Hi
On 09.11.2012 14:32, Michel Schinz wrote:
agreeing on one convention for capitalization.
No, don't make some arbitrary rules. If you want consistent capitalization for your application/renderer, the right thing to do is to apply this rules to your local copy of osm data. It is always easy to apply some strict rules with an algorithm.
Of course, feel free to use common sense to resolve contradictions ("[...] better and more consistent in OSM, fixing obvious errors"). Like in the examples you described, you usually have a feeling for what it should be. If they used an all caps font which dropped the accents, add them, fair enough. Also the information of capital letters is lost with an all caps font. Now you could look what kind of capitalization is common in that region, and apply that. Or use rules from swisstopo.
And of course expand abbreviations. That would be really hard for an algorithm to get right.
In short, the rule should be: name tag is what is written on the street sign. But take it with a grain of salt.
Back on-topic: I like the GWR comparison. Already searched and mapped some streets in my vicinity.
I noticed a lot of "places" in my community which are names of farms. Don't know where to get the information for those best.
Michael