Snapmap wrongly spells my home place

p2molvaer · 2024-02-03T22:27:08.522Z

As you can see snapmap spells it with a D, but the correct name is without the D; Molvær

IMG_3682859×2065 166 KB

harahu · 2024-02-03T22:31:01.263Z

For anyone wondering, this post was made on my request. See this note: Note: 2159469 | OpenStreetMap

synfarer · 2024-02-03T22:37:00.263Z

I tried zooming around snapmap a bit and found other places where names where wrong, for instance “Aalesund”, however other places it was correctly “Ålesund”. Also “Møre and Romsdal County” has the “ø” correctly.

Are we sure that this info is from openstreetmap? The roads look like they are from OSM, but not so sure about this place name heading.

synfarer · 2024-02-03T22:51:49.102Z

Went down the rabbit hole, luckily it wasn’t too deep. Found a list of all the data sources for snapmap. One of them was GeoNames.

After registering an account I tried sending a request for the place name at Molvær, and got a response listing “Moldvær” as the name:

GET http://api.geonames.org/findNearbyPlaceNameJSON?lat=62.438800&lng=6.177996&username=<redacted>
{
  "geonames": [
    {
      "adminCode1": "08",
      "lng": "6.17721",
      "distance": "0.0907",
      "geonameId": 9404071,
      "toponymName": "Moldvær",
      "countryId": "3144096",
      "fcl": "P",
      "population": 0,
      "countryCode": "NO",
      "name": "Moldvær",
      "fclName": "city, village,...",
      "adminCodes1": {
        "ISO3166_2": "15"
      },
      "countryName": "Norway",
      "fcodeName": "populated locality",
      "adminName1": "Møre og Romsdal",
      "lat": "62.43807",
      "fcode": "PPLL"
    }
  ]
}

I suspect this is the source of the wrong name.

harahu · 2024-02-03T22:55:59.443Z

I suspect you’re correct!

Although the search result on snapmap says Moldvaer not Moldvær, so there might possibly be yet another erroneous data source. Or just bad rendering of unicode.

Do GeoNames allow change proposals?

p2molvaer · 2024-02-03T23:05:46.398Z

Whoa! 4 years later and you crack the case in minutes Well done! Hopefully it’s possible to request a change

synfarer · 2024-02-03T23:24:39.710Z

Although the search result on snapmap says Moldvaer not Moldvær

Yeah, no idea why that happens. Thought maybe they used an english language version of the API that anglified Norwegian letters, but other place names do have æøå correctly, so no idea.

Do GeoNames allow change proposals?

Haven’t seen any way of reporting errors, but haven’t looked too hard. Considering they have their own page for all their data sources, it might just be a data aggregation service. The data source page for Norway lists SSB, Kartverket, Geonorge, and Erik Bolstad (weirdly specific) as data sources. I am not very familiar with any of these, so not sure how to check if the “Moldvær” version of the name is present in those datasets to check if that is where the error is coming from.

synfarer · 2024-02-03T23:42:03.269Z

Well, turns out they have a webpage for each data object: here’s the one for Molvær. You can apparently just modify it as you please, very open of them.

I just edited it to be correct. No idea how long this will take to propagate to snapmap, assuming this was even the actual source of the problem (still don’t know why æ became ae).

p2molvaer · 2024-02-03T23:54:15.509Z

Such service! Thank you so much, this has bugging me for years I’ll keep an eye out on snapmap for any changes

Minh_Nguyen · 2024-02-04T00:08:27.524Z

synfarer:

The data source page for Norway lists SSB, Kartverket, Geonorge, and Erik Bolstad (weirdly specific) as data sources.

The Geonames feature’s revision history says version −1 came from Kartverket, but Norgeskart seems to be showing the right spelling. Maybe it got corrected there at some point but Geonames didn’t get updated to reflect the correction.

harahu · 2024-02-04T08:36:07.421Z

Sounds plausible.

synfarer · 2024-02-04T15:28:33.384Z

Is it OK with you @p2molvaer if we close the original note? Seems like this is not an openstreetmap issue.

p2molvaer · 2024-02-04T16:12:56.526Z

Yes. Just close it. Thank you so much for the help

Mathias_Haugsbø · 2024-02-04T20:09:21.004Z

I have been super annoyed by Snapchat’s use of Geonames. As there are lots of name that nobody ever use or know of, at least in Bergen area.

I suspect they do not update that often either. And they do not support removal of names that are deleted, so it’s better to edit existing than deleting. I tried deleting “nettsun” in Bergen several years ago, but it’s still the main name in Bergen city center in snapmap