like boundaries ;) Yeah, but we can just ignore postal boundaries completely for now, they're not administrative and don't mesh with the admin boundaries at all in the UK. Your example is reasonably common, my postal address and postcode is Surrey, but I live in the London Borough of Sutton (so pay rates to London etc). Please lets not drag non-admin things into this, since it's complicated enough as it is. -- Regards, Thomas Wood (Edgemaster) ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
Cartinus wrote: A powerstation and a gas distribution node are physical things (fenced off areas) and not administrative entities, so this comparison is just weird IMHO. I think Martijn was referring to the areas served by a particular power station or gas distribution node, not to the stations and nodes themselves. Those areas are logical, not physical. -Alex Mauer hawke ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
On Sat, May 31, 2008 at 3:49 AM, Lester Caine [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Martijn van Oosterhout wrote: Do you have an example if such a jurisdictional anomoly? It would seem to me that such a servant with two masters would have some rather interesting problems. The examples that keep being quoted are of 'towns' that straddle state boundaries in the US, but other administrative anomalies are wards and parishes that do not match the higher level town and county boundaries in the UK. Some parts of 'Scotland' are classified as 'England' although THAT is an area where there would probably be local disagreement as to the actual state of play. -- Lester Caine - G8HFL The US example that probably gets quoted the most is Kansas City, Kansas and it's neighbor across the river, Kansas City, Missouri, but those are distinct cities with their own government, so that's not a valid example. Karl ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
On Sunday 01 June 2008 17:43:11 Karl Newman wrote: The examples that keep being quoted are of 'towns' that straddle state boundaries in the US I don't know any examples of towns straddling state boundaries, but towns straddling county boundaries are common enough to break the model. Here is one example of a city that is part of three counties: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora%2C_Colorado The authority of the municipalities is granted by the states, not by the counties. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ For another less obvious example closer to Martijn van Oosterhout: A Dutch waterschap is an administrative level that resorts directly below the national government. Several of them straddle provincial boundaries. In the Netherlands this problem is solved on most maps by just ignoring the waterschap boundaries, because most people ignore the waterschappen anyway. There is however no reason not to put them in the openstreetmap database (if we can get the data). -- m.v.g., Cartinus ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
On Fri, May 30, 2008 at 11:20 PM, Lester Caine [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Same applies to any of the country boundaries, do you draw high water line, or the international demarcation out on the continental shelf. And England and Ireland are part of Europe and the EU so do you include the water around them or not. For country boundaries we draw them where they are. No country's border is at the high water mark. Consider this image: http://www.rijkswaterstaat.nl/geotool/ I don't know where the continental shelf is, but I bet it isn't along any of those borders. Something like the EU is merely the union of the countries within it. There are bits of the EU scattered across the globe., I would rather model that as a relation. Some 60% of the earths surface is international waters and belongs to no-one. Most of the time the EEZ is relevent because the continetal shelf varies dramatically in width. The 'nesting' rule does not exist. We have already had enough examples of where boundaries form different 'sets' of areas so there is no way to insist that the 'admin' boundaries are mutually exclusive :( Do you have an example if such a jurisdictional anomoly? It would seem to me that such a servant with two masters would have some rather interesting problems. Have a nice day, -- Martijn van Oosterhout [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://svana.org/kleptog/ ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
On 30 May 2008, at 00:19, Dave Stubbs wrote: This strand of the discussion (below) though echoes the earlier thread I kicked off (but gave up pursuing because there seemed to be more prejudice than logic in the discussion) about the idea of numerically-based properties in the database mapped to human-friendly language in editors and viewers. OMG is your brain mush? This whole nonsense is over what admin_level (a numerical tagging scheme) maps to. It's the perfect example of why numbering the bloomin tags doesn't necessarily actually solve anything. It's also the perfect example of how a global numbering system is utterly irrelevant given our ability to invent domain and ordering specific ones on a whim. Oops! I touched a nerve there :-) I'm no brain surgeon but, from what I've seen on telly, most peoples brains are, fundamentally, a bit mushy. This fluidity and flexibility is IMHO better than the rigidity of an ossified brain. As I understand it the numbers are not the problem, it arises from people not knowing which is the right number to use (eg. England/Scotland border admin_level 2 or 4?). This is why I think numbers are useful in the data but users should not have to know what numbers to use. Rather they should be presented with choices using words they understand which then put the right numbers in the database. As for our ability to invent domain and ordering specific ones on a whim this too would be better translated into English as she is spoke. Most of that discussion was about highways but similar arguments seem to apply to boundaries. I think most British mappers would be happier selecting from a boundary sub-menu of 'National', 'County', 'District', 'parish', with each choice invisibly mapped back to the appropriate numerical boundary type than with the clumsy 'boundary=administrative' 'admin_level=4' approach. Yes, I'm sure they would rather pick from such a menu. Mapping to the relevant boundary and admin_level tags should be trivial as the wiki page manages it. I'm sure implementations are welcome. Exellent! We agree, then :-) elvin (mushbrain) ibbotson___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
