Talk:What3words

Rework of This Page or Delete It

This page should get a large rework (it should be rewritten). W3W is a propietary, patent-claiming service which should not have any place at OSM. There have been already discussion(s) about this topic at Talk mailing list.

My suggestion: Either delete the whole page or replace it by content which tells the truth. --Nakaner (talk) 12:01, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

I only found one email on the Talk mailing list, and it was only 2 mails. Please link, if there ware more discussion. --Lulu-Ann (talk) 12:38, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/2015-November/075051.html

Frederik has already added a red Ambox box at the top which address my concerns. --Nakaner (talk) 12:42, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Resolved: Reworked

Yeah the page back then was quite short and described how we might put what3words "addresses" into OpenStreetMap tags (No!)

A few of us (myself included) have extensively reworked the page since then. It seems quite useful now as a document of the open community's objections and signposting alternatives.

-- Harry Wood (talk) 11:26, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

MapCode as an alternative?

Should http://www.mapcode.com/ be added as an open alternative? --Rbrundritt (talk) 16:17, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

No, because any mapcode can be derived from the feature's coordinates. So at best, including mapcodes is fully redundant, and at worst (if a mapper moves the feature without updating the mapcode) factually incorrect. Same goes for all of these locator schemes: we have lat/long, so we don't need them. --Scruss (talk) 20:42, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

Yes. It's not an alternative which would be suitable for inclusion in OpenStreetMap tags. No alternative would be really, apart from postal addresses.

But is it an alternative we could list at What3words#Alternatives? I think so. Not-for-profit foundation. Took me a minute to find the source code link but it looks to be open source (apache licensed) too [1]

I've added it to the list.

-- Harry Wood (talk) 11:43, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Resolved: is now mentioned Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 09:51, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Mention that it is no addressing system

The page currently does not highlight strong enough that it is not (in difference to their marketing) a addressing system. It is just a method do encode coordinates. A proper addressing system has the advantage that it is organized hierarchically (country, county, city, street/block, building) and that a small error in transmitting the address only results in a small error (neighbouring house). I hope that someone finds better words than myself (who translated the page into German a few minutes ago). --Nakaner (talk)

Resolved

Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 09:49, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

BIP39

Perhaps a few word BIP39 based coding would have been better... Jidanni (talk) 04:02, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

No idea at all how some BTC-adjacent things is related here (and on discovery that it is BTC adjacent my desire to investigate dropped to zero) Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 09:50, 6 May 2021 (UTC)