Re: [Talk-ca] Crowdsourcing buildings with Statistics Canada

[Adam Martin]

That would be fine, I'd figure, as you didn't use Canada Post to acquire
the address. The business website is designed, in principle, to allow the
free use of the information as it wants customers to find them and use
their services.

This is much like adding your own address. Can't be any argument with that
- or with adding ones from people you know. Again, you didn't use Canada
Post's database to get this information.

On Aug 10, 2016 5:00 PM, "john whelan"  wrote:

> > So it is perfectly fine to add the street number and name, just not the
> postal code from an official source.
>
> I assume if the address has a web site associated with it that has the
> postcode on it then that is an acceptable source?
>
> Cheerio John
>
> On 10 August 2016 at 11:03, Kevin Farrugia 
> wrote:
>
>> For clarification - Canada Post only owns the postal code, the address
>> itself (123 Main St.) is created and approved by the municipality, so it's
>> their data and they can release that data if they wish to.
>>
>> So it is perfectly fine to add the street number and name, just not the
>> postal code from an official source.
>>
>> On Aug 10, 2016 11:00 AM, "Adam Martin"  wrote:
>>
>>> Hey Bjenk,
>>>
>>> On the Address data, the Talk-CA group has had several discussions about
>>> it. The problem boils down to Canada Post, which treats the information as
>>> proprietary - they provide any individual going to their site the right to
>>> lookup an address in order to utilize their service to mail items. The
>>> actual database is theirs and even the postal code on my home is theirs,
>>> I'm just allowed to use it. This all likely has more to do with the fact
>>> that they have a service that links the addresses to mapped locations that
>>> is, of course, available only for those willing to pay for it. If they
>>> allowed OSM to integrate this information, they would lose that revenue
>>> stream.
>>>
>>> Suffice it to say that, apart from an individual adding their address
>>> manually to the map, Canada Post is not about to allow any party to use
>>> that information freely.
>>>
>>> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 11:41 AM, Ellefsen, Bjenk (STATCAN) <
>>> bjenk.ellef...@canada.ca> wrote:
>>>
 The postal code subject is interesting for many reasons. I read that
 France has released a National address database, publically and free.



 There must be a way we can follow that example.



 I am still catching up, haha!



 Bjenk



 *From:* john whelan [mailto:jwhelan0...@gmail.com]
 *Sent:* August-06-16 7:23 PM
 *To:* Laura O'Grady 
 *Cc:* Talk-CA OpenStreetMap ; Ellefsen,
 Bjenk (STATCAN) ; Stewart C. Russell <
 scr...@gmail.com>
 *Subject:* Re: [Talk-ca] Crowdsourcing buildings with Statistics Canada



 The postcode battle is being fought on the Open Data side.   There is
 an open data mailing list whose name escapes me where they have been
 playing for years to get the postcode data including access to information
 requests.

 Tracy at Carleton University is well connected on the Open Data side
 and the postcode saga.  There is some hope now that the UK post office has
 made the UK ones available.

 For the moment many commercial companies do list their postcode on
 their web sites and the the commercial buildings that are the ones of
 interest to Stats Canada.

 I suspect Bjenk will have fun when he checks his email on Monday
 morning when he arrives in the office.  We've been quite chatty over the
 weekend.

 Cheerio John



 On 6 Aug 2016 7:02 pm, "Laura O'Grady"  wrote:

 There's a form [1] requesting this data set. Not sure if posting a
 request will help as we know this has been going on for years.



 You can get the Forward Sortation Areas in a boundary file [2], which
 can be exported from the db. I noticed the disclaimer, "This data includes
 information copied with permission from Canada Post Corporation". But of
 course this is incomplete. I wonder if it's the latter 3 characters,
 the Local Delivery Unit, which can pinpoint to individual households is
 being suppressed for privacy reasons.



 As an academic we battled Stats Can for years for access to data that
 was paid for by taxpayer dollars. Eventually we won. So there's a precedent
 of sorts.



