On Thu, Dec 26, 2019 at 1:11 PM stevea <[email protected]> wrote: > The myriad variations of "name" (alt, loc, nat, old, reg, official, sorting, > int...) show how complex this is. The issues go back many years and will > likely continue well into the future, indeed many participants in this/these > thread(s) are authors of our wiki's name page. > > Better documenting, continuing dialog, consensus-style agreement, changing > data in the map to reflect our well- or better-documented conventions: all > of these get us closer to perfection. Although I think everybody agrees, > perfection is nigh on impossible, as "the map is never 'done.'" > > "Do our best." If there is contention, discuss it. If there is > misunderstanding or disagreement, discuss it. If there is agreement, > document it and use it in the map and even write code that depends on it. We > get there, we will better get there as we continue to do these things.
Exactly. There is a plethora of name variations in the database because there is a plethora of names in the field. I joke that in New York City, most of the freeways have three names: the highway number, which is on the signs but nobody ever uses it in speaking, the name of the highway (e.g., "Jackie Robinson Parkway", "Avenue of the Americas", "Robert F. Kennedy Bridge") that's on all the signs (but the locals don't remember the name!), and the name that the locals call it (e.g., "Interborough Parkway", "Sixth Avenue", "Triboro Bridge") which isn't on the signs. (Not quite true - New York gave up some years ago and posted signs reading both Sixth Avenue and Avenue of the Americas, but give me some poetic license here.) Back to counties, specifically: Three of the five counties that make up New York City absolutely need alt_names. The Borough of Manhattan is New York County; the Borough of Brooklyn is Kings County, and the Borough of Staten Island is Richmond County. Both sets of names are official - the county courts still go by the county names, while the executive branch of the city government uses the borough names. Some of the Downstate counties (Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Rockland come to mind) in New York are often used in speaking without 'County' appended, and it certainly would make sense to have alt_names for those without the 'County' suffix. Upstate, it's much less common, partly because many are ambiguous. I wouldn't ever say that I live in Schenectady, because I live outside the Schenectady city limits. I do nevertheless live in Schenectady County, and might say that to someone who's not familiar with the area but knows at least where Schenectady is. Similarly, nobody ever calls Washington County just 'Washington'; it's too confusing. I haven't yet tried to sort out a proper name:fr for Lake George. All of 'Lac George', 'Lac Georges', and 'Lac du Saint-Sacrement' appear in print and on multilingual signage. It was definitely 'Lac du Saint-Sacrement' to the French before the English seized the land around it in 1760. Francophone locals would recognize any of the names. -- 73 de ke9tv/2, Kevin _______________________________________________ Talk-us mailing list [email protected] https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