On Thu, May 29, 2008 at 4:37 PM, elvin ibbotson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think most British mappers would be happier selecting from a boundary sub-menu of 'National', 'County', 'District', 'parish', Yes. with each choice invisibly mapped back to the appropriate numerical boundary type than with the clumsy 'boundary=administrative' 'admin_level=4' approach. No. In other countries/languages, other words would map to the same numbers. Other words *could* be mapped into the same numbers. But since we can see quite clearly that there are more than 10 types of administrative boundaries in the world, and different people have different opinions as to which are equivalent, what advantage is there in trying to shoe-horn them into such a narrow set? And can anybody, in advance, name every boundary type in the entire world and get the inter-nation equivalence correct and uncontroversial? I think not. I think we should store the actual boundary types, and if a user of the data (e.g. a renderer) considers that English counties are equivalent to US states then he can process them into both being the same numerical value. If he considers English counties and US counties to be equivalent, he can do so too. So the numerical equivalence table should be on the rendering end of things, and the database should store the actual factual data. Or in short, call a spade a spade, not a gardening implement level 2. Cheers, Andy But isn't this democratic/anarchic approach to mapping great? I'm going to put a national/state level boundary around our village and name it Isle of Man, resulting in some worthwhile reductions in taxes and a free grandstand seat for the TT races next month :-) elvin ibbotson From: Shaun McDonald [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 29 May 2008 13:43:43 BDT To: Bruce Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands On 29 May 2008, at 13:31, Bruce Cowan wrote: Seriously, the number system for borders is rather strange, surely there must be a more obvious scale. I suppose this has been mentioned before though. I thought people are using things like district, country, city, town etc for the boundaries, rather than a numeric value. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
On Fri, May 30, 2008 at 11:25 AM, Andy Allan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Other words *could* be mapped into the same numbers. But since we can see quite clearly that there are more than 10 types of administrative boundaries in the world, and different people have different opinions as to which are equivalent, what advantage is there in trying to shoe-horn them into such a narrow set? And can anybody, in advance, name every boundary type in the entire world and get the inter-nation equivalence correct and uncontroversial? I think not. Because 99% of applications don't care the slightest how the internal subdivisions of some random country in the world compare to those in england. All renderers care about is is boundary A more or less important than boundary B. Numbers work perfect for this and that's why they're used. There is absolutely no implication that admin_level=4 is the same everywhere. We know it isn't but we do know it's within a country, because countries are admin_level=2. Just like highway=tertiary is not the same everywhere in the world, but customised to the local situation. I think we should store the actual boundary types, and if a user of the data (e.g. a renderer) considers that English counties are equivalent to US states then he can process them into both being the same numerical value. If he considers English counties and US counties to be equivalent, he can do so too. So the numerical equivalence table should be on the rendering end of things, and the database should store the actual factual data. If you are willing to maintain a mapping table for the 160+ counties in the world and maintain the megabytes of rendering rules that would be required to make it render sensebly then we can talk. Until then let us use admin_level and be done with it. Have a nice day, -- Martijn van Oosterhout [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://svana.org/kleptog/ ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
elvin ibbotson wrote: As I understand it the numbers are not the problem, it arises from people not knowing which is the right number to use (eg. England/Scotland border admin_level 2 or 4?). This is why I think numbers are useful in the data but users should not have to know what numbers to use. Rather they should be presented with choices using words they understand which then put the right numbers in the database. The problem is not at all about whether you let user choose a number or from a list of wordings. The issue at hand here is whether Wales country border is of the same type as Austria's is. This is what wars are fought over and you cannot solve the issue by either numbers or by having people select from a list municipal or country border. Yes, I'm sure they would rather pick from such a menu. Mapping to the relevant boundary and admin_level tags should be trivial as the wiki page manages it. I'm sure implementations are welcome. The issue is not at all whether there's a nice drop down list or not. People work already using descriptions on the wiki. However what constitutes a country border is open to interpretation, apparently. spaetz ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
On Fri, May 30, 2008 at 1:23 PM, Martijn van Oosterhout [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Because 99% of applications don't care the slightest how the internal subdivisions of some random country in the world compare to those in england. All renderers care about is is boundary A more or less important than boundary B. Numbers work perfect for this and that's why they're used. Yes, for rendering decisions like X =5. That doesn't imply it's the best approach for storing the data. Don't tag for renderers etc. There is absolutely no implication that admin_level=4 is the same everywhere. We know it isn't but we do know it's within a country, because countries are admin_level=2. So how can one admin level be globally defined, but another one isn't? Within a country is a farcial statement, since this entire conversation has shown there is no global equivalence to the meaning of the word country. You don't need a passport to travel from Wales to England, nor from Belgium to Luxembourg, and the United Arab Emirates adds a whole new level of complexity... maintain the megabytes of rendering rules that would be required to make it render You