 Has anyone tried filing a freedom of information request for the postal
 codes?



 Laura



 -

 Laura O'Grady

 la...@lauraogrady.ca





 [1] http://open.canada.ca/en/suggested-datasets/postal-code-database

 [2] 

Re: [Talk-ca] Crowdsourcing buildings with Statistics Canada

[john whelan]

> So it is perfectly fine to add the street number and name, just not the
postal code from an official source.

I assume if the address has a web site associated with it that has the
postcode on it then that is an acceptable source?

Cheerio John

On 10 August 2016 at 11:03, Kevin Farrugia  wrote:

> For clarification - Canada Post only owns the postal code, the address
> itself (123 Main St.) is created and approved by the municipality, so it's
> their data and they can release that data if they wish to.
>
> So it is perfectly fine to add the street number and name, just not the
> postal code from an official source.
>
> On Aug 10, 2016 11:00 AM, "Adam Martin"  wrote:
>
>> Hey Bjenk,
>>
>> On the Address data, the Talk-CA group has had several discussions about
>> it. The problem boils down to Canada Post, which treats the information as
>> proprietary - they provide any individual going to their site the right to
>> lookup an address in order to utilize their service to mail items. The
>> actual database is theirs and even the postal code on my home is theirs,
>> I'm just allowed to use it. This all likely has more to do with the fact
>> that they have a service that links the addresses to mapped locations that
>> is, of course, available only for those willing to pay for it. If they
>> allowed OSM to integrate this information, they would lose that revenue
>> stream.
>>
>> Suffice it to say that, apart from an individual adding their address
>> manually to the map, Canada Post is not about to allow any party to use
>> that information freely.
>>
>> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 11:41 AM, Ellefsen, Bjenk (STATCAN) <
>> bjenk.ellef...@canada.ca> wrote:
>>
>>> The postal code subject is interesting for many reasons. I read that
>>> France has released a National address database, publically and free.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> There must be a way we can follow that example.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I am still catching up, haha!
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Bjenk
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> *From:* john whelan [mailto:jwhelan0...@gmail.com]
>>> *Sent:* August-06-16 7:23 PM
>>> *To:* Laura O'Grady 
>>> *Cc:* Talk-CA OpenStreetMap ; Ellefsen,
>>> Bjenk (STATCAN) ; Stewart C. Russell <
>>> scr...@gmail.com>
>>> *Subject:* Re: [Talk-ca] Crowdsourcing buildings with Statistics Canada
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> The postcode battle is being fought on the Open Data side.   There is an
>>> open data mailing list whose name escapes me where they have been playing
>>> for years to get the postcode data including access to information requests.
>>>
>>> Tracy at Carleton University is well connected on the Open Data side and
>>> the postcode saga.  There is some hope now that the UK post office has made
>>> the UK ones available.
>>>
>>> For the moment many commercial companies do list their postcode on their
>>> web sites and the the commercial buildings that are the ones of interest to
>>> Stats Canada.
>>>
>>> I suspect Bjenk will have fun when he checks his email on Monday morning
>>> when he arrives in the office.  We've been quite chatty over the weekend.
>>>
>>> Cheerio John
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 6 Aug 2016 7:02 pm, "Laura O'Grady"  wrote:
>>>
>>> There's a form [1] requesting this data set. Not sure if posting a
>>> request will help as we know this has been going on for years.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> You can get the Forward Sortation Areas in a boundary file [2], which
>>> can be exported from the db. I noticed the disclaimer, "This data includes
>>> information copied with permission from Canada Post Corporation". But of
>>> course this is incomplete. I wonder if it's the latter 3 characters,
>>> the Local Delivery Unit, which can pinpoint to individual households is
>>> being suppressed for privacy reasons.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> As an academic we battled Stats Can for years for access to data that
>>> was paid for by taxpayer dollars. Eventually we won. So there's a precedent
>>> of sorts.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Has anyone tried filing a freedom of information request for the postal
>>> codes?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Laura
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -
>>>
>>> Laura O'Grady
>>>
>>> la...@lauraogrady.ca
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> [1] http://open.canada.ca/en/suggested-datasets/postal-code-database
>>>
>>> [2] https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/geo/
>>> bound-limit/bound-limit-2011-eng.cfm
>>>
>>>
>>> On Aug 6, 2016, at 2:12 PM, john whelan  wrote:
>>>
>>> ​I understand the current intent is data.gc.ca
>>>
>>> There is actually a lot of postcode data in Ottawa adhresses as it
>>> stands especially for commercial buildings.  Don't hold your breath for
>>> Canada Post and postcodes.
>>>
>>> Some attributes they would like at the moment I can't see how a mapper
>>> would map them from physically looking at the building.
>>>
>>> If nothing else it should clean up the map.  For that reason it would be
>>> nice to be able to pull chunks 

