These are things cartographers do that make maps objectively worse:
*Placing traffic light symbols where the stop line is instead of at the intersection. (http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/41.27367/-82.84133) This removes clear machine-readable information about which intersections are traffic light controlled, and may be confusing and ambiguous in the case of multiple intersections near each other.
*Marking grid-named county roads as if they were signed county routes. (http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=16/41.1421/-85.9484) There's no CR 600 W here; it's a local county-maintained road named "600 West".
On OSM: arguing over trunks vs motorway designations.
Anywhere else: red to green color ramps.
Google really needs to make county lines more visible (even if it means turning on a little icon in an obscure sub-menu to activate it).
Agreed on both. Google is pretty bad about the second one too.
Some others:
* Using generic "EW 1250" or "NS 1820" names from TIGER or whatever instead of actually doing the legwork to see how those are signed/named in the field. (Fortunately lessening since GSV became a thing and made it trivial to look up sign photos.)
* Likewise, displaying placeholder names imported from somewhere else. (The number of lakes I've seen labeled as "Oknoname 8675309 Reservoir" is ludicrous.)
* Bad placement of route shields that leaves a segment of road ambiguous as to which highway it is.
* Placing only one shield along a concurrency, so it's not clear whether there's a gap in the route or a true concurrency.
Quote from: jakeroot on September 17, 2021, 05:09:49 PM
On OSM: arguing over trunks vs motorway designations.
I love OSM but I hate that it was built on a foundation of British mapping conventions. North American mapping conventions are a lot more general-purpose since they focus on the physical characteristics of a road, like presence of a median or number of lanes, rather than its functional class. (Of course, the functional class can usually be derived from the physical characteristics.)
Quote from: CoreySamson on September 17, 2021, 05:11:16 PM
Google really needs to make county lines more visible (even if it means turning on a little icon in an obscure sub-menu to activate it).
I've been known to use the COVID-19 layer for county lines.
Putting the shield right in the middle of a crossroads where two similar/same-color route lines meet.
Political boundaries which are different but share the same color; somehow, the four color rule was too hard to grasp.
Icons that are way too large compared to other symbols for points of interest.
Automatically abbreviating directional elements in street names even when the direction word is actually part of the street name itself, as opposed to being a prefix. (For example: on some maps of NYC, I've seen West End Avenue marked as "W End Ave" , even though "West End" is actually the name of the street, rather than it being the west section of some "End Avenue" as the abbreviated directional would imply. Or, even worse: North Avenue in Chicago being rendered as "N Ave" .)
Conversely, I've seen one mapping program where all the directionals were spelled out. Overall it was fine, but it meant that streets called Cesar E. Chavez (named for Cesar Estrada Chavez, the labor activist) were rendered on the map as "Cesar East Chavez" .
Quote from: KCRoadFan on September 17, 2021, 10:17:24 PM
Automatically abbreviating directional elements in street names even when the direction word is actually part of the street name itself, as opposed to being a prefix. (For example: on some maps of NYC, I've seen West End Avenue marked as "W End Ave" , even though "West End" is actually the name of the street, rather than it being the west section of some "End Avenue" as the abbreviated directional would imply. Or, even worse: North Avenue in Chicago being rendered as "N Ave" .)
Conversely, I've seen one mapping program where all the directionals were spelled out. Overall it was fine, but it meant that streets called Cesar E. Chavez (named for Cesar Estrada Chavez, the labor activist) were rendered on the map as "Cesar East Chavez" .
I actually made a similar mistake on my website once. Turns out that "E Bosket Road" on NY 17 is actually Earl Bosket Road... not sure how that would have been caught if a local hadn't happened to see it after I set up my site's Facebook page.
And abbreviating "Norte", "Oriente" and "Poniente" to "Nte.", "Ote." and "Pte." everywhere, not just in Mexico. I think I've said one example in Spain many times, in which the historical main throughfare is named Calle Oriente in the Eastern side and Calle Poniente in the Western, and guess how it shows up in Google Maps. Of course, the street signs in place show the full name.
