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We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

takes.jamesomalley.co.uk

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Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#21

Post by GJim »

cuonic wrote: post #10

On the other side of the Channel, the French government has managed to create the "BAN" (Base Adresse Nationale - National Address Database), a database of detailed postal addresses in the country along with precise GPS coordinates: https://adresse.data.gouv.fr/base-adresse-nationale On top of the database they have provided an interface to view the data, interfaces for towns and cities to keep the data up-to-date, f…

> GPS coordinates

*coordinates

There are four GNSS constellations, of which GPS is only one...... a statement that negates the fact ones position on Earth may be calculated using a variety of other means.

EDIT: In response to replies below; One isn't questioning the coordinate system (!), rather the assumption as to how they have been calculated.

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#22

Post by cjs_ac »

> The upshot of the research then, is that building an accurate database is really hard. OS concludes that it would have to check the 4.2m bad addresses manually to make its PAF-less database a viable dataset that would actually be useful.

The secret to the Royal Mail's success with the PAF, and the reason why only the Royal Mail can maintain the PAF, is that the Royal Mail has people walking and driving to all those delivery points six days every week.

Compare the Freedom of Information requests to Royal Mail from OpenStreetMap contributors concerning the locations of post boxes, which were refused ultimately because that information was handled only by local sorting offices.

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#23

Post by memorylane »

shakna wrote: post #4

Australia also has ours locked away privately. You can purchase access, but... You also need to sign a contract that you won't make the PDF, or anything you derive from it, publicly accessible. (At least, that was the case the ladt time I did). [0] https://auspost.com.au/business/marketing-and-communications...

I think g-naf is freely available…

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#24

Post by Normal_gaussian »

As censorship for FOIA requests is done manually, it may be beneficial to request the missing figures directly without noting you have them in a censored context. Censoring is subjective, so that would at least draw out either the figures or a justification.

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#25

Post by stef25 »

cuonic wrote: post #10

On the other side of the Channel, the French government has managed to create the "BAN" (Base Adresse Nationale - National Address Database), a database of detailed postal addresses in the country along with precise GPS coordinates: https://adresse.data.gouv.fr/base-adresse-nationale On top of the database they have provided an interface to view the data, interfaces for towns and cities to keep the data up-to-date, f…

Very cool. Nice effort by France.

For a while I played around with that kind of data here in Belgium, it's not easy to get it all standardized and "usable".

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#26

Post by ooklala »

nly wrote: post #16
xnorswap wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that weren't true, you'd have entire cities in the same postcode. There has to be a boundary somewhere.

Odd numbered homes on one side of the street and evens on the other often have different postcodes

Many buildings also have their own postcode! (The second half of the postcode represents the 'delivery point' which is basically limited by the amount of post that the postman/woman can physically carry...)

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#27

Post by nly »

Unfortunately the British mindset these days is to either rent it out or sell it but, whatever the hell you do, don't grow it.

Somehow these idiots managed to strike a deal to keep the sovereigns figurehead on stamps (which has no economic value whatsoever, and actually the Crown should be compensated for this) but, in this data age, didn't safeguard such a critically important database to e-commerce

It's like selling off the Tower of London because you can't afford to repair the roof and forgetting you left the crown jewels inside

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#28

Post by arnsholt »

GJim wrote: post #21
cuonic wrote: post #10

On the other side of the Channel, the French government has managed to create the "BAN" (Base Adresse Nationale - National Address Database), a database of detailed postal addresses in the country along with precise GPS coordinates: https://adresse.data.gouv.fr/base-adresse-nationale On top of the database they have provided an interface to view the data, interfaces for towns and cities to keep the data up-to-date, f…

> GPS coordinates *coordinates There are four GNSS constellations, of which GPS is only one...... a statement that negates the fact ones position on Earth may be calculated using a variety of other means. EDIT: In response to replies below; One isn't questioning the coordinate system (!), rather the assumption as to how they have been calculated.

In this context, it's not terribly hard to divine that they probably mean EPSG:4326 coordinates. I was going to comment that one of the ETRS89 UTM zones might be easier to work with, but on second thought the data almost certainly includes the DOMs if not the TOMs, so a global coordinate system is probably best.

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#29

Post by b112 »

tomstuart wrote: post #19
b112 wrote: post #11

Sad to see a reasonable article with a "This one weird trick could save..." as an ad inline, pointing back to his own page. I tend to think of such ad tactics and wordage to be associated with used car salesmen. Certainly, with scams.

That’s the joke.

If I call some place I've never heard of before, know nothing about, my first interaction with them on the phone shouldn't result in "Oh my god, these people seem like scammy used car salespeople!"

If your assertion is true, that it's a joke, it's going to backfire. That's because that call is the equivalent of what's happening here. I called, and the person on the other end ... thinking it a joke, funny, did their best to convince me that they're scam artists.

That's what's happened here. I know nothing about this website, and this was my first impression. And no... my initial reaction isn't "Hmm. This website seems scammy and lame. Maybe I should spend my time investigating to determine if I'm right or wrong!". If I did that, I'd spend my entire life looking at scammy websites... I have better things to do.

Like I said, it's a shame to see this on what seems to be reputable website. But I literally stopped reading, and moved on to other things when I saw it. The website owner should take that into account.

(And indeed, I may be some small ratio, 2% of users, but it could be higher. It could be a lot higher. Or it could obviously be 0.2%. But that's a bold move, putting a big "I'm a scam artist!" sign on a website, first engagement is going to bite.)

Heck... if I was Google, any page with "One * trick" on it would be downranked.

TL;DR don't put a massive sign on your website that reads "I'm a scam artist, clickbait website!"

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