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RI Effort: Important Places

Post by GooberKing
Hey there, little Rhodies!

With the Functional Classification effort almost done, it's time to start looking ahead to the next Big Thing. After much (much!) discussion in the RI Editors Hangout (PM me if you want to join!), we're gonna take a stab at cleaning up all the Important Places around RI so that Wazers can have accurate information about the critical locations near them. This thread will be used to discuss the scope of this project and applicable standards, with input from the RI community and beyond. Then, once it's all been formalized in the RI Wiki, we can actually start getting to work, with the ultimate goal of locking these Places at L3 so they can't be messed with in the future.

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So, to start with, what is considered an Important Place? I figured we could begin with this definition:

A place is considered Important if it is essential to the functioning of a state or town and the lives of local residents.

Now, this is obviously a somewhat subjective definition, but it at least gives us an idea of what sort of places we'll need to look at. The next step would be to identify specific categories of places to focus on for this initial effort. Based on the above definition, we can break it down into two distinct areas, like so:
  • State Level
    • State House
    • Court Houses
    • Airports
    • Train Stations
    • Hospitals/ERs
  • Town Level
    • Town Hall
    • Police Station
    • Firehouses
    • Post Offices
    • Schools
    • Libraries
These are, of course, examples of what could go in each area, and we can all debate the merits of which places should go where. Again, the purpose is to just get the ball rolling on getting everything laid out. Once we settle on a definitive list of places, we can discuss things like naming conventions for each type of place and go from there.

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So, to recap, here are the goals of this thread:

  1. Define "Important Place"
  2. Create a finite list of place types that meet the definition of Important Place
  3. Create a naming standard for each Important Place type

Sound good? Then sound off here in this thread and let's clean up RI! :D
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Last edited by GooberKing on Fri Mar 27, 2015 4:38 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by angeloscuro
So how is this coming along? Seams like it kinda dropped off the radar.

Standardizing every business name would be a lot of work but it would look nice in the end...
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Post by angeloscuro
I was thinking Dunkin' Donuts in particular as I have seen it many ways. Stop and Shop is another good one, McDonald's basically anything with a special character particularly an apostrophe
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Post by dmcrandall
TheLastTaterTot wrote:Those are considered national chains and a standard has been set for them already by a group of people working on "Place Name Harmonization." When RI has its mapraid (in the near future), we will be able to apply those standards here. :)
The NE region list is available, if you want to start. You don't need to wait for a MapRaid to start it. :D 8-)
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Post by GooberKing
Yea, that's why I put the word "essential" in my definition, to try and keep the list of places small for now. We can work on other, less essential places in another round.

As for actual places, I can see adding Colleges to the list, but not so sure about Stadiums and Prisons. Again, if we're going with the "essential" definition, then I wouldn't think those qualify. That means DMVs, too. (Sorry Patti :( )
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Post by GooberKing
So, sounds like the definition needs to be changed to something like this:

A place is considered Important if it is a non-commercial location that can reasonably be considered relevant to new residents.

With that definition, we can include DMVs and colleges, though I still don't think that applies to stadiums and prisons. Are there any other government offices we should include?

As for gas stations, I think we'll save that for its own effort, since there are so many of them...
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Post by GooberKing
Ehh... The problem with that is, how do you determine what's relevant for a visitor? It depends on why they're visiting! If we include stadiums, does that mean we need to include other tourist attractions like museums, or art galleries, or monuments, etc? If we include convention centers, do we also need to include other venues like theaters, or parks, or function halls, etc? It just opens up a whole can of ducks...

While it is important to consider places in the context of navigation, I think the central issue for this effort is to identify and standardize places that you would normally find on a map in general. Sounds to me like they want us to look all professional-like, and that means having all the essential places mapped out and named correctly, regardless of navigation considerations...
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Post by GooberKing
Egads! You want us to standardize every single business name? That's going to take forever! D:
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Post by MojaveCactusMonkey
For instance a standard for post offices is Utilizing the USPS locator https://tools.usps.com/go/POLocatorAction.action We would list only the full service post offices. CPU’s and locations with only stamp booklets only do not qualify as a full service post office. Start the name with CDP or Station name, then append “Post Office”. Place the City name and the ZIP code of the Post Office in the Description box, so it will be viewable in the app GO page. Alternate name should be “USPS-xxx”. In the Description field we would list the 5 digit zip code for that office. Locked at 3.

So
Begin search result number Red flag marker designating this Post Office™ location. Clicking this icon will scroll the map on the right of this page to make the location's equivalent marker visible inside the map. This may be helpful should you wish to print your selected location. 0.2 mi
APPONAUG ›
3205 POST RD
WARWICK, RI 02886-7157
800-ASK-USPS® (800-275-8777)

Would be listed like
Apponaug Post Office
alt name USPS - Apponaug

Description box
02886

Just an example above...
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Post by MojaveCactusMonkey
I think fire stations are important to be consistantly named and are traditionally included in locked high.
DMV's are a public service and no one that is new to a community knows where they are instinctively. So that's important.


In regards to DD and Starbucks, these are commercial entities, and not really a priority.
Gas stations while commercial ventures are considered high priority for Waze and locked to 3, so they should be standardized. ARCO is one where champs consistantly have us label correctly. So gas stations need to be added to the list by using the station locator on the company website.

-Marty
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