Adding housenumbers with StreetComplete

[new...@westnordost.de]

Hi,
I am the author of StreetComplete, an Android app with with which surveyors can add data to the map directly. -> More Info.

Amongst other things, the app incites its users to add housenumbers to buildings.

In some countries, namely Netherlands, Denmark, Norway and Czech Republic, all the address data is (regularly) imported from an external, up-to-date and fairly complete source. For these countries, I was told that it makes little sense for individual surveyors (be it via StreetComplete or with field papers and JOSM/etc) to add housenumber data and/or is even disruptive.

So, I am going to turn off this feature for the mentioned countries.

Now, on the Czech mailing list, Martin Ždila informed me that just/very recently, a (complete? up-to-date?) source of addresses opened up for Slovakia. It looks like the import is still in the planning phase, but looking a bit into the future, I would like to ask you if then, after setting up the (regular) import, the situation in Slovakia would be the same as in the Czech Republic: That an individual survey of housenumbers would make little sense.

In a nutshell, my question is: Should StreetComplete continue to ask its users in Slovakia for housenumbers of buildings?

See this message on the Czech mailing list for more information.

Cheers
Tobias

[Michal Palenik]

hi,

the data is available on https://openaddresses.io/
(the licence of the data changed to CC0)

the goal of the government is to have this dataset complete and
uptodate, but...

how do other countries give notifications about wrong addresses? (like:
the current address in the DB is way off and it should be on the other
side).

michal

On Mon, Nov 13, 2017 at 09:56:36AM -0800, new...@westnordost.de wrote:
> Hi,
> I am the author of StreetComplete, an Android app with with which surveyors
> can add data to the map directly. -> More Info

> <https://github.com/westnordost/StreetComplete>.

>
> Amongst other things, the app incites its users to add housenumbers to
> buildings.
>
> In some countries, namely Netherlands, Denmark, Norway and Czech Republic,
> all the address data is (regularly) imported from an external, up-to-date
> and fairly complete source. For these countries, I was told that it makes
> little sense for individual surveyors (be it via StreetComplete or with
> field papers and JOSM/etc) to add housenumber data and/or is even
> disruptive.
>
> So, I am going to turn off this feature for the mentioned countries.
>
> Now, on the Czech mailing list, Martin Ždila informed me

> <https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-cz/2017-November/017911.html>

> that just/very recently, a (complete? up-to-date?) source of addresses
> opened up for Slovakia. It looks like the import is still in the planning
> phase, but looking a bit into the future, I would like to ask you if then,
> after setting up the (regular) import, the situation in Slovakia would be
> the same as in the Czech Republic: That an individual survey of
> housenumbers would make little sense.
>
> In a nutshell, my question is:

> *Should StreetComplete continue to ask its users in Slovakia for
> housenumbers of buildings?*

> See this message on the Czech mailing list for more information.

> <https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-cz/2017-November/017901.html>
>
> Cheers
> Tobias
>
> --
> Túto správu ste prijali, pretože ste prihlásení na odber správ skupiny „Openstreetmap Slovakia“ služby Skupiny Google.
>
> Ak chcete zrušiť odber tejto skupiny a prestať od nej prijímať e-maily, pošlite e-mail na adresu osm_sk+un...@googlegroups.com.
> Ak chcete zobraziť túto diskusiu na webe, prejdite na adresu https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/osm_sk/4c2af26c-efd2-4cef-a913-07ac8f4a993e%40googlegroups.com.
> Ďalšie možnosti nájdete na stránke https://groups.google.com/d/optout.


--

[Jozef Riha]

hey tobias,

government source of addresses is great, but certainly not perfect. i have found a few addresses already that exist for more than a year - yet missing from the database.

another thing is that slovak mapping community cannot definitely compare in numbers to the ones of countries you listed. it can easily take months to plan this properly and years to implement.

long story short: i vote for keeping this feature enabled i. e. asking the users in slovakia for addr pois ;-) we'll see what happens one year from now.

br, jose

> Ak chcete zrušiť odber tejto skupiny a prestať od nej prijímať e-maily, pošlite e-mail na adresu osm_sk+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.

> Ak chcete zobraziť túto diskusiu na webe, prejdite na adresu https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/osm_sk/4c2af26c-efd2-4cef-a913-07ac8f4a993e%40googlegroups.com.
> Ďalšie možnosti nájdete na stránke https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--

--
Túto správu ste prijali, pretože ste prihlásení na odber správ skupiny „Openstreetmap Slovakia“ služby Skupiny Google.

Ak chcete zrušiť odber tejto skupiny a prestať od nej prijímať e-maily, pošlite e-mail na adresu osm_sk+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
Ak chcete zobraziť túto diskusiu na webe, prejdite na adresu https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/osm_sk/20171113194702.rrg7sn6jgzze7soy%40tanicka.iz.sk.