Quote from: KCRoadFan on September 17, 2021, 10:17:24 PM
Automatically abbreviating directional elements in street names even when the direction word is actually part of the street name itself, as opposed to being a prefix. (For example: on some maps of NYC, I've seen West End Avenue marked as "W End Ave" , even though "West End" is actually the name of the street, rather than it being the west section of some "End Avenue" as the abbreviated directional would imply. Or, even worse: North Avenue in Chicago being rendered as "N Ave" .)
Conversely, I've seen one mapping program where all the directionals were spelled out. Overall it was fine, but it meant that streets called Cesar E. Chavez (named for Cesar Estrada Chavez, the labor activist) were rendered on the map as "Cesar East Chavez" .
Map: St. St. (Saint Street)
GPS: Robert East Lee
Quote from: KCRoadFan on September 17, 2021, 10:17:24 PM
Automatically abbreviating directional elements in street names even when the direction word is actually part of the street name itself, as opposed to being a prefix. (For example: on some maps of NYC, I've seen West End Avenue marked as "W End Ave" , even though "West End" is actually the name of the street, rather than it being the west section of some "End Avenue" as the abbreviated directional would imply. Or, even worse: North Avenue in Chicago being rendered as "N Ave" .)
Conversely, I've seen one mapping program where all the directionals were spelled out. Overall it was fine, but it meant that streets called Cesar E. Chavez (named for Cesar Estrada Chavez, the labor activist) were rendered on the map as "Cesar East Chavez" .
Agree. An egregious example in Washington, D.C. are the three "Capitol"
streets that go north, east and south from the U.S. Capitol (there is no
West Capitol Street, that is the middle of the National Mall). Frequently,
these are marked just as Capitol Street which is
never correct.
These are the dividing lines between quadrants of the city but when
speaking about them the quadrant is not used but quadrants
are used for addresses on these streets.
North Capitol Street divides N.W. and N.E.
East Capitol Street divides N.E. and S.E.
South Capitol Street divides S.E. and S.W.
National Mall divides N.W. and S.W.
Quote from: KCRoadFan on September 17, 2021, 10:17:24 PM
Automatically abbreviating directional elements in street names even when the direction word is actually part of the street name itself, as opposed to being a prefix. (For example: on some maps of NYC, I've seen West End Avenue marked as "W End Ave" , even though "West End" is actually the name of the street, rather than it being the west section of some "End Avenue" as the abbreviated directional would imply. Or, even worse: North Avenue in Chicago being rendered as "N Ave" .)
Ugh, same. The use of improper abbreviations in general make me unreasonably angry, such as using Chem. instead of Ch. for Chemin. What's the point of Chem.? Might as well use the whole word at that point.
Quote from: LilianaUwU on September 18, 2021, 10:05:19 PM
Quote from: KCRoadFan on September 17, 2021, 10:17:24 PM
Automatically abbreviating directional elements in street names even when the direction word is actually part of the street name itself, as opposed to being a prefix. (For example: on some maps of NYC, I've seen West End Avenue marked as "W End Ave" , even though "West End" is actually the name of the street, rather than it being the west section of some "End Avenue" as the abbreviated directional would imply. Or, even worse: North Avenue in Chicago being rendered as "N Ave" .)
Ugh, same. The use of improper abbreviations in general make me unreasonably angry, such as using Chem. instead of Ch. for Chemin. What's the point of Chem.? Might as well use the whole word at that point.
There are some signs for Northwest Expressway in OKC that sign it "N.W. EXPRWY." First off, the name of the thing is
Northwest, so spell that out, and a six-letter abbreviation is hardly an abbreviation at all!
Quote from: LilianaUwU on September 18, 2021, 10:05:19 PM
Quote from: KCRoadFan on September 17, 2021, 10:17:24 PM
Automatically abbreviating directional elements in street names even when the direction word is actually part of the street name itself, as opposed to being a prefix. (For example: on some maps of NYC, I've seen West End Avenue marked as "W End Ave" , even though "West End" is actually the name of the street, rather than it being the west section of some "End Avenue" as the abbreviated directional would imply. Or, even worse: North Avenue in Chicago being rendered as "N Ave" .)
