10 Apr
2012
10 Apr
'12
4:45 p.m.
On 4 April 2012 15:30, Janet McKnight <janetmck(a)chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
Taking a historical perspective, Oxford's city walls demarcate a small
area which is definitely central. These ran approximately from Oxford
Castle, along Bulwarks Lane, through what's now St Michael's Street to
Cornmarket, along the south side of Broad Street, to Catte Street,
along New College Lane into the Turf Tavern, through New College then
down Longwall Street; they cross the High Street and run down Merton
Street then return along Christ Church Meadow immediately south of the
colleges; they pass through Christ Church and along Brewer Street, and
finally north of Turn Again Lane past the Westgate car park to Castle
Street and back to the start.
See http://www.headington.org.uk/oxon/city_wall/
Maybe we could agree on the outer boundary of the central area and
then list all the streets within that area?
e.g. starting at Oxford Castle: New Road -> Worcester Street ->
Beaumont Street -> up and back down St Giles' -> Magdalen Street East
-> Broad Street -> Holywell Street -> Longwall Street -> out and back
in along Magdalen Bridge -> High Street -> Merton Street -> Bear Lane
-> Blue Boar Street -> down and back up St Aldate's -> Brewer Street
-> Turn Again Lane -> Old Greyfriars Street -> Castle Street.
Owen
See other
thread - if we can define the streets that lie within
"Central", I think that would solve most of the problem.
OK, off the top of my head, opening bid for 'Central':
High Street
Cornmarket
Broad Street
Turl Street
George Street
Gloucester Green
St Giles
New Inn Hall Street
Queen Street
St Aldates
St Michael's Street
Castle Street
New Road
Holywell Street
Blue Boar Street
Ship Street
Covered Market / Golden Cross
Magdalen Street (& East)
Westgate Centre
Clarendon Centre
Pembroke Street
Any objections to any of those? This could be like a balloon
debate but with streets! :)
11 Apr
11 Apr
10:51 a.m.
To follow up my own post, I thought of two other candidates for the
central area:
* the OX1 postcode area: http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=OX1
* Carfax & Holywell council wards:
http://www.oxford.gov.uk/Direct/SOAProfilesHolywellandCarfaxWards.pdf
as well as the city walls: http://www.headington.org.uk/oxon/city_wall/
The OX1 postcode has a useful northern boundary including the
University Parks but excluding Jericho. It also includes the railway
station. To the south, it's less use, as it includes all of Abingdon
Road and even Boars Hill.
The two central council wards together exclude the railway station;
the River Cherwell is an eastern boundary and the railway line part of
the western boundary.
Owen
11:35 a.m.
On Wed 11 Apr 2012, Owen McKnight <owen.mcknight(a)gmail.com> wrote:
To follow up my own post, I thought of two other
candidates for the
central area:
* the OX1 postcode area: http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=OX1
* Carfax & Holywell council wards:
http://www.oxford.gov.uk/Direct/SOAProfilesHolywellandCarfaxWards.pdf
as well as the city walls: http://www.headington.org.uk/oxon/city_wall/
The OX1 postcode has a useful northern boundary including the
University Parks but excluding Jericho. It also includes the railway
station. To the south, it's less use, as it includes all of Abingdon
Road and even Boars Hill.
Boars Hill is clearly *not* 'central' in any sense! It wasn't even
central when we lived near it in Botley! Also my feeling is that if
we wanted to find everything in OX1, that ought to be possible from
the actual postcodes rather than adding a locale... :-}
(Is that possible? Can you say "show me all the things with an OX1
postcode"? I know you could search for OX1, but presumably that would
also find OX13 etc.)
The two central council wards together exclude the
railway station;
the River Cherwell is an eastern boundary and the railway line part of
the western boundary.
I would agree that the station *isn't* central (at least it never feels
like it's central when I have to walk there).