Re: [Talk-ca] Crowdsourcing buildings with Statistics Canada

[Kevin Farrugia]

For clarification - Canada Post only owns the postal code, the address
itself (123 Main St.) is created and approved by the municipality, so it's
their data and they can release that data if they wish to.

So it is perfectly fine to add the street number and name, just not the
postal code from an official source.

On Aug 10, 2016 11:00 AM, "Adam Martin"  wrote:

> Hey Bjenk,
>
> On the Address data, the Talk-CA group has had several discussions about
> it. The problem boils down to Canada Post, which treats the information as
> proprietary - they provide any individual going to their site the right to
> lookup an address in order to utilize their service to mail items. The
> actual database is theirs and even the postal code on my home is theirs,
> I'm just allowed to use it. This all likely has more to do with the fact
> that they have a service that links the addresses to mapped locations that
> is, of course, available only for those willing to pay for it. If they
> allowed OSM to integrate this information, they would lose that revenue
> stream.
>
> Suffice it to say that, apart from an individual adding their address
> manually to the map, Canada Post is not about to allow any party to use
> that information freely.
>
> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 11:41 AM, Ellefsen, Bjenk (STATCAN) <
> bjenk.ellef...@canada.ca> wrote:
>
>> The postal code subject is interesting for many reasons. I read that
>> France has released a National address database, publically and free.
>>
>>
>>
>> There must be a way we can follow that example.
>>
>>
>>
>> I am still catching up, haha!
>>
>>
>>
>> Bjenk
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* john whelan [mailto:jwhelan0...@gmail.com]
>> *Sent:* August-06-16 7:23 PM
>> *To:* Laura O'Grady 
>> *Cc:* Talk-CA OpenStreetMap ; Ellefsen, Bjenk
>> (STATCAN) ; Stewart C. Russell <
>> scr...@gmail.com>
>> *Subject:* Re: [Talk-ca] Crowdsourcing buildings with Statistics Canada
>>
>>
>>
>> The postcode battle is being fought on the Open Data side.   There is an
>> open data mailing list whose name escapes me where they have been playing
>> for years to get the postcode data including access to information requests.
>>
>> Tracy at Carleton University is well connected on the Open Data side and
>> the postcode saga.  There is some hope now that the UK post office has made
>> the UK ones available.
>>
>> For the moment many commercial companies do list their postcode on their
>> web sites and the the commercial buildings that are the ones of interest to
>> Stats Canada.
>>
>> I suspect Bjenk will have fun when he checks his email on Monday morning
>> when he arrives in the office.  We've been quite chatty over the weekend.
>>
>> Cheerio John
>>
>>
>>
>> On 6 Aug 2016 7:02 pm, "Laura O'Grady"  wrote:
>>
>> There's a form [1] requesting this data set. Not sure if posting a
>> request will help as we know this has been going on for years.
>>
>>
>>
>> You can get the Forward Sortation Areas in a boundary file [2], which can
>> be exported from the db. I noticed the disclaimer, "This data includes
>> information copied with permission from Canada Post Corporation". But of
>> course this is incomplete. I wonder if it's the latter 3 characters,
>> the Local Delivery Unit, which can pinpoint to individual households is
>> being suppressed for privacy reasons.
>>
>>
>>
>> As an academic we battled Stats Can for years for access to data that was
>> paid for by taxpayer dollars. Eventually we won. So there's a precedent of
>> sorts.
>>
>>
>>
>> Has anyone tried filing a freedom of information request for the postal
>> codes?
>>
>>
>>
>> Laura
>>
>>
>>
>> -
>>
>> Laura O'Grady
>>
>> la...@lauraogrady.ca
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> [1] http://open.canada.ca/en/suggested-datasets/postal-code-database
>>
>> [2] https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/geo/
>> bound-limit/bound-limit-2011-eng.cfm
>>
>>
>> On Aug 6, 2016, at 2:12 PM, john whelan  wrote:
>>
>> ​I understand the current intent is data.gc.ca
>>
>> There is actually a lot of postcode data in Ottawa adhresses as it stands
>> especially for commercial buildings.  Don't hold your breath for Canada
>> Post and postcodes.
>>
>> Some attributes they would like at the moment I can't see how a mapper
>> would map them from physically looking at the building.
>>
>> If nothing else it should clean up the map.  For that reason it would be
>> nice to be able to pull chunks into JOSM and go over it looking for obvious
>> errors and spelling mistakes in tags.  Maperitive has the ability to
>> extract the tags and export them in spreadsheet format which is good for
>> this sort of thing but you need a source to feed it.​
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Cheerio John
>>
>>
>>
>> On 6 August 2016 at 12:38, Stewart C. Russell  wrote:
>>
>> Hi John - some great points here.
>>
>> > My understanding is currently he’s looking getting hold 