miss the point entirely, I think. Each renderer would choose the number of boundary types it wants to distinguish between, and would have a rule for each. So all the different types would be coalesced before rendering. For example, I made a style last week that took minor, tertiary and unclassified to be the same thing (for this particular application) and coalesced them into one rule. And to be honest, it's not long until I decide to do the same thing for the million shades of green on the cycle map. And if I was to do the same with boundaries, I'd merge all the international + constituent country borders into one style, and lump the rest together too. When it's a pain to write mapnik filters, I'll fiddle the DB instead, or preprocess the planet file. But I don't demand only two admin levels, even if that suits everything I want from OSM. And you won't hear me saying that there are only 10 highway types, or all green spaces should have a common tag. It's up to the renderers to make the decisions - the database should be as accurate as possible, not some kind of small minded kludge where someone stood up one day and said there can only be 10 types of border in OSM. Or do we accept floating point values? Cheers, Andy ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
I am glad I mentioned it! Certainly stirred up some nationalist and sub-nationalist hornets. Can I suggest a cease-fire on it. Also suggest a compromise for now. I propose adding code to style sheet to show admin_level=3 as a less dominant variant of admin_level=2 to show at same zooms, so that countries (=2) and sub-countries (=3) can both show at reasonable levels. Activists are then free to bash each other in tag wars (changing tags between 2 and 3) at will. Scope for the DB to reflect the nuances (agreed or otherwise!) and the mapnik layer to show something. Cheers STEVE Steve Chilton, Learning Support Fellow Learning and Technical Support Unit Manager School of Health and Social Sciences Middlesex University phone/fax: 020 8411 5355 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.mdx.ac.uk/schools/hssc/staff/profiles/technical/chiltons.asp Chair of the Society of Cartographers: http://www.soc.org.uk/ SoC conference 2008: http://www.abdn.ac.uk/cartographers08/ -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Sebastian Spaeth Sent: 30 May 2008 14:17 Cc: talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands elvin ibbotson wrote: As I understand it the numbers are not the problem, it arises from people not knowing which is the right number to use (eg. England/Scotland border admin_level 2 or 4?). This is why I think numbers are useful in the data but users should not have to know what numbers to use. Rather they should be presented with choices using words they understand which then put the right numbers in the database. The problem is not at all about whether you let user choose a number or from a list of wordings. The issue at hand here is whether Wales country border is of the same type as Austria's is. This is what wars are fought over and you cannot solve the issue by either numbers or by having people select from a list municipal or country border. Yes, I'm sure they would rather pick from such a menu. Mapping to the relevant boundary and admin_level tags should be trivial as the wiki page manages it. I'm sure implementations are welcome. The issue is not at all whether there's a nice drop down list or not. People work already using descriptions on the wiki. However what constitutes a country border is open to interpretation, apparently. spaetz ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
2008/5/30 Steve Chilton [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Also suggest a compromise for now. Good call. Steve for President. But of what country?... I'll get me coat. Dermot ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
From: Sebastian Spaeth [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 30 May 2008 14:16:59 BDT Cc: talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands elvin ibbotson wrote: As I understand it the numbers are not the problem, it arises from people not knowing which is the right number to use (eg. England/Scotland border admin_level 2 or 4?). This is why I think numbers are useful in the data but users should not have to know what numbers to use. Rather they should be presented with choices using words they understand which then put the right numbers in the database. The problem is not at all about whether you let user choose a number or from a list of wordings. The issue at hand here is whether Wales country border is of the same type as Austria's is. It's true this was the original issue, and (as I have already said) I would rank the Welsh and Scottish borders at the same level as US states, but my contributions have been about the way the admin_level is presented to the user. This is what wars are fought over and you cannot solve the issue by either numbers or by having people select from a list municipal or country border. Yes, I'm sure they would rather pick from such a menu. Mapping to the relevant boundary and admin_level tags should be trivial as the wiki page manages it. I'm sure implementations are welcome. The issue is not at all whether there's a nice drop down list or not. People work already using descriptions on the wiki. I for one do not want to have to be flicking backwards and forwards between wiki pages looking up the correct tagging convention when I am trying to edit the map. I much prefer simply choosing from the options Potlatch or JOSM present to me. Unfortunately, all to often, you need to consult the wiki and I believe this is likely to put a lot of new users off. I was told only a very small proportion of people who register as users are actually active in building the map. This could be one of the reasons why. The key=value tag approach is great for extending OSM into specialist fields or adding metadata but the core properties have to be standardised. That is why we have the guides on the wiki and arguments over the uses of these tags. I just think there could be improvements to the way the core tags are handled in the database and editor software, is all :-) elvin___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
