Me, last comment:

if there are zero other effective methods to achieve the desired result, practical folks will take the route that works

Here is an illustration of the attitude of mind that I’m talking about (it’s not pretty, but it works):

@Vincent de Phily:

I don’t think that diaries are the right medium for spam warnings : people reading them are looking for news about OSM, not routine admin stuff.

I agree fully. However, if there are zero other effective methods to achieve the desired result, practical folks will take the route that works. I see a lot of crying for the moon; Engineers like practicality. For me, Effective wins every time. This particular mini-story is a perfect exemplar for the way in which OSM gets attenuated (‘made thin’) & deprived of air. I think that perhaps the story of Alexander & the Gordian knot has application here, although I’m deeply pessimistic as to any actual solution.

Hi @Vincent de Phily

Well, no disrespect, my friend, but that link seems a complete waste of time. The oldest entry when I look at it is a user since 10 February, 2015; zero traces, zero map entries. I x diary entry to get a link to his Profile, which contains a link to his site. Spam, lovely Spam, yet zero action for 18 months.

Meanwhile, this public entry has seen both users removed in less than 24 hours. That’s more like it.

Hi there, @NathanO

It’s your map, my friend, so fix it! I use a £20 GBP android smartphone + osmtracker (free). Once you set the track going it will drop breadcrumbs (create a GPX export once complete, which you can pull into JOSM) and you can measure that street exactly. Alter it so it is correct. Not too difficult, and deeply satisfying to fix. Add the houses + house-numbers & other interesting stuff whilst you are at it.

Hi @MiroJanosik

You write: “do walking sessions while it is summer and you can feel your fingers”. Um, isn’t it Summer in Slovakia right now?!

Mistakes: we are human, try to put up with it whilst you learn. I found myself having to redo all the time, but slowly I got better.

PS
An hour for each street sounds about right. It takes a terrifying amount of time to survey on the ground.

I’ve just added the data slice for the Population cores of Britain. The average is 58% unparished, but even that hides the fact that most of the large cities in Britain are 100% unparished and thus, I assert, have utterly poor LSN because of it.

Hi @chillly

The data on this page is all drawn from the same source, OS Boundary Line open data released 21/03/2016.

I’ve put all the info into a spreadsheet to make it possible to pull out different views. I’m happy to release that spreadsheet to anybody that will be able to put it up for open download.

The info for NE Lincs is 79% Parished, 21% unparished.

(I’ve just discovered some info)…

On 12:05 22 Aug @smsm1 said: > (in Edinburgh) the geocoding (is producing) exceptionally weird results, which was causing people to stop using OSM based services such as CycleStreets

If you have a look through the data you will see that the CITY_OF_EDINBURGH is a Unitary Authority and is entirely Unparished. It therefore has zero admin_level=10 areas, and is a prime candidate for all the problems set out in this post.

For information:

1. 16:21 21 August 2016: I notified The Maarssen Mapper here, in a reply to his comment, that all files on his site ‘had been removed’ (a very poor choice of language - a more accurate statement would have been that every GPX file on his site gave a 404 response).
2. 21:14 21 August 2016: A HEAD check by me on a GPX URL is flawless, and I assume that all files are now available. That is yet another wrong assumption (I’m getting good at that): the URL that I used was one used previously and thus was known good.
3. 14:33 22 August 2016: I discover the site is still yielding 404s and, damn annoyed, examine the source. The final (sometimes, two final) forward slashes (‘/’) of all URLs have been swapped for Windows-style back-slashes (‘\’). Rewriting a sample index.html page turns every URL from a 404 to a legitimate source for a GPX file.
4. 23 August 2016: rather than expecting him to read these comments, I send The Maarssen Mapper a message from his Home page on my discoveries. He instantly responds & fixes the problem. Once again, all URLs on all pages are legit.

Hi @SomeoneElse

God, I hate it when someone is correct in an opinion that differs from me. However, I do still adhere to the opening premise of this Diary entry, which I would paraphrase as follows:

“LSN in OSM requires an area to be effective, and the most likely area that it will use is admin_level=10”.