Re: [Talk-ca] Crowdsourcing buildings with Statistics Canada

[Adam Martin]

Hey Bjenk,

On the Address data, the Talk-CA group has had several discussions about
it. The problem boils down to Canada Post, which treats the information as
proprietary - they provide any individual going to their site the right to
lookup an address in order to utilize their service to mail items. The
actual database is theirs and even the postal code on my home is theirs,
I'm just allowed to use it. This all likely has more to do with the fact
that they have a service that links the addresses to mapped locations that
is, of course, available only for those willing to pay for it. If they
allowed OSM to integrate this information, they would lose that revenue
stream.

Suffice it to say that, apart from an individual adding their address
manually to the map, Canada Post is not about to allow any party to use
that information freely.

On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 11:41 AM, Ellefsen, Bjenk (STATCAN) <
bjenk.ellef...@canada.ca> wrote:

> The postal code subject is interesting for many reasons. I read that
> France has released a National address database, publically and free.
>
>
>
> There must be a way we can follow that example.
>
>
>
> I am still catching up, haha!
>
>
>
> Bjenk
>
>
>
> *From:* john whelan [mailto:jwhelan0...@gmail.com]
> *Sent:* August-06-16 7:23 PM
> *To:* Laura O'Grady 
> *Cc:* Talk-CA OpenStreetMap ; Ellefsen, Bjenk
> (STATCAN) ; Stewart C. Russell  >
> *Subject:* Re: [Talk-ca] Crowdsourcing buildings with Statistics Canada
>
>
>
> The postcode battle is being fought on the Open Data side.   There is an
> open data mailing list whose name escapes me where they have been playing
> for years to get the postcode data including access to information requests.
>
> Tracy at Carleton University is well connected on the Open Data side and
> the postcode saga.  There is some hope now that the UK post office has made
> the UK ones available.
>
> For the moment many commercial companies do list their postcode on their
> web sites and the the commercial buildings that are the ones of interest to
> Stats Canada.
>
> I suspect Bjenk will have fun when he checks his email on Monday morning
> when he arrives in the office.  We've been quite chatty over the weekend.
>
> Cheerio John
>
>
>
> On 6 Aug 2016 7:02 pm, "Laura O'Grady"  wrote:
>
> There's a form [1] requesting this data set. Not sure if posting a request
> will help as we know this has been going on for years.
>
>
>
> You can get the Forward Sortation Areas in a boundary file [2], which can
> be exported from the db. I noticed the disclaimer, "This data includes
> information copied with permission from Canada Post Corporation". But of
> course this is incomplete. I wonder if it's the latter 3 characters,
> the Local Delivery Unit, which can pinpoint to individual households is
> being suppressed for privacy reasons.
>
>
>
> As an academic we battled Stats Can for years for access to data that was
> paid for by taxpayer dollars. Eventually we won. So there's a precedent of
> sorts.
>
>
>
> Has anyone tried filing a freedom of information request for the postal
> codes?
>
>
>