Ugh, same. The use of improper abbreviations in general make me unreasonably angry, such as using Chem. instead of Ch. for Chemin. What's the point of Chem.? Might as well use the whole word at that point.
Off-topic a bit but the whole why not use the whole word thing has been done to cartoonish levels in other media.
Back in the 90's, the Philadelphia Phillies had Mitch Williams and Mike Williams on the team, and many newspapers used to abbreviate both as Mit. Williams and Mik. Williams in box scores or stat logs (when those were things in a newspaper).
Quote from: formulanone on September 17, 2021, 09:57:50 PM
Putting the shield right in the middle of a crossroads where two similar/same-color route lines meet.
Political boundaries which are different but share the same color; somehow, the four color rule was too hard to grasp.
Icons that are way too large compared to other symbols for points of interest.
The four color rule doesn't apply to many real-world map situations, and also, is not usually followed when bodies of water are indicated on the map (usually one color is used for all bodies of water and it's not one of the four colors of the four color map).
Quote from: ran4sh on September 19, 2021, 08:35:22 PM
Quote from: formulanone on September 17, 2021, 09:57:50 PM
Political boundaries which are different but share the same color; somehow, the four color rule was too hard to grasp.
The four color rule doesn't apply to many real-world map situations, and also, is not usually followed when bodies of water are indicated on the map (usually one color is used for all bodies of water and it's not one of the four colors of the four color map).
It's perfectly fine to use more than four colors (although four is always possible). The issue is with making adjacent regions the same color.
We're going to nitpick on municipal minutiae and give that whole Giant Greenland thing a pass?
Quote from: Road Hog on September 19, 2021, 09:24:06 PM
We're going to nitpick on municipal minutiae and give that whole Giant Greenland thing a pass?
Fortunately most people who are familiar enough with cartography to know what GIS stands for have heard at some point by now that Mercator projection is no good.
Quote from: Scott5114 on September 19, 2021, 09:45:26 PM
Quote from: Road Hog on September 19, 2021, 09:24:06 PM
We're going to nitpick on municipal minutiae and give that whole Giant Greenland thing a pass?
Fortunately most people who are familiar enough with cartography to know what GIS stands for have heard at some point by now that Mercator projection is no good.
Taking that class this semester, so new to projections but learning okay. Hate how ArcGIS has such sensitive zooming, can either zoom to see the whole state or the chocolate around your lips, nothing in between. And error propagation can go jump off a cliff.
Quote from: I-55 on September 19, 2021, 09:49:10 PM
Quote from: Scott5114 on September 19, 2021, 09:45:26 PM
Quote from: Road Hog on September 19, 2021, 09:24:06 PM
We're going to nitpick on municipal minutiae and give that whole Giant Greenland thing a pass?
Fortunately most people who are familiar enough with cartography to know what GIS stands for have heard at some point by now that Mercator projection is no good.
Taking that class this semester, so new to projections but learning okay. Hate how ArcGIS has such sensitive zooming, can either zoom to see the whole state or the chocolate around your lips, nothing in between. And error propagation can go jump off a cliff.
Are you using Pro or ArcMap?
Using the same shield type for every highway in a given area.
The offenders of this are typically small scale organization or businesses, from what I've seen.
Quote from: I-55 on September 19, 2021, 09:49:10 PM
Quote from: Scott5114 on September 19, 2021, 09:45:26 PM
Quote from: Road Hog on September 19, 2021, 09:24:06 PM
We're going to nitpick on municipal minutiae and give that whole Giant Greenland thing a pass?
Fortunately most people who are familiar enough with cartography to know what GIS stands for have heard at some point by now that Mercator projection is no good.
Taking that class this semester, so new to projections but learning okay. Hate how ArcGIS has such sensitive zooming, can either zoom to see the whole state or the chocolate around your lips, nothing in between. And error propagation can go jump off a cliff.
Give the open-source QGIS a try in your free time. Haven't had those issues with it, but some useful ArcGIS features may be missing. Still worth playing with.
Quote from: Scott5114 on September 19, 2021, 09:45:26 PM
Quote from: Road Hog on September 19, 2021, 09:24:06 PM
We're going to nitpick on municipal minutiae and give that whole Giant Greenland thing a pass?
