OpenStreetMap
Pavement Lights
I’ve been meaning to tag the pavement lights in and around Dublin for a little while now but just never got around to doing it. While walking (briefly) in town to catch the Dart, I added notes for a couple that I noticed. In hindsight, I should have tagged them while I was there, as a couple are tricky to find due to the shadow of the building.
Having said that, I managed to get a couple in the city centre as well as one in Blackrock Village. Big thanks to b-unicycling for the video that details how to tag them!
Overpass Turbo: Pavement Lights in Ireland
Milestone Markers
I came across a TikTok video which mentioned the old GPO milestone markers. They were used to help the postal service and the community figure out how far away they were from the city centre and the General Post Office.
b-unicycling helped map a lot of them down Malahide Road and towards Howth. There was one in Blackrock (Rock Road) that had been tagged a few years back but was missing the historic=milestone tag, which I added today. I will continue to look out for these as I’m walking around - I actually saw one in person that I had gone past a bunch and not stopped to think what it was.
Overpass Turbo: GPO Milestone Markers
Discussion
Comment from simonschaufi on 28 February 2024 at 11:11
Who needs Pavement Lights? Just curious… Wouldn’t it be worth to tag more important things than that? In some areas are still plenty of houses missing for example.
Comment from b-unicycling on 28 February 2024 at 16:17
@simonschaufi: How do you know nobody in the future will come along and look for exactly that information? I’d rather map the obscure stuff and nobody will come looking for that data than someone coming along not finding any information. And it isn’t like we’re leaving out the “more important” stuff in favour of obscure things. You don’t get to 8 million map changes by only mapping pavement lights.
And the government authorities are looking for that information coming to us now, because they can’t get the information anywhere else.
And if GovernorKeagon only takes an interest in historic stuff, so be it. At least it got them into mapping. And they have mapped other things as well.
And I’m sure, like so many of us, they see more things and other things than before they were mapping, pavement lights just being one example.
Happy mapping with the buildings!
Comment from simonschaufi on 28 February 2024 at 17:02
My thought was that the city itself should have records of where there are lights because they need to look for them so there must be some records available already. My question was more like: Who is looking for this information on OSM rather than going to the company/city who built them?
Comment from GovernorKeagan on 28 February 2024 at 20:26
I think there might be a small misunderstanding as to what a pavement light is - see wiki here
The government would be one of the biggest entities that are looking for this sort of data - some of these things are considered protected structures. As mentioned above, there have been cases where the government has requested that the OSM community help in finding and providing information related to more “obscure” items.
There might be another misunderstanding with the reasoning for posting this diary entry. I am not solely focused on mapping the obscure (historical in most cases), I am mapping my home town in South Africa which has next to no buildings mapped. There has also been a massive effort by the community here in Ireland to ensure that the country is mapped as well as possible.
Comment from SomeoneElse on 28 February 2024 at 20:27
Hahahaha.
Where I live, “city itself” has records of lots of things, but they’re not always accurate. For example I know (and now OSM knows) where the bus stops are, but they don’t 100% match where the city thinks they are. Their list is maybe 90% accurate, but that’s no consolation if you’re looking for a bus stop that does not exist.
Comment from simonschaufi on 28 February 2024 at 21:57
Ohhh sorry, yes there was a big misunderstanding! These are historical things, not current lighting! I’m really sorry for that! Now I can appreciate your work even more! Thank you for mapping these places!
Comment from simonschaufi on 29 February 2024 at 08:46
I had something like this in mind, just for clarification: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jrrondeau/4630761169