> Laura
>
>
>
> -
>
> Laura O'Grady
>
> la...@lauraogrady.ca
>
>
>
>
>
> [1] http://open.canada.ca/en/suggested-datasets/postal-code-database
>
> [2] https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/
> geo/bound-limit/bound-limit-2011-eng.cfm
>
>
> On Aug 6, 2016, at 2:12 PM, john whelan  wrote:
>
> ​I understand the current intent is data.gc.ca
>
> There is actually a lot of postcode data in Ottawa adhresses as it stands
> especially for commercial buildings.  Don't hold your breath for Canada
> Post and postcodes.
>
> Some attributes they would like at the moment I can't see how a mapper
> would map them from physically looking at the building.
>
> If nothing else it should clean up the map.  For that reason it would be
> nice to be able to pull chunks into JOSM and go over it looking for obvious
> errors and spelling mistakes in tags.  Maperitive has the ability to
> extract the tags and export them in spreadsheet format which is good for
> this sort of thing but you need a source to feed it.​
>
>
>
>
>
> Cheerio John
>
>
>
> On 6 August 2016 at 12:38, Stewart C. Russell  wrote:
>
> Hi John - some great points here.
>
> > My understanding is currently he’s looking getting hold of the City of
> > Ottawa building outline data and making it available to OpenStreetMap
> > without the current license restriction.
>
> This would be wonderful. It would be ideal if the data could be placed
> on data.gc.ca and use the OGL-CA v2 licence. OSM can't use any data
> under the City of Ottawa Open Data - Terms of use
> . I
> also have my doubts about the acceptability of the Statistics Canada
> Open Licence Agreement 

Re: [Talk-ca] Talk-ca Digest, Vol 102, Issue 21

[Ellefsen, Bjenk (STATCAN)]

John has the gist of it.

We will use a modified version of iD running off of a StatCan website.

A splash page will invite Canadians to participate with simple instructions and 
a link for when they want to start.

We will also link to the OSM Canada and wiki.


I will write back this PM about the buildings attributes we are looking for.

Bjenk 

Date: Sat, 6 Aug 2016 10:26:46 -0400
From: john whelan 
To: James 
Cc: "Ellefsen, Bjenk \(STATCAN\)" , Talk-CA
OpenStreetMap 
Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Crowdsourcing buildings with Statistics Canada
Message-ID:

Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

I think the Stats Canada project is evolving as Bjenk understands a little
more about what he’d like and what we can do.

My understanding is currently he’s looking getting hold of the City of
Ottawa building outline data and making it available to OpenStreetMap
without the current license restriction.

My feeling is the tile approach was an early one which won’t work as well
as he thought.  Some of the attributes he’d like, you just can’t get from
Bing aerial imagery.

He’s asking for a more disciplined approach than we usually do using a more
standardised set of tags.  Currently fire stations for example are often
tagged amenity=fire_station and sometimes they have a building=yes tag.  I
think he’d like these to be tagged building=civic to be more specific than
building=yes.  So a lot of clean up work needs to be done.

