Name normalisation project in Poland.

Hello! Yesterday I received a message from German speaking OSM editor:

I’m not speaking german, and he is probably not speaking english so let me explain the problem here. Now i know that one of the street names he was talking about is: http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/way/27885208 which I’ve changed to 'Genera?a Stefana “Grota” Roweckiego", and hasse_osm_korinthenkacker reverted the name to ‘Grota-Roweckiego’. Why I’ve changed the name? Here in OSM:Poland we’ve started a small name normalization project. Using National StreetNames Database we are typing the most popular and complete variation of a name. For streetnames with a name of historical person, we are changing the name to version which is used in Polish Wikipedia, sometimes with profession prefix. So, we are changing e.g.: - Beethovena → Ludwiga van Beethovena ( http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beethoven ) - Freuda → Zygmunta Freuda ( http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zygmunt_Freud ) - Rydza-?mig?ego → Marsza?ka Edwarda ?mig?ego-Rydza ( http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_%C5%9Amig%C5%82y-Rydz ) - Roweckiego → genera?a Stefana “Grota” Roweckiego ( http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_Rowecki ) where “Grot” is an pseudonym. In our opinion it is much better to give full name as a street name if we know who exactly is a patron of the street. Te second possibility is to use official name, for the street. Used as an example ( http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/way/27885208 ) official name is: ‘Stefana Roweckiego’ what you can check in official database (Polish Central Statistical Office) : http://www.stat.gov.pl/broker/access/definitionTree.jspa - you have to click on left bar: - WOJ. ZACHODNIOPOMORSKIE - Powiat Policki - Police - Select Police (miasto) and search a street name on right side. So, we know what we are doing, we are trying to do this in best possible way, and still we are open for any suggestions, but please let us know if there is any name problem (in Polish OSM), and if you want to revert the change, be sure that you are reverting it to correct name.

He just said: “Please stop the wrong naming of the streets in Police; in the north of Szczecin.” I think the best variant is to use the official name, as used on street-signs and official database.

I it not so easy. Maybe it is strange if you are looking on the problem from your country but: 1. In official (government) database is OTHER name than on the sign on street, and it is common problem here in Poland. 2. It is also very popular to have few OFFICIAL signs on ONE street with DIFFERENT names. We have started normalisation project because there are many (few thousands!) wrong names in Polish OSM. With wrong encodings ( U+FFFD REPLACEMENT CHARACTER in place of national diacritical characters ), utf8 characters on place where national characters should be used etc. Also on example: http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/way/27885208 - Name of the person (used in history books) is Stefan “Grot” Rowecki - Name on signs (i believe that hasse_osm_korinthenkacker is sure that it is) is Grota-Roweckiego (Grota-Roweckiego in correct decline version), which is wrong not only because other than official, but also brakes polish spelling rules, where nickname should be quoted, not written with a dash connecting it to family name. - Name in official database is: Stefana Roweckiego - Last but not least: The most popular version of then name in OFFICIAL database is ‘Generała Stefana Grota Roweckiego’ see: http://www.nopaste.pl/70d and correct spelling of this string (from language side) is ‘generała Stefana “Grota” Roweckiego’ In our (Polish OSM Community) the best way to fix naming problem is to change wrong names to the most popular in first task - what we are doing now, and than maybe change it to Official version, what is not very important, because still if tha map is used to routing statistically everybody will type “Police, Roweckiego” and the system will find same Street. In our opinion it is much better to have, a correct name (with correct spelling from language side, and correctly defining the person who is a patron of the street), than a name what you can find on sign if you can find next sign on same street with different name. Hasse_osm_korinthenkacker wants to do best what he can I believe, but it is not easy to understand such things here in poland if you live outside, let’s say in normal country. :smiley: We like to talk about every one change we are doing here, but we want to TALK, “editions war” is not good solution.