Fortunately most people who are familiar enough with cartography to know what GIS stands for have heard at some point by now that Mercator projection is no good.
"No good"? Idk about that, I dislike projections in which north/south and east/west intersect at angles other than 90 degrees.
At least to learn the accurate sizes of places one can look up the area in an encyclopedia or similar. Maps are meant to be for locating places.
Quote from: ran4sh on September 20, 2021, 01:41:31 AM
Quote from: Scott5114 on September 19, 2021, 09:45:26 PM
Quote from: Road Hog on September 19, 2021, 09:24:06 PM
We're going to nitpick on municipal minutiae and give that whole Giant Greenland thing a pass?
Fortunately most people who are familiar enough with cartography to know what GIS stands for have heard at some point by now that Mercator projection is no good.
"No good"? Idk about that, I dislike projections in which north/south and east/west intersect at angles other than 90 degrees.
At least to learn the accurate sizes of places one can look up the area in an encyclopedia or similar. Maps are meant to be for locating places.
It's not just about size, it's about distance. Most maps are to scale so you can measure the distances between two places (x inches = y miles). Because Mercator, and other cylindrical projections that feature right-angle lines of latitude and longitude, do not have a consistent scale on large areas due to distortion, you cannot use them to accurately measure large distances. For most applications, Mercator simply isn't the right tool for the job–it's useful for applications like marine navigation where being able to plot a course with a straightedge is helpful, but this benefit is of no importance in most modern use cases.
Google actually pulls a kind of neat trick and has different zoom layers rendered in different projections, so that you are given maps based on more rectilinear projections at high zoom levels where distortion is relatively constant, and then it shifts to more spherical projections as you zoom out and view a large enough area that the distortion would become unacceptable.
Quote from: NE2 on September 17, 2021, 04:44:06 PM
These are things cartographers do that make maps objectively worse:
*Placing traffic light symbols where the stop line is instead of at the intersection. (http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/41.27367/-82.84133) This removes clear machine-readable information about which intersections are traffic light controlled, and may be confusing and ambiguous in the case of multiple intersections near each other.
*Marking grid-named county roads as if they were signed county routes. (http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=16/41.1421/-85.9484) There's no CR 600 W here; it's a local county-maintained road named "600 West".
Since you used Indiana as an example, I will say this: Since there is no such thing as county highways in Indiana, and since the quality of county roads varies greatly within counties, I don't think it's a bad idea to differentiate in some way.
I will note, however, that your specific example, CR 600 W in Kosciusko County, is NOT a high quality road that deserves such a differentiation.
Several Rand McNally atlases have been known to mark freeways as under construction when those weren't even done in the real world (remember that Nashua loop?).
Quote from: Scott5114 on September 20, 2021, 02:18:37 AM
Quote from: ran4sh on September 20, 2021, 01:41:31 AM
Quote from: Scott5114 on September 19, 2021, 09:45:26 PM
Quote from: Road Hog on September 19, 2021, 09:24:06 PM
We're going to nitpick on municipal minutiae and give that whole Giant Greenland thing a pass?
Fortunately most people who are familiar enough with cartography to know what GIS stands for have heard at some point by now that Mercator projection is no good.
"No good"? Idk about that, I dislike projections in which north/south and east/west intersect at angles other than 90 degrees.
At least to learn the accurate sizes of places one can look up the area in an encyclopedia or similar. Maps are meant to be for locating places.
It's not just about size, it's about distance. Most maps are to scale so you can measure the distances between two places (x inches = y miles). Because Mercator, and other cylindrical projections that feature right-angle lines of latitude and longitude, do not have a consistent scale on large areas due to distortion, you cannot use them to accurately measure large distances. For most applications, Mercator simply isn't the right tool for the job–it's useful for applications like marine navigation where being able to plot a course with a straightedge is helpful, but this benefit is of no importance in most modern use cases.
Google actually pulls a kind of neat trick and has different zoom layers rendered in different projections, so that you are given maps based on more rectilinear projections at high zoom levels where distortion is relatively constant, and then it shifts to more spherical projections as you zoom out and view a large enough area that the distortion would become unacceptable.