elvin ibbotson wrote: I for one do not want to have to be flicking backwards and forwards between wiki pages looking up the correct tagging convention when I am trying to edit the map. I much prefer simply choosing from the options Potlatch or JOSM present to me. Unfortunately, all to often, you need to consult the wiki [...] I just think there could be improvements to the way the core tags are handled in the database and editor software, is all :-) Well, one of the big things planned for Potlatch 1.0 is exactly that - an (optional) property editing system that abstracts the tags away from the novice user. These things don't happen overnight but they _do_ happen! :) cheers Richard ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
On Fri, May 30, 2008 at 4:43 PM, elvin ibbotson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: From: Sebastian Spaeth [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 30 May 2008 14:16:59 BDT Cc: talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands elvin ibbotson wrote: As I understand it the numbers are not the problem, it arises from people not knowing which is the right number to use (eg. England/Scotland border admin_level 2 or 4?). This is why I think numbers are useful in the data but users should not have to know what numbers to use. Rather they should be presented with choices using words they understand which then put the right numbers in the database. The problem is not at all about whether you let user choose a number or from a list of wordings. The issue at hand here is whether Wales country border is of the same type as Austria's is. It's true this was the original issue, and (as I have already said) I would rank the Welsh and Scottish borders at the same level as US states, but my contributions have been about the way the admin_level is presented to the user. This is what wars are fought over and you cannot solve the issue by either numbers or by having people select from a list municipal or country border. Yes, I'm sure they would rather pick from such a menu. Mapping to the relevant boundary and admin_level tags should be trivial as the wiki page manages it. I'm sure implementations are welcome. The issue is not at all whether there's a nice drop down list or not. People work already using descriptions on the wiki. I for one do not want to have to be flicking backwards and forwards between wiki pages looking up the correct tagging convention when I am trying to edit the map. I much prefer simply choosing from the options Potlatch or JOSM present to me. Unfortunately, all to often, you need to consult the wiki and I believe this is likely to put a lot of new users off. I was told only a very small proportion of people who register as users are actually active in building the map. This could be one of the reasons why. The key=value tag approach is great for extending OSM into specialist fields or adding metadata but the core properties have to be standardised. That is why we have the guides on the wiki and arguments over the uses of these tags. I just think there could be improvements to the way the core tags are handled in the database and editor software, is all :-) The only part of this where you are causing controversy is where you talk about the database. The idea of editors providing better tagging support is a good one that would be welcomed by many people, and a fairly standardised core tag set is generally what we currently have (if a bit crap in places, and not necessarily well supported by the editors atm). As for the mappers to users ratio, well, historically it's running at about 1 in 10. That's based on the rolling month edit stats that the server produces every day... there are probably more semi-active mappers who aren't contributing every month. I don't think that's actually too bad considering. It would be interesting to see why the other 9/10 people haven't continued, but we'd probably have to spam them with a survey to find out. I'd wouldn't be surprised if the learning curve was a big factor. Dave ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
Martijn van Oosterhout wrote: On Fri, May 30, 2008 at 3:57 PM, Andy Allan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Yes, for rendering decisions like X =5. That doesn't imply it's the best approach for storing the data. Don't tag for renderers etc. It's not tagging for renderers. It's tagging for anything that wishes to programmatically extract administration-type data from the OSM database. At last someone who is also not bothered how things are rendered :) Personally I've been viewing admin_level=0 as the world. admin_level=1 should equal the continents admin_level=2 for countries ( UNITED KINGDOM ) admin_level=3 ( or so ) for states/areas ( ENGLAND ) Only niggle with this is 'European Union' - does that class as a continent or do we add floating point as suggested and have 1.5. Not all countries in europe are in the European Union, but EU is certainly an administrative area? So perhaps THAT should be level 2 for Europe with countries at level 3. I don't think that the level structure was eve actually agreed - and now it's biting back? -- Lester Caine - G8HFL - Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/lsces/wiki/?page=contact L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/ Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk// Firebird - http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
Lester Caine wrote: Personally I've been viewing admin_level=0 as the world. admin_level=1 should equal the continents admin_level=2 for countries ( UNITED KINGDOM ) admin_level=3 ( or so ) for states/areas ( ENGLAND ) It seems like level 4 is already used as you describe for level 3. Only niggle with this is 'European Union' - does that class as a continent or do we add floating point as suggested and have 1.5. Not all countries in europe are in the European Union, but EU is certainly an administrative area? So perhaps THAT should be level 2 for Europe with countries at level 3. That doesn't fit at all with the use of level 2 described on the wiki... I don't think that the level structure was eve actually agreed - and now it's biting back? I think it was put in place to avoid discussion about what to name the levels. In that it has been quite successful. I think that discussion would still be underway and no one would be happy, if we'd tried to use names for the values instead. -Alex Mauer hawke ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