The council wards seem a fairly sensible area, but I think if we're
going to tie 'central' to an objective criterion (which I approve of,
as it minimises wrangling) I'd rather it was the city walls than ward
boundaries. Not sure why, just a sort of irrational feeling that history
is better than politics. YES I KNOW. :-}
Jx
11:50 a.m.
On Wed 11 Apr 2012, Janet McKnight <janetmck(a)chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
(Is that possible? Can you say "show me all the
things with an OX1
postcode"? I know you could search for OX1, but presumably that would
also find OX13 etc.)
On RGL, we solve this problem by having postal district locales. So
something in the "Croydon" locale will also be in e.g. the "CR0"
locale.
http://london.randomness.org.uk/wiki.cgi?Category_Postal_Districts
Kake
11:55 a.m.
On Wed 11 Apr 2012, Kake <kake(a)earth.li> wrote:
On Wed 11 Apr 2012, Janet McKnight
<janetmck(a)chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
That sounds like a good workaround (I assume it can be added automatically
based on postcode?). Also v interesting to be able to see the postcodes on
a map!
Jx
(Is that possible? Can you say "show me all
the things with an OX1
postcode"? I know you could search for OX1, but presumably that would
also find OX13 etc.)
On RGL, we solve this problem by having postal district locales. 
12:26 p.m.
On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 11:55:45AM +0100, Janet McKnight wrote:
Also v interesting to be able to see the postcodes on
a map!
http://random.dev.openstreetmap.org/postcodes/#?%23%3F=&zoom=12&lat…
Those boundaries are the "offical" ones from the Code-Point Open data
release. Click the + in the top right, and you can change layer and pick
from various crowd-sourced versions.
Code-point Open released the "centroids" of each postcode which have been
grouped for the overlay above. For each postcode point as an overlay see
http://oscompare.raggedred.net/?layers=0B0FFT&zoom=17&lat=51.75524&…
s
12:42 p.m.
On Wed 11 Apr 2012, Stephen Gower <stephen.gower(a)wolfson.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
http://random.dev.openstreetmap.org/postcodes/#?%23%3F=&zoom=12&lat…
Those boundaries are the "official" ones from the Code-Point Open data
release. Click the + in the top right, and you can change layer and pick
from various crowd-sourced versions.
Code-point Open released the "centroids" of each postcode which have been
grouped for the overlay above. For each postcode point as an overlay see
http://oscompare.raggedred.net/?layers=0B0FFT&zoom=17&lat=51.75524&…
Wow, thank you -- I didn't realise all that info was already out there in
such detail (& so clear!). OSM++. :-)
Also, OX4 is Bigger Than I Think. Though I do still want to walk round
all of it one day (well, not all in one day, obv, but YKWIM).
BTW, do you think the openguide is just duplicating OSM? Be honest! :-}
Jx
3:19 p.m.
On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 12:42:44PM +0100, Janet McKnight wrote:
BTW, do you think the openguide is just duplicating OSM? Be honest! :-}
No! I, personally, am not convinced that OSM should have all the metadata on
shops/restaurants that it does, but I think that horse has flown the nest.
In any case, OSM shouldn't contain the free-text description and photos/etc
that Openguides do.
s
12 Apr
12 Apr
2:48 p.m.
On Wed 11 Apr 2012, Stephen Gower <stephen.gower(a)wolfson.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 12:42:44PM +0100, Janet
McKnight wrote:
FLYING HORSE!
Ahem, as you were. :)
I should probably look at what OSM actually *does* have these days. Long
time since I looked at it in any detail.
BTW, do you think the openguide is just duplicating OSM? Be honest! :-}
No! I, personally, am not convinced that OSM should have all the metadata on
shops/restaurants that it does, but I think that horse has flown the nest. In any case, OSM shouldn't contain the free-text
description and photos/etc
that Openguides do.
Fairy nuff. Just starting to worry that we're duplicating effort in some
areas...
Jx
13 Apr
13 Apr
10:52 a.m.