He’s also asking for the building outline to be tagged with the address
including postcode.  Which is interesting as currently each node of store
within a building might have part of the address.  Postcodes often are not
present.  If we decide to strip out the address other than the unit number
from the nodes within a building outline we’d probably save a little
database space.  By the way we need an agreement on what to use for unit
addr:unit perhaps?

I’m not certain if he realises that 5-10% of our mappers make 80+% of the
edits, often using JOSM so as long as he gives the attributes he’d like and
we accept them then I suspect much of the work is done.  However I
understand the plan is to have a customised version of iD.  Stats Canada
traditionally has a sample file which is made available to field workers.
I would imagine they will try to do the same here.  A file which contains a
list of building outlines which they would like enriched.  One problem I
see arising is a new mapper mapping to the Stats Canada guide lines using
iD changes one or more existing tags.  I do a fair amount of validation in
HOT and some newer mappers either completely ignore or misunderstand the
instructions.

I’ve heard two comments so far from professionals working in the GIS / Open
data fields, one was they didn’t think it would work, Stats are asking too
much.  The second was more guarded they thought it could work and it would
certainly be interesting to watch.  I would tend to agree with the second
one, it will certainly be interesting to watch.

Cheerio John

On 6 August 2016 at 09:45, James  wrote:

> Yeah, that was when I wastracing buildings manually, Gatineau and Ottawa
> boundaries should maybe be combined into one project as there is
> duplication(overlap) due to how the task manager splits tiles into nice
> squares
>
> On Aug 5, 2016 11:50 PM, "Stewart C. Russell"  wrote:
>
>> On 2016-08-05 11:08 PM, Laura O'Grady wrote:
>> > I just noticed that there is a project for Ottawa in the Canadian
>> > Tasking Manager [1] called, "#2 - Ottawa Building Update".
>>
>> This looks a little old - it was last used 8 months ago. It also has
>> some unnecessary guidelines, such as adding the redundant (and possibly
>> incorrect, if you accidentally go over over a boundary)
>> addr:city=Ottawa. Ottawa and Gatineau should have boundary relations in
>> place.
>>
>>  Stewart
>>
>> ___
>> Talk-ca mailing list
>> Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org
>> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca
>>
>
> ___
> Talk-ca mailing list
> Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca
>
>
-- next part --
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: 


--

Subject: Digest Footer

___
Talk-ca mailing list
Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca


--

End of Talk-ca Digest, Vol 102, Issue 21

___
Talk-ca mailing list
Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org

Re: [Talk-ca] Talk-ca Digest, Vol 102, Issue 20

[Ellefsen, Bjenk (STATCAN)]

Laura,

This is not related to the project. We considered using it though but our IT 
advised against it.

This platform can certainly assist in the effort. We will be using a website 
for this though and webpage will provide instructions on what we wish to 
accomplish to enrich the buildings information on OSM.

Bjenk


Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2016 23:08:39 -0400
From: "Laura O'Grady" 
To: "Ellefsen, Bjenk (STATCAN)" 
Cc: Talk-CA OpenStreetMap 
Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Crowdsourcing buildings with Statistics Canada
Message-ID: 
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

I just noticed that there is a project for Ottawa in the Canadian Tasking 
Manager [1] called, "#2 - Ottawa Building Update".

Is this related to your initiative? Can this platform assist in the effort?

Laura

-
Laura O'Grady
la...@lauraogrady.ca
___
Talk-ca mailing list
Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca

Re: [Talk-ca] Talk-ca Digest, Vol 102, Issue 22

[Ellefsen, Bjenk (STATCAN)]

Stewart, 

Yes, the plan is this: we met with our folks in dissemination working on the 
open data initiative. First, we need to host these files ourselves at StatCan. 
So they have to go through an approval process to go our open data release 
servers. Then, they will be linked to open.canada.ca.

The overall plan is to bring this data under the federal open data license of 
open.canada.ca. 
The license info: open.canada.ca/en/open-government-licence-canada
This was established after consultations with many groups. The discussion page 
is interesting as well.