“LSN” is used deliberately in the article to both avoid unfairly fixing the blame on Nominatim and also provide a smokescreen for my ignorance, as I’ve seen clear indications in the last 5 months that a great many different services are used to provide LSN facilities, and I have zero idea as to how they all interact together. I also have great confusion in that I cannot seem to drill down to the Nominatim code.

I’ve found sufficient evidence to indicate that the primary factor in LSN results is the presence of an admin_level=10 area (BoundaryLine). The fact of contra-indications means that other, as yet unknown, factors are also at play.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have some proper, documented help? (and here comes yet more controversy…). My experience of too many software writers is that they believe code to be for real men, whilst documentation is for wimps.

Extent of country unparished: 9,229,902 hectares (39%)
Extent of country parished: 14,198,481 hectares (61%)

I’ll publish the entire stock of figures in a separate entry after d/checking (already found/fixed a small error).

Hello @SomeoneElse

Finally! You are talking to me about the content of the Diary Entry! Hooray….

I was very, very serious when I said upfront “I only half understand what I’m talking about”. In fact, that was possibly exaggerating the extent of my understanding. But, a person needs to start somewhere.

The value of the “admin_level=10” parishes is that no-one, including Nominatum, needs argue about where a Parish (Town, etc.) Council begins or ends; it is known exactly. I therefore consider my opening statement to be non-controversial (“LSN starts with admin_level=10 BoundaryLine areas”). Any controversy begins (1) if you accept that statement, and (2) when you discover that a substantial portion of the Country does not have an “admin_level=10” parish, because of the Unparished areas. The one problem with this admirably simple statement is that it demonstrably is not universally true (your discoveries + see my “Contra-Indication” in the main body above, discovered by me just as I had almost finished my wonderful treatise; I was spitting tin-tacks afterwards).

The paragraph above is the closest to the truth that I’ve seen anyone say, including those that speak for Nominatum. It’s a good enough working hypothesis until something more accurate is found.

PS
1) I obviously am not ‘tagging for the renderer’. You CAN accuse me of tagging for the LSN, but that is different.
2) I suggest adding admin_level=10 for Unparished areas because Nominatim already understands that tag + it affects LSN. Any other tag added would be for humans, not the renderer.
3) I would want to know the exact area of the country that is Unparished as opposed to CPs. It should be possible to find that out, and would help focus the mind as to the exact dimension of the problem.

Hi @smsm1

Yes, your Edinburgh experience certainly seems to mirror my own in Carlton & Thorneywood.

In general, in the UK a Borough Council is admin_level=8 (same as District) whilst a Town Council is admin_level=10 (same as Parish Council). They are normally different things. That changes with Ipswich, as it is both a District + an Unparished area (in my books admin_level=10).

Suffolk Council has a list of Borough, District & Parish Councils within Suffolk (see also find-a-council at gov.uk). Ipswich Borough Council is upon that page & you can find contact details there. There is also a link to Google maps, which takes you to Grafton House, but not to an Area.

Ipswich does NOT appear as a CP within the Parish CP .gpx files. However, there are two Unparished Areas in Suffolk: Unnamed_shape_6717 and Unnamed_shape_7194. As best as I can tell:

Unnamed_shape_6717 == Lowestoft (there is a current proposal to create a Lowestoft Town Council). Lowestoft falls within Waveney District Council (admin_level=8) + Suffolk Coastal District Council, part of Suffolk county (admin_level=6). Corton (admin_level=10) exists to the north, but not Lowestoft to the south. The current OSM boundaries seem well-fitted to the OS GPX, as best I checked, apart from the missing Lowestoft.

Unnamed_shape_7194 == Ipswich (bingo!). Checking the boundaries to the north, there is Mid-Suffolk (admin_level=8), Ipswich (admin_level=8) + a tiny Whitton and an Akenham (both admin_level=10) but no Ipswich parish nor area (admin_level=10). Once again, the current OSM boundaries seem well-fitted to the OS GPX.

Note: in yet another bizarro episode, within all os_boundary .gpx file index pages the GPX file download links have had some forward-slash (‘/’) directory separators swapped for back-slashes (‘\’ == ‘%5C’ in a browser). The bottom line is a 404 on attempted download. I’ve rewritten the links above so that they work.

Hi @SomeoneElse

I’ve tried, I really have.