On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 03:19:36PM +0100, Stephen Gower wrote:
On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 12:42:44PM +0100, Janet
McKnight wrote:
On reflection, and eventually coming back on subject, what OSM does well is
record precise, verifiable, facts. Position, opening hours, name, etc etc.
OpenGuides can record that too, to a certain extent, but what it does
uniquely is record the subjective stuff (like child-friendly for example)
and rely on the wikinature to keep consensus.
If you want to find all central restaurants in OSM, than you define a
"central" polygon and then do a PostGIS (spatial PostgreSQL) query to select
all restaurant points (and shapes) within it. What Openguides does is
crowd-source the definition of central, by letting people apply it to
whatever nodes they think are central. To find a definition of central from
Openguides, you select all the nodes that are tagged with the central locale
(and if you like, draw a polygon around them).
Of course, this is all theoretical, and doesn't deal well with the situation
where one person want to tag the station as central, and another doesn't.
Human nature vs wikinature, or something.
s
BTW, do you think the openguide is just duplicating OSM? Be honest! :-}
No! I, personally, am not convinced that OSM should have all the metadata on
shops/restaurants that it does, but I think that horse has flown the nest.
In any case, OSM shouldn't contain the free-text description and photos/etc
that Openguides do.
11 Apr
11 Apr
2:58 p.m.
On Wed 11 Apr 2012, Janet McKnight <janetmck(a)chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
[postal district locales]
That sounds like a good workaround (I assume it can be
added
automatically based on postcode?). Also v interesting to be able to
see the postcodes on a map!
There isn't a way to automatically add the locale when a page is
saved, but I could write a thing to automatically add it to all
existing pages.
And yes, it is interesting to be able to see the postcodes on a map!
As well as the postcode boundaries that Socks' map layer shows,
there's also the potential to look at things like the distribution of
pubs in CR0 vs W1:
http://london.randomness.org.uk/scripts/locate.cgi?cat=Pubs&loc=CR0&…
http://london.randomness.org.uk/scripts/locate.cgi?cat=Pubs&loc=W1&…
(only available on RGL at the moment, not in OpenGuides core yet,
hence London example rather than Oxford one).
Kake
3:05 p.m.
On Wed 11 Apr 2012, Kake <kake(a)earth.li> wrote:
There isn't a way to automatically add the locale
when a page is
saved, but I could write a thing to automatically add it to all
existing pages.
That would be good -- thank you & sorry for making so much work
for you! :-} Would we then have to add new postcode locales by hand
as we go along, or could you run an occasional cron job to add them
to new things that don't have them?
[...] there's also the potential to look at things
like the distribution of
pubs in CR0 vs W1:
http://london.randomness.org.uk/scripts/locate.cgi?cat=Pubs&loc=CR0&…
http://london.randomness.org.uk/scripts/locate.cgi?cat=Pubs&loc=W1&…
Cool! :-)
Jx
3:16 p.m.
On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 03:05:05PM +0100, Janet McKnight wrote:
On Wed 11 Apr 2012, Kake <kake(a)earth.li> wrote:
What level of postcode? OX4, as you mention, is pretty big - do we want to
get down to OX4 1 or not?
s
There isn't a way to automatically add the
locale when a page is
saved, but I could write a thing to automatically add it to all
existing pages.
That would be good -- thank you & sorry for making so much work
for you! :-} Would we then have to add new postcode locales by hand
as we go along, or could you run an occasional cron job to add them
to new things that don't have them?
3:18 p.m.
On Wed 11 Apr 2012, Janet McKnight <janetmck(a)chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
Would we then have to add new postcode locales by hand
as we go
along, or could you run an occasional cron job to add them to new
things that don't have them?
We could do either of these - on RGL we add them by hand since it's
not really all that much faff given that you're adding named locales
anyway.
Kake
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13 comments
4 participants
participants (4)
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Janet McKnight -
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Stephen Gower