Let me know what you think!

-Original Message-
From: talk-ca-requ...@openstreetmap.org 
[mailto:talk-ca-requ...@openstreetmap.org] 
Sent: August-06-16 7:00 PM
To: talk-ca@openstreetmap.org
Subject: Talk-ca Digest, Vol 102, Issue 22

Send Talk-ca mailing list submissions to
talk-ca@openstreetmap.org

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
talk-ca-requ...@openstreetmap.org

You can reach the person managing the list at
talk-ca-ow...@openstreetmap.org

When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Talk-ca digest..."


Today's Topics:

   1. Re: Crowdsourcing buildings with Statistics Canada
  (Stewart C. Russell)
   2. Re: Crowdsourcing buildings with Statistics Canada (john whelan)
   3. Re: Crowdsourcing buildings with Statistics Canada (john whelan)


--

Message: 1
Date: Sat, 6 Aug 2016 12:38:48 -0400
From: "Stewart C. Russell" 
To: Talk-CA OpenStreetMap 
Cc: "Ellefsen, Bjenk \(STATCAN\)" 
Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Crowdsourcing buildings with Statistics Canada
Message-ID: 
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8

Hi John - some great points here.

> My understanding is currently he’s looking getting hold of the City of
> Ottawa building outline data and making it available to OpenStreetMap
> without the current license restriction.

This would be wonderful. It would be ideal if the data could be placed
on data.gc.ca and use the OGL-CA v2 licence. OSM can't use any data
under the City of Ottawa Open Data - Terms of use
. I
also have my doubts about the acceptability of the Statistics Canada
Open Licence Agreement .
OGL-CA v2, though, we know to be acceptable.

Also, if there were to be an import, we *must* follow the
Import/Guidelines
 or risk having
any new imports deleted. The recent LA building import provides a decent
template, but there are no imports without the Data Working Group having
knowledge of it.

[** Bjenk: if all this seems gibberish, please ping me off-list, and I'd
be happy to have a chat. Despite my previous flippant comments, I think
this is a great project.]

To some more of John's points:

> He’s also asking for the building outline to be tagged with the address
> including postcode.  Which is interesting as currently each node of
> store within a building might have part of the address.

For sure. I looked at the City of Ottawa data, and getting it to mesh
with existing address points and ranges in OSM is going to be challenging:

* fixing street naming to meet OSM standards (so Ottawa's 991 CARLING
AVE would have to become addr:housenumber=991 and addr:street=Carling
Avenue). Not impossible, but would need some manual oversight

* Inconsistent application of French to some street names, English to
others, and no obvious metadata to distinguish language

* some buildings in mixed-use neighbourhoods will have multiple address
points, all containing the same address (eg St Stephen's on Parkdale Ave
has three 579 Parkdale Ave nodes)

* some buildings just plain don't have address points nearby (like the
Agri-Food Canada Building on Carling Ave)

* rationalizing address points with existing address ranges.

And then there's the postal code problem. If Stat Canada can bring us a
licence-compatible data set of full codes that Canada Post *won't* try
to sue us over, that would be glorious. I'm not sure we could get enough
traction with the general Canadian public to do the "Free the Postcode"
initiative like in the UK to make this useful as a crowdsourcing effort.

> … One problem I see arising is a new mapper mapping to the
> Stats Canada guide lines using iD changes one or more existing tags.  I
> do a fair amount of validation in HOT and some newer mappers either
> completely ignore or misunderstand the instructions.

Yes, this can be a problem with newer mappers. There would need to be a
careful data quality metric, but also an understanding that unpaid,
crowdsourced 

Re: [Talk-ca] Crowdsourcing buildings with Statistics Canada

[Ellefsen, Bjenk (STATCAN)]

The postal code subject is interesting for many reasons. I read that France has 
released a National address database, publically and free.

There must be a way we can follow that example.