El Viernes, 30 de Mayo de 2008, Lester Caine escribió: Personally I've been viewing admin_level=0 as the world. Yeah, say that again when extraterrestrials invade us :-P admin_level=1 should equal the continents I'm against this definition. A continent is a geographical separation, not an administrative/political one. I'd say that admin_level=1 should separate supranational *economic* entities, i.e: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Union http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_of_South_American_Nations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Union http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_Union http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Asian_Union http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Task_Force_on_North_America http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organization_of_Central_American_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Southeast_Asian_Nations -- -- Iván Sánchez Ortega [EMAIL PROTECTED] Executive ability is prominent in your make-up. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
Iván Sánchez Ortega wrote: El Viernes, 30 de Mayo de 2008, Lester Caine escribió: Personally I've been viewing admin_level=0 as the world. Yeah, say that again when extraterrestrials invade us :-P we can always have -ve number ;) admin_level=1 should equal the continents I'm against this definition. A continent is a geographical separation, not an administrative/political one. I'd say that admin_level=1 should separate supranational *economic* entities, i.e: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Union http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_of_South_American_Nations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Union http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_Union http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Asian_Union http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Task_Force_on_North_America http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organization_of_Central_American_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Southeast_Asian_Nations And European Union ? I'm not bothered that these levels are numbers, it is just that the CURRENT numbers do not allow for ALL of the levels as THIS list suggests. I still think there is a place for continents here rather than having to create yet another set of numbers? Africa, Asia and the rest are USED to provide administrative type grouping just as African Union and Asian Union do. -- Lester Caine - G8HFL - Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/lsces/wiki/?page=contact L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/ Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk// Firebird - http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
Martijn van Oosterhout wrote: On Fri, May 30, 2008 at 10:17 PM, Lester Caine [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm not bothered that these levels are numbers, it is just that the CURRENT numbers do not allow for ALL of the levels as THIS list suggests. I still think there is a place for continents here rather than having to create yet another set of numbers? Africa, Asia and the rest are USED to provide administrative type grouping just as African Union and Asian Union do. Problem is that they violate the nesting rule: countries can span multiple continents. Similarly continents are defined strictly by geographical features (where the land meets the sea) whereas country borders reach a distance into the sea, so they violate the covering idea also. I don't have any good ideas about how to do continents (and by extension the large oceans like Atlantic/Pacific/Indian/Southern/etc), but I don't think admin_level is the right place. I don't think a single country border runs along a continent border so you're not even saving space. Same applies to any of the country boundaries, do you draw high water line, or the international demarcation out on the continental shelf. And England and Ireland are part of Europe and the EU so do you include the water around them or not. The 'nesting' rule does not exist. We have already had enough examples of where boundaries form different 'sets' of areas so there is no way to insist that the 'admin' boundaries are mutually exclusive :( -- Lester Caine - G8HFL - Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/lsces/wiki/?page=contact L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/ Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk// Firebird - http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
Scotland and Wales are countries. Don't think the border between N Ireland and Rep of Ireland has been digitised yet. Cheers STEVE Steve Chilton, Learning Support Fellow Learning and Technical Support Unit Manager School of Health and Social Sciences Middlesex University phone/fax: 020 8411 5355 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.mdx.ac.uk/schools/hssc/staff/profiles/technical/chiltons.asp Chair of the Society of Cartographers: http://www.soc.org.uk/ SoC conference 2008: http://www.abdn.ac.uk/cartographers08/ _ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Juan Lucas Dominguez Rubio Sent: 29 May 2008 07:57 To: talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands According to Mapnik, Scotland and Wales have declared independence, and Northern Ireland is part of the Republic of Ireland. Did I miss something? Lucas ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
2008/5/29 Steve Chilton [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Scotland and Wales are countries. Only in the same traditional folk-consciousness way that Bavaria or Hessen are. So while it's certainly an important thing to reflect on the map, the boundaries between the UK components (sub-countries?) shouldn't render the same as those between actual states. Don't think the border between N Ireland and Rep of Ireland has been digitised yet. It has, but it's inaccurate. I've been correcting it in stages. But Juan is right - whereas it used to appear on the Mapnik layer, it has now vanished. I think the problem here is that there's great variety in how boundaries are currently tagged. I didn't originally tag the Irish border, so I haven't bothered to check whether it corresponds with latest thinking. BTW, Juan, you should probably avoid suggesting to Irish people that they live on a British island ;) Dermot -- -- Iren sind menschlich ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