Anyone using the osm data expects that the name on the street signs is what’s entered in the tag “name”. It’s what people could use to navigate. Standing on the street anyone wouldn’t care what the persons name was if he couldn’t find that name anywhere. Additionally the way could have several other names in other tags: a nat_name, which would be the national name, in this case the official name “Stefana Roweckiego” alt_name: generała Stefana “Grota” Roweckiego - since that is by your example what many would call it and maybe to tell what the name refers to, a name_ref: Stefan “Grot” Rowecki

I agree with you. name tag in OSM database should give the real name of the street. But in fact what we are talking about is other problem. On example. If the name of the street is “Johanna Sebastiana Bacha”. This is the name given to the street by local government. If you will live there you will have “Johanna Sebastiana Bacha” printed in your Identity Card. If you will have businnes there it will be registered as located on “Johanna Sebastiana Bacha”. Same address probably you will have on your business cards, website. But … the signs on the street will say “Bacha”, “Johanna Bacha” and few other variations. What in your opinion should be the name tag value in OSM? The real name or the name from the sign, and what if there are more than one version on signs? It is not possible? Maybe … in your country :smiley: Let’s see some photos :wink: - http://picasaweb.google.com/jklawiter/WelcomeInPoland#5262373543903133442 - http://picasaweb.google.com/jklawiter/WelcomeInPoland#5262373555392242738 i ve made this photos from one place, via left window of my car i saw one, and on other side of the street second one. The street is 400m long :smiley: - http://picasaweb.google.com/jklawiter/WelcomeInPoland#5262373762660013986 - http://picasaweb.google.com/jklawiter/WelcomeInPoland#5262373766749142610 It’s even more funny because the firstname is same, but family name … Is this street “Ole?ki BillewiczównY” or “Ole?ki BillewiczównEJ” ? Both signs as previous one are “looking each other” from two sides of same street. What we want now to try correct all these problems, yes sometimes in first stage of normalization we are changing some names to incorrect. It is because the most important now is to repair wrong spelling, invalid encoding etc. All the time we are improving our tools, and the goal is to have on OSM official names. So … conclusion is simple. here in Poland on many, many places we can have “official name” OR “name from the sign” / “name from one of the signs :D”. In your opinion what is better? It’s a real question, because we (as OSM:Poland community) are only 90% sure that we are right in what we are doing. And we are waiting for any feedback, but if possible not “reverting changes war”.

Using that example street, I think you split the way marking that street and write for all sections: nat_name=Johanna Sebastiana Bacha and on some sections name=Bacha and on other sections name=Johanna Bacha or whatever might be true for that section. Might look awkward on a map but reflects the reality.

Even if whole street is officially named “Johanna Sebastiana Bacha”? Address in identity card is official one, and on map you like e.g. rights side of the street “Bacha”, and left street “Johanna Bacha”? Interesting solution, but OK +1 for “pure sign realism”.

First of all, let me support Jakub Klawiter. When…

…he was truly writing for more then himself. :slight_smile: It has been agreed on the polish forum, that we will use the official names (in their full form). The problem is now just that somebody, not speaking polish is working against us, so we are trying to internationally explain our reasons. :smiley:

Hold on a second. It is not that anybody had any sort of a Grand Plan not to use the full form on the sigh. It was most probably done for economical reasons. Making a sing one third of it’s length, is naturally tree times cheaper. Or when the name is 'Generała Stefana “Grota” Roweckiego", and the sign is made of some sort of heavy metal, attached to a pole from one side only, then maybe the torque becomes an issue too. I don’t know. :slight_smile:

IMHO that would make OSM a bit unusable for some use cases like post addresses. In my city I could find (at least two or three weeks ago) street signs that are outdated by 20 years, if you address a postcard with it it’ll be certainly returned to the sender, even though the street sign really is there… Why are they up there anyway? Well, just because no one really bothered to change them!

It seems to me, that the street-signs in poland are only hints, and not the real names. So i think it will be better to use the full official name for the “name”-tag. And maybe the additional tag “loc_name” or something resembling, for the name on the street-sign.

Generally I think polish people tend to know how to map their own country and don’t need any advice from outside at all.

No one is in a position to stop you naming them as you wish, but please encourage people to enter the “name on the street sign” on some tag. loc_name would be most suitable for that, probably, if you use the tag “name” consistently for the official name. Not really related to osm but the signs: the cost for manufacturing a short or long metal sign is much lower than the installation costs, so hopefully the signs will change in some decades… We too have an abundance of long street names (and most of them in two languages) but they’re still all written out in full and in both languages. Historic reasons are a burden.