I am still catching up, haha!

Bjenk

From: john whelan [mailto:jwhelan0...@gmail.com]
Sent: August-06-16 7:23 PM
To: Laura O'Grady 
Cc: Talk-CA OpenStreetMap ; Ellefsen, Bjenk 
(STATCAN) ; Stewart C. Russell 
Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Crowdsourcing buildings with Statistics Canada


The postcode battle is being fought on the Open Data side.   There is an open 
data mailing list whose name escapes me where they have been playing for years 
to get the postcode data including access to information requests.

Tracy at Carleton University is well connected on the Open Data side and the 
postcode saga.  There is some hope now that the UK post office has made the UK 
ones available.

For the moment many commercial companies do list their postcode on their web 
sites and the the commercial buildings that are the ones of interest to Stats 
Canada.

I suspect Bjenk will have fun when he checks his email on Monday morning when 
he arrives in the office.  We've been quite chatty over the weekend.

Cheerio John

On 6 Aug 2016 7:02 pm, "Laura O'Grady" 
> wrote:
There's a form [1] requesting this data set. Not sure if posting a request will 
help as we know this has been going on for years.

You can get the Forward Sortation Areas in a boundary file [2], which can be 
exported from the db. I noticed the disclaimer, "This data includes information 
copied with permission from Canada Post Corporation". But of course this is 
incomplete. I wonder if it's the latter 3 characters, the Local Delivery Unit, 
which can pinpoint to individual households is being suppressed for privacy 
reasons.

As an academic we battled Stats Can for years for access to data that was paid 
for by taxpayer dollars. Eventually we won. So there's a precedent of sorts.

Has anyone tried filing a freedom of information request for the postal codes?

Laura

-
Laura O'Grady
la...@lauraogrady.ca


[1] http://open.canada.ca/en/suggested-datasets/postal-code-database
[2] 
https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/geo/bound-limit/bound-limit-2011-eng.cfm

On Aug 6, 2016, at 2:12 PM, john whelan 
> wrote:
​I understand the current intent is data.gc.ca

There is actually a lot of postcode data in Ottawa adhresses as it stands 
especially for commercial buildings.  Don't hold your breath for Canada Post 
and postcodes.

Some attributes they would like at the moment I can't see how a mapper would 
map them from physically looking at the building.

If nothing else it should clean up the map.  For that reason it would be nice 
to be able to pull chunks into JOSM and go over it looking for obvious errors 
and spelling mistakes in tags.  Maperitive has the ability to extract the tags 
and export them in spreadsheet format which is good for this sort of thing but 
you need a source to feed it.​


Cheerio John

On 6 August 2016 at 12:38, Stewart C. Russell 
> wrote:
Hi John - some great points here.

> My understanding is currently he’s looking getting hold of the City of
> Ottawa building outline data and making it available to OpenStreetMap
> without the current license restriction.

This would be wonderful. It would be ideal if the data could be placed
on data.gc.ca and use the OGL-CA v2 licence. OSM can't use 
any data
under the City of Ottawa Open Data - Terms of use
. I
also have my doubts about the acceptability of the Statistics Canada
Open Licence Agreement .
OGL-CA v2, though, we know to be acceptable.

Also, if there were to be an import, we *must* follow the
Import/Guidelines
 or risk having
any new imports deleted. The recent LA building import provides a decent
template, but there are no imports without the Data Working Group having
knowledge of it.

[** Bjenk: if all this seems gibberish, please ping me off-list, and I'd
be happy to have a chat. Despite my previous flippant comments, I think
this is a great project.]

To some more of John's points:

> He’s also asking for the building outline to be tagged with the address
> including postcode.  Which is interesting as currently each node of
> store within a building might have part of the address.

For sure. I looked at the City of Ottawa data, and getting it to mesh
with existing address points and ranges in OSM is going to be challenging:

* fixing street naming to meet OSM standards (so Ottawa's 991 CARLING
AVE would have to become