OSM's (official?) motto is your own map of the world. I guess I didn't quite understand it until today. Thanks for putting me wise ;-) Cheers, Lucas De: Tom Chance [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Enviado el: jue 29/05/2008 12:16 Para: talk@openstreetmap.org CC: Juan Lucas Dominguez Rubio; Steve Chilton Asunto: Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands France and Germany share the same currency, Iceland has no army, Australia and England share the same head of state, Scotland has its own Parliament with certain devolved powers that are different to Wales' elected Assembly. Then there's a difference between Britain, the British Isles, the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. Let's not get carried away! Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are countries with national borders, so those should be shown the same as any other national border. Tom On Thursday 29 May 2008 11:12:32 Juan Lucas Dominguez Rubio wrote: Scotland and England share the same currency, army, head of state and parliament. Sweden and Norway do not share those things. Nobody thinks that difference should be visible in a map? Cheers, Lucas De: Steve Chilton [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Enviado el: jue 29/05/2008 11:20 Para: Juan Lucas Dominguez Rubio; talk@openstreetmap.org Asunto: RE: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands Scotland and Wales are countries. Don't think the border between N Ireland and Rep of Ireland has been digitised yet. Cheers STEVE Steve Chilton, Learning Support Fellow Learning and Technical Support Unit Manager School of Health and Social Sciences Middlesex University phone/fax: 020 8411 5355 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.mdx.ac.uk/schools/hssc/staff/profiles/technical/chiltons.asp Chair of the Society of Cartographers: http://www.soc.org.uk/ SoC conference 2008: http://www.abdn.ac.uk/cartographers08/ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Juan Lucas Dominguez Rubio Sent: 29 May 2008 07:57 To: talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands According to Mapnik, Scotland and Wales have declared independence, and Northern Ireland is part of the Republic of Ireland. Did I miss something? Lucas ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
2008/5/29 Tom Chance [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Let's not get carried away! Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are countries with national borders, so those should be shown the same as any other national border. Well, in a UK context, NI is actually a province, and isn't Wales a principality? Either way, none of them issue their own passports or maintain separate EU membership, so you can't really claim that they are as separate from each other as countries that do have these trappings of statehood. I've just fixed the Irish border, which luckily presents no such dilemma, as it is an international border, even by non-UK criteria. It lacked admin_level=2. Dermot -- -- Iren sind menschlich ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
Scotland and England share the same currency, army, head of state and parliament. Sweden and Norway do not share those things. Nobody thinks that difference should be visible in a map? Cheers, Lucas De: Steve Chilton [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Enviado el: jue 29/05/2008 11:20 Para: Juan Lucas Dominguez Rubio; talk@openstreetmap.org Asunto: RE: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands Scotland and Wales are countries. Don't think the border between N Ireland and Rep of Ireland has been digitised yet. Cheers STEVE Steve Chilton, Learning Support Fellow Learning and Technical Support Unit Manager School of Health and Social Sciences Middlesex University phone/fax: 020 8411 5355 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.mdx.ac.uk/schools/hssc/staff/profiles/technical/chiltons.asp Chair of the Society of Cartographers: http://www.soc.org.uk/ SoC conference 2008: http://www.abdn.ac.uk/cartographers08/ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Juan Lucas Dominguez Rubio Sent: 29 May 2008 07:57 To: talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands According to Mapnik, Scotland and Wales have declared independence, and Northern Ireland is part of the Republic of Ireland. Did I miss something? Lucas ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
On 29 May 2008, at 11:41, Dermot McNally wrote: 2008/5/29 Richard Fairhurst [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Dermot McNally wrote: 2008/5/29 Steve Chilton [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Scotland and Wales are countries. Only in the same traditional folk-consciousness way that Bavaria or Hessen are. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom thinks it's a bit more than that. On the contrary - certainly in the case of Bavaria, which really was a country until 1918. But we've neatly illustrated the point. Non-Germans don't see why Bavaria would see itself as a country, even though it does. Non-British people (and, it seems, half of England) don't as a rule regard Scotland or Wales as countries on a par with, say, France. And as an Irish person, I've encountered my share of people who don't think my country is a real one either. Seemingly a lot of people seem to regard the UK as England. It's not the first time someone's asked me what it's like in England. Until about 6 weeks ago I was unable to tell them because I had never lived in England until then. Shaun But the clue here is that we're discussing the appropriate use of boundary tagging, specifically a thing we call admin_level. I guess none of us will disagree that Germany and the UK get to exercise a higher level of administration than a country like England or Wales? Dermot -- -- Iren sind menschlich ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
2008/5/29 Richard Fairhurst [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Dermot McNally wrote: 2008/5/29 Steve Chilton [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Scotland and Wales are countries. Only in the same traditional folk-consciousness way that Bavaria or Hessen are. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom thinks it's a bit more than that. On the contrary - certainly in the case of Bavaria, which really was a country until 1918. But we've neatly illustrated the point. Non-Germans don't see why Bavaria would see itself as a country, even though it does. Non-British people (and, it seems, half of England) don't as a rule regard Scotland or Wales as countries on a par with, say, France. And as an Irish person, I've encountered my share of people who don't think my country is a real one either. But the clue here is that we're discussing the appropriate use of boundary tagging, specifically a thing we call admin_level. I guess none of us will disagree that Germany and the UK get to exercise a higher level of administration than a country like England or Wales? Dermot -- -- Iren sind menschlich ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
