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Post by PhantomSoul
That's my rule: when it's better-known. It may be subjective, but it is what it is, and it's also why we strive to enlist local editors. Still, if it feels too subjective, we may have to have a leadership discussion on a case by case basis.

In the latter case, I propose we make a form where PCN proposals can be made, which the leadership team will review periodically, preferably on an announced schedule to help define some sort of expectation.
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Post by PleaseDriveFast
So in viewing some unlock requests, I think it might be good to refresh this topic for some definitive answers.

In this unlock request, guidance to date is to only include a CDP in the primary city field if it is incorporated. To PhantomSoul's point, much of the map currently doesn't reflect this guidance.

Franklin Twp, Somerset County is a good example where the CDPs of Somerset and Franklin Park to name are few are represented in WME. Now that FC has been mostly implemented in the state, should we look to clean-up the primary city field?

NJ DoT has a great reference here that shows the CDPs and other alternate names for places and the incorporated towns, boroughs, TWP, etc. that are associated to the alt names.
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Post by PleaseDriveFast
But should we be moving CDPs to alt fields and change the primary field to the incorporated city, twp, etc?


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Post by PleaseDriveFast
Fredo-p wrote:Check and see if a CDP has been given a zip code and if local businesses and residents also list the CDP name as the location. Although there is plenty of information out there to make a decent decision, I would like to have Orbitc's opinion on how to handle this situation as this is an important topic.
The state has plenty of resources to help us make an educated guess. Here's the list of zip codes as recognized by the State of NJ. That may be the best resource to go by, but agree orbitc and our PhantomSoul should b making the decisions.
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Post by PleaseDriveFast
To me, what makes an unicorporated name more relevant than the municipal has the do with the zip code. All carriers (ups/fedex/etc) rely on the USPS data. This aligns well to established CDPs like somerset in franklin twp but do think this is a national discussion much like the road type/FC update.
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Post by PleaseDriveFast
PhantomSoul wrote:IMnsHO, city names accepted by the post office reflect local names enough to prevent confusion among the overwhelming majority of Wazers. However, to me the biggest benefit of using post-office-accepted city names is that they are already pre-screened by the post office for uniqueness within the state, so it would make township naming conflicts (and the total-hack workarounds we've developed for that) go away, as we'd just use the name the post office accepts for addresses on that particular road.

Any thoughts?
This makes sense particularly for the helping with city smudging/conflicts. I would think this would be more transparent to a novice user to see their postal code represented even if it's not an incorporated town.

The one area of caution I see (and there may be many more) is when we have statewide updates such as the FC update. The maps provided only show the incorporated place so we need to be clear about why we refer to postal codes when applicable or incorporated twp, etc.
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Post by PleaseDriveFast
PhantomSoul wrote:Question: Is there a fairly simple city-naming guideline for townships that covers like 90% or more of the map accurately enough for our purposes?
I thinkthis document from NJ DoT can be used for just that purpose. It provides the local names, incorporate municipality and county.
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Post by PleaseDriveFast
That makes sense for conflicts starting with a possible priority being: most commonly known > adding suffix (Twp) > postal-identified CDP > other?

But how do we determine most commonly known? Franklin Twp for example has 4 conflicts. I would say the one in Somerset County would be most known, but that's because of where I live and grew up.
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Post by PleaseDriveFast
Good points MW and Fredo. I think we've all determined that new guidance needs to be created.PS and orbit are determining what the appropriate hierarchy is so it's clear what needs to change. This is statewide issue that needs to be addressed.

The State of NJ has a 73 page document of all local names they have on file, so it would be hasty to embark on this without having clear guidance.
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Post by PleaseDriveFast
Kobes1878 wrote: Orbit, the Census Bureau addressed this topic giving every place its own unique code with added code for county-subdivisions (CDP,MCD,CCD).. Being that we already have segment IDs which hold magnitudes of data, wouldn't it be possible to include the name of the CDP+County to each segment in that neighborhood? We can define the borders if they change (once every ten years?!) and everything can be handled in the back-end so as not to have conflicting data. Rules for city naming will also be clear-cut this way - either the county or local name.
I think this would be the cleanest way to store the data, creating a new database row to store the CDP/County/whatever segment. As Kobe noted, this should be relatively static until the next census, but do know this would require a the servers to be updated which will obviously take some time.
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