On Mon, 13 Apr 2009 12:31:52 -0400
Evan Prodromou <[email protected]> wrote:

> Keith Erskine wrote:
> 
> > This looks good, but I'd like to add one thing to the list. If you
> > enter a location that isn't in the GeoNames database, how do you
> > have the member provide the needed information.
> 
> That's a big question. First, Geonames has great coverage down to the 
> city level and, as you noted, even for neighborhoods and major
> landmarks in lots of cities.
> 
> But it doesn't get down to street addresses or business names. I
> think there are some other (free for use) databases that cover those
> things. Not sure about how to reach them or if they've got Web APIs.
> 

I'm in the OSM community, but don't know a lot about their namefinder
service. It looks like at least part of your picture:

http://gazetteer.openstreetmap.org/namefinder/

It has anything named, but seemingly not the Cask'n'Flagon. Perhaps I
need to escape the apostrophes somehow or use a variant spelling.
OSM certainly has pubs, though. Try "arms" or "firkin" as searches.
Other business names, too, though personally I rarely map them while 
streets still need naming.

It seems it can be used as a web service:

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Name_finder#XML_interface

I imagine a federated search with this and geonames (and possibly
others) would be ideal for laconica.

It's important to note that I think OSM would probably want a popular
implementation of laconica (like especially identi.ca) to run their own
instance of this service and not use their stretched resources. Please
do the usual right thing.

> So my first approximation is: we punt on the Cask'n'Flagon for 0.9.x
> and fine-tune afterwards.
> 

I'm not sure what "punt" means in this context. Is that en-CA? :~)

Cheers
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