2008/5/29 Dermot McNally [EMAIL PROTECTED]: 2008/5/29 Tom Chance [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Let's not get carried away! Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are countries with national borders, so those should be shown the same as any other national border. Well, in a UK context, NI is actually a province, and isn't Wales a principality? Either way, none of them issue their own passports or maintain separate EU membership, so you can't really claim that they are as separate from each other as countries that do have these trappings of statehood. But they do have their own football teams which decides this issue. :D -- Lauri Hahne ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
On Thu, May 29, 2008 at 7:57 AM, Juan Lucas Dominguez Rubio [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: According to Mapnik, Scotland and Wales have declared independence, and Northern Ireland is part of the Republic of Ireland. Did I miss something? The NI border hasn't been put into the OSM database. As for Wales and Scotland... well that's just an interesting perspective... it surely could have been England that declared independence?... anyway.. This is just an indication of the conflicted definition of country, nation, and national. The borders are in the OSM DB as admin_level 2 (national border). You try telling any one of those nationalities that they're not actually a country I'll stand well back when you do it. Dave ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
2008/5/29 Dave Stubbs [EMAIL PROTECTED]: The NI border hasn't been put into the OSM database. It has. I've been tweaking bits of it for months now. Look for ID 24428706. This is just an indication of the conflicted definition of country, nation, and national. The borders are in the OSM DB as admin_level 2 (national border). You try telling any one of those nationalities that they're not actually a country I'll stand well back when you do it. The word country needn't be a stumbling block here. That's just language. In German, Land can mean Bundesland just as often as it means country. But we can't go tagging UK internal borders the same way as we do those of sovereign states, because it doesn't accurately depict reality. There are plenty of people in Ireland who would resent the Irish border being described as an international one, but sovereignty is a well understood concept that has to be reflected accurately on the map. Dermot -- -- Iren sind menschlich ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
On Thu, 2008-05-29 at 08:57 +0200, Juan Lucas Dominguez Rubio wrote: According to Mapnik, Scotland and Wales have declared independence, and Northern Ireland is part of the Republic of Ireland. Did I miss something? Give it a few years, then it will be true. Seriously, the number system for borders is rather strange, surely there must be a more obvious scale. I suppose this has been mentioned before though. -- Bruce Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Dermot McNally wrote: | | But the clue here is that we're discussing the appropriate use of | boundary tagging, specifically a thing we call admin_level. I guess | none of us will disagree that Germany and the UK get to exercise a | higher level of administration than a country like England or Wales? I've always thought that England / Scotland / Wales / Northern Ireland forming the UK are pretty similar to the 50 states forming the USA - I think it would be reasonable to use the same markings on the default map to divide them. Legal purists may want different (or extra) tags in the database on the grounds that it's a completely different situation, but they could be rendered the same. Robert (Jamie) Munro -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.8 (Darwin) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkg+rxIACgkQz+aYVHdncI0KeQCg5TiY6CzGVhPCi8P+Vf9AmQam f4EAniZKu7dP40obhJ115MxVNOTxSWor =+A58 -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
On Thu, May 29, 2008 at 12:53 PM, Dermot McNally [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 2008/5/29 Dave Stubbs [EMAIL PROTECTED]: The NI border hasn't been put into the OSM database. It has. I've been tweaking bits of it for months now. Look for ID 24428706. This is just an indication of the conflicted definition of country, nation, and national. The borders are in the OSM DB as admin_level 2 (national border). You try telling any one of those nationalities that they're not actually a country I'll stand well back when you do it. The word country needn't be a stumbling block here. That's just language. Who says I was just talking about language? Nobody said (as in the current wiki page doesn't) admin_level=2 represents sovereign states recognised by the UN... or whatever the concrete definition is that you're getting at. It says country borders, such as the border between Austria and Germany. That's open to some interpretation, which may not have been the intention of the people writing the page, but there you go. In German, Land can mean Bundesland just as often as it means country. But we can't go tagging UK internal borders the same way as we do those of sovereign states, because it doesn't accurately depict reality. Depends what reality you're trying to depict :-). Again, I get what you're saying and would tend to agree when using the same definition you're using, but I'd still stand back a bit when trying to explain it Dave ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
Shaun McDonald wrote: Seemingly a lot of people seem to regard the UK as England. It's not the first time someone's asked me what it's like in England. Until about 6 weeks ago I was unable to tell them because I had never lived in England until then. Same thing with Sweden! Foreigners insist on using the Viking age (9th - 11th century) name Sweden / Schweden / Suede. Even the Icelanders who should know better say Sviþioð. But this refers to the middle section (Svealand) of the united kingdom of Svealand, Götaland and Wendes, known since at least the 14th century as Svea rike or Sverige. For heaven's sake, our nation's coat of arms carries the three crowns, as does our airforce and our national hockey team, to indicate that Sweden is the true United Kingdom, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Crowns http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms_of_Sweden http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Air_Force http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_national_men%27s_ice_hockey_team Bloody ignorant foreigners! Stop calling us Sweden! -- Lars Aronsson ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