My language is well tempered; there is zero bad language. I am direct & to the point, yes. There are zero “baseless comments” - every comment is referenced & explained with reasons. My language is reasoned throughout; because of this I find it difficult to understand how you call me “intemperate”?

Did you read the storyline in 23:03? I have not sought this chap out; he has sought me out. He hits on me again & again solely, as best as I can see, to find opportunity to cause me harm.

How can I work to a consensus with this fellow? His desire is to cause me harm, which is why you end up being called into play. Have you noticed that I have not attempted a similar ploy?

Oh dear; this is not what I wanted before going to bed.

@The Maarssen Mapper: What led to my recent comments came in 2 stages:

1. You commented (12:43), I replied (16:34), you ignored my reply.
2. In my reply (16:21) I tried to look at the meta-data to a parish-file to quote as part of my reply & got a 404. I checked a couple of sample downloads on each page in the set & got a 404 for each one. Hence my remark “… Having problems?”. Then, later (21:14) I try a HEAD check & the files are all accessible again.

These two items (appear to) confirm each other: you declare that statements from a Parliamentary paper are incorrect but refuse to acknowledge the correction; you (appear to) silently reinstate access to files previously removed.

Now, I understand network problems totally. I am happy to accept that I made a mistake and that you never removed any files. Just in case the latter was down to me rather than you I restarted my whole system, and met this further attack when the system came back up. Will you get off my back, please?

Now…

This entire farrago started because I made some additions to your private wiki (the phrase “private wiki” is an oxymoron; by definition, all wikis are public). As soon as you complained to me about those additions I departed & would have never referred to it or you again. You, however, from that moment have made it your business to descend on all I do and nit-pick and make as much complaint & disturbance as you possibly can, seeking to get me ostracised and (if possible) rejected from OSM.

Look at the length of your comments in this Diary entry. You just cannot stop yourself, can you?

From my point of view, your behaviour towards me has amounted to abuse. I’ve tried everything that I know to defuse the situation, but you will not stop. Please, just go away & leave me be.

@The Maarssen Mapper: Ah, I see that you have restored access to all files in the BoundaryLines pages. That is good; it is a tremendous resource:

:~$ curl -I http://csmale.dev.openstreetmap.org/os_boundaryline/parish_region/City_Of_Nottingham/Unnamed_shape_9346.gpx
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 20:55:27 GMT
Server: Apache/2.4.7 (Ubuntu)
Last-Modified: Wed, 04 May 2016 18:09:50 GMT
ETag: “32f35-5320821b21780”
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Content-Length: 208693

So, you are someone unable to admit openly/publicly to your mistakes. Very foolish. It means that you doom yourself to repeat them endlessly (you are still lecturing me on local government, yet I no longer trust any of your statements following your earlier gaffe & refusal to accept that you made one).

@The Maarssen Mapper: thanks for the correction re: the LGBCE; I’ve altered the relevant phrase.

@The Maarssen Mapper: You state: “the OS is not the owner of these boundaries” and “In their data they do not refer to “unnamed parishes”.

I’ve re-read what’s written just to be certain, and I never ever refer to the Ordnance Survey as the “owner of these boundaries” (nor think of them that way), so I’m uncertain what you are talking about there.

I never say that the OS refer to “unnamed parishes”. I say “see all the ‘unnamed areas’ in the Civil Parishes page”. I’ve got to call them something so that folks know what I’m talking about. You have named each one “Unnamed shape ….” so that is the name that I’ve used.

Hmm. I see now that you have now removed each file referred to in each page. Having problems?

@The Maarssen Mapper: You state “This statement is untrue: Powers: In theory Parish & Town Council powers are identical…”.

That statement is drawn directly from the Parliament Briefing paper (“section 3. Parish council powers”). Think again.

Hi TomH

Suburbs: as I understand it, suburbs appear under OSM only as nodes and, therefore, by definition cannot have a BoundaryLine.

Unparished Areas: oddly, these are all as carefully defined by the Ordnance Survey as are the civil parishes, and therefore are all perfectly verifiable. They are also all named by their respective District councils, and by those that live within them (I mean, can you imagine: “Where do you live?” “Oh, I live in Unnamed parish 9346”).

The issue, Tom, is that because the OS treat them as black holes some folks insist that OSM must do the same, which then shafts LSN. That seems nonsense to me.