[Andrew Shadura]

On 13 November 2017 at 18:56, <new...@westnordost.de> wrote:
> Hi,
> I am the author of StreetComplete, an Android app with with which surveyors
> can add data to the map directly. -> More Info.
>
> Amongst other things, the app incites its users to add housenumbers to
> buildings.
>
> In some countries, namely Netherlands, Denmark, Norway and Czech Republic,
> all the address data is (regularly) imported from an external, up-to-date
> and fairly complete source. For these countries, I was told that it makes
> little sense for individual surveyors (be it via StreetComplete or with
> field papers and JOSM/etc) to add housenumber data and/or is even
> disruptive.
>
> So, I am going to turn off this feature for the mentioned countries.

I don't think it's a good idea even for those countries. Mapper's
local knowledge should be prioritised over the imported data set, so
if there's no address informaiton somewhere, it makes sense in every
case to let the mapper complete it or mark it as something that
doesn't require any action.

> Now, on the Czech mailing list, Martin Ždila informed me that just/very
> recently, a (complete? up-to-date?) source of addresses opened up for
> Slovakia. It looks like the import is still in the planning phase, but
> looking a bit into the future, I would like to ask you if then, after
> setting up the (regular) import, the situation in Slovakia would be the same
> as in the Czech Republic: That an individual survey of housenumbers would
> make little sense.
>
> In a nutshell, my question is: Should StreetComplete continue to ask its
> users in Slovakia for housenumbers of buildings?

Definitely not. Slovak dataset isn't good or complete or anywhere
close to be fully imported, and I don't believe it will be live
updated as new houses are built and new addresses are assigned. I
myself use StreetComplete often enough, I used house number feature in
the UK when I went there last month, and I will definitely use it in
Slovakia.

Thanks for asking us though — and thanks for the great data collection
app, it's the best software of this kind I've seen in years! :)

--
Cheers,
Andrew

[Andrew Shadura]

Hi Tobias,

I've sent my reply and then realised I replied to a different question.

Definitely don't disable the house numbers feature, definitely do ask
users to complete it :)

I hope this clarifies the message I wanted to convey with my last email :)

--
Cheers,
Andrew

[Andrew Shadura]

Hello again Tobias :)

As you're still here, I'm going to ask you for one favour: could you
please add support for the Czech/Slovak house number scheme to
StreetComplete, for the moment enabling it in Slovakia only? [0]
Unfortunately, there isn't any good documentation in English, but you
can ask here and myself and others can help you with this. Basically,
there's one number (conscription) which is normally unique to the
place or its district, depending on the city, and another number
(street) is the regular street number; neither is normally rendered.
Unless street numbers aren't used (which mostly what happens in
villages), addr:housenumber is better be set to the street number, for
rendering purposes. In villages it's quite often that houses don't get
any street numbers, so when conscription number only is used, it is
copied to addr:housenumber. I would expect from StreetComplete to
display two house number boxes separated by a slash:

[ ]/[ ]

with the first of them corresponding to the conscription number, and
the second being the street number. For Slovakia, it's be also cool if
they could be coloured differently, in the same way the real street
signs are coloured (conscription numbers are black on white, street
numbers are red on white).

Alternatively, StreetComplete might display the same UI as elsewhere,
but recognise house numbers with a slash in Slovakia and fill
addr:conscriptionnumber/streetnumber fields accordingly when saving
changes.

[0]: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:addr:streetnumber

--
Cheers,
Andrew

[new...@westnordost.de]

Hey guys,

thanks for the positive feedback! 

I don't think it's a good idea even for those countries. Mapper's 
local knowledge should be prioritised over the imported data set

I have a similar opinion, but ultimatively it is up to the community to decide.

Regarding the request to adapt the form to input the housenumber to Slovakia (and Czech Republic, if it were enabled): Yes, that is absolutely possible.

Generally, the input form should resemble how a housenumber sign looks like so that even a foreigner can simply transcribe what he sees on the sign - without knowing or bothering about the intricacies of the numbering system in the country (conscription number, provisional number, street number etc.).

So ideally, if a housenumber sign in Slovakia always looks the same, I would change the layout of the form to accomodate the different numbers. If not, "parsing" the values from the user input (ev., x/y) is also an option.

Though, to discuss the details, let's create a ticket on GitHub for that.

[Miroslav Janosik]

Hi Tobias

I am the author of StreetComplete, an Android app with with which surveyors can add data to the map directly. -> More Info.

 

Thanks for nice software :-)

 

Amongst other things, the app incites its users to add housenumbers to buildings.

I agree with others, it is needed to do fixes and updates to imported housenumber data. I have written one diary about it, you can read it here https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/MiroJanosik/diary/39355 from which I pick important line:
* about 5% of houses in cadastre data were somehow wrong - incorrect number, two houses had the same number (either completely different houses or two joined buildings, sometimes one of them is garage)

  Miro