BTW, Juan, you should probably avoid suggesting to Irish people that they live on a British island ;) Just imagine the protests at the State of the Map ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
Forgot to hit reply all ;) Shaun McDonald wrote: On 29 May 2008, at 13:31, Bruce Cowan wrote: On Thu, 2008-05-29 at 08:57 +0200, Juan Lucas Dominguez Rubio wrote: According to Mapnik, Scotland and Wales have declared independence, and Northern Ireland is part of the Republic of Ireland. Did I miss something? Give it a few years, then it will be true. Seriously, the number system for borders is rather strange, surely there must be a more obvious scale. I suppose this has been mentioned before though. I thought people are using things like district, country, city, town etc for the boundaries, rather than a numeric value. http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Key:boundary Is basically wrong - UK boundary should be admin_level=2 admin_level=3 should be used for the separate England/ Scotland/ Wales boundaries :) -- Lester Caine - G8HFL - Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/lsces/wiki/?page=contact L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/ Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk// Firebird - http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
On Thu, 2008-05-29 at 14:26 +0100, Robert (Jamie) Munro wrote: I've always thought that England / Scotland / Wales / Northern Ireland forming the UK are pretty similar to the 50 states forming the USA - I think it would be reasonable to use the same markings on the default map to divide them. Legal purists may want different (or extra) tags in the database on the grounds that it's a completely different situation, but they could be rendered the same. For all purposes, this is probably reasonably accurate apart from the fact that one state has no devolution, 2 have devolution and one has further devolution. For the purposes of a map, the precise nature of the powers of each part are negligible. I suppose technically the USA is similar as each state has different powers available to them (or I think they do). -- Bruce Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
This discussion about the national status of England, Scotland, Wales and Ulster is very entertaining but is not going to reach a conclusion without another war. Personally I would give these countries the same status as states as they are effectively states within the United Kingdom or (with the exception of Ulster) Great Britain. This strand of the discussion (below) though echoes the earlier thread I kicked off (but gave up pursuing because there seemed to be more prejudice than logic in the discussion) about the idea of numerically-based properties in the database mapped to human-friendly language in editors and viewers. Most of that discussion was about highways but similar arguments seem to apply to boundaries. I think most British mappers would be happier selecting from a boundary sub- menu of 'National', 'County', 'District', 'parish', with each choice invisibly mapped back to the appropriate numerical boundary type than with the clumsy 'boundary=administrative' 'admin_level=4' approach. In other countries/languages, other words would map to the same numbers. But isn't this democratic/anarchic approach to mapping great? I'm going to put a national/state level boundary around our village and name it Isle of Man, resulting in some worthwhile reductions in taxes and a free grandstand seat for the TT races next month :-) elvin ibbotson From: Shaun McDonald [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 29 May 2008 13:43:43 BDT To: Bruce Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands On 29 May 2008, at 13:31, Bruce Cowan wrote: Seriously, the number system for borders is rather strange, surely there must be a more obvious scale. I suppose this has been mentioned before though. I thought people are using things like district, country, city, town etc for the boundaries, rather than a numeric value. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
Surprised no one has posted this link yet: http://qntm.org/?uk A nice Venn diagram of the UK. :) Beau On 5/29/08, Robert (Jamie) Munro [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Dermot McNally wrote: | | But the clue here is that we're discussing the appropriate use of | boundary tagging, specifically a thing we call admin_level. I guess | none of us will disagree that Germany and the UK get to exercise a | higher level of administration than a country like England or Wales? I've always thought that England / Scotland / Wales / Northern Ireland forming the UK are pretty similar to the 50 states forming the USA - I think it would be reasonable to use the same markings on the default map to divide them. Legal purists may want different (or extra) tags in the database on the grounds that it's a completely different situation, but they could be rendered the same. Robert (Jamie) Munro -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.8 (Darwin) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkg+rxIACgkQz+aYVHdncI0KeQCg5TiY6CzGVhPCi8P+Vf9AmQam f4EAniZKu7dP40obhJ115MxVNOTxSWor =+A58 -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
This strand of the discussion (below) though echoes the earlier thread I kicked off (but gave up pursuing because there seemed to be more prejudice than logic in the discussion) about the idea of numerically-based properties in the database mapped to human-friendly language in editors and viewers. OMG is your brain mush? This whole nonsense is over what admin_level (a numerical tagging scheme) maps to. It's the perfect example of why numbering the bloomin tags doesn't necessarily actually solve anything. It's also the perfect example of how a global numbering system is utterly irrelevant given our ability to invent domain and ordering specific ones on a whim. Most of that discussion was about highways but similar arguments seem to apply to boundaries. I think most British mappers would be happier selecting from a boundary sub-menu of 'National', 'County', 'District', 'parish', with each choice invisibly mapped back to the appropriate numerical boundary type than with the clumsy 'boundary=administrative' 'admin_level=4' approach. Yes, I'm sure they would rather pick from such a menu. Mapping to the relevant boundary and admin_level tags should be trivial as the wiki page manages it. I'm sure implementations are welcome. Dave ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