Google's use of Mercator does at least allow one to easily compare latitude/longitude at a glance, since they do not have lines on the map for those. Otherwise, one is stuck just clicking on the map and reading the coordinates to compare the numbers.
Quote from: KCRoadFan on September 17, 2021, 10:17:24 PM
Automatically abbreviating directional elements in street names even when the direction word is actually part of the street name itself, as opposed to being a prefix. (For example: on some maps of NYC, I've seen West End Avenue marked as "W End Ave" , even though "West End" is actually the name of the street, rather than it being the west section of some "End Avenue" as the abbreviated directional would imply. Or, even worse: North Avenue in Chicago being rendered as "N Ave" .)
That's an interesting point, because one might ask why abbreviating directional elements in street names should be taboo but other abbreviations are okay. For example, Mount Clemens and Mount Pleasant are the legal names of those two cities in Michigan but I don't give it a second thought when I see Mt. Clemens or Mt. Pleasant on maps or road signs. However, like you, when I'm on US-10 and I see the control city for the M-30 exit is W Branch, I'm irked because it should read West Branch. Why is one okay and one isn't?
Quote from: wanderer2575 on September 20, 2021, 01:39:27 PM
Quote from: KCRoadFan on September 17, 2021, 10:17:24 PM
Automatically abbreviating directional elements in street names even when the direction word is actually part of the street name itself, as opposed to being a prefix. (For example: on some maps of NYC, I've seen West End Avenue marked as "W End Ave" , even though "West End" is actually the name of the street, rather than it being the west section of some "End Avenue" as the abbreviated directional would imply. Or, even worse: North Avenue in Chicago being rendered as "N Ave" .)
That's an interesting point, because one might ask why abbreviating directional elements in street names should be taboo but other abbreviations are okay. For example, Mount Clemens and Mount Pleasant are the legal names of those two cities in Michigan but I don't give it a second thought when I see Mt. Clemens or Mt. Pleasant on maps or road signs. However, like you, when I'm on US-10 and I see the control city for the M-30 exit is W Branch, I'm irked because it should read West Branch. Why is one okay and one isn't?
Because there's no Branch that it's west of. In my area, there are North Andover and North Reading, which are commonly abbreviated on signs and are perfectly fine.
Quote from: 1 on September 20, 2021, 01:44:38 PM
Quote from: wanderer2575 on September 20, 2021, 01:39:27 PM
Quote from: KCRoadFan on September 17, 2021, 10:17:24 PM
Automatically abbreviating directional elements in street names even when the direction word is actually part of the street name itself, as opposed to being a prefix. (For example: on some maps of NYC, I've seen West End Avenue marked as "W End Ave" , even though "West End" is actually the name of the street, rather than it being the west section of some "End Avenue" as the abbreviated directional would imply. Or, even worse: North Avenue in Chicago being rendered as "N Ave" .)
That's an interesting point, because one might ask why abbreviating directional elements in street names should be taboo but other abbreviations are okay. For example, Mount Clemens and Mount Pleasant are the legal names of those two cities in Michigan but I don't give it a second thought when I see Mt. Clemens or Mt. Pleasant on maps or road signs. However, like you, when I'm on US-10 and I see the control city for the M-30 exit is W Branch, I'm irked because it should read West Branch. Why is one okay and one isn't?
Because there's no Branch that it's west of. In my area, there are North Andover and North Reading, which are commonly abbreviated on signs and are perfectly fine.
I am not sure why this matters. You can abbreviate the city of "North Reading" to "N. Reading" because there is a "Reading," but you can't do the same to "West Branch" because there is no "Branch?" I don't understand the logic. Either you should be able to abbreviate cities with their acceptable abbreviations....or you shouldn't.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on September 20, 2021, 01:56:06 PM
Quote from: 1 on September 20, 2021, 01:44:38 PM
Quote from: wanderer2575 on September 20, 2021, 01:39:27 PM
Quote from: KCRoadFan on September 17, 2021, 10:17:24 PM
Automatically abbreviating directional elements in street names even when the direction word is actually part of the street name itself, as opposed to being a prefix. (For example: on some maps of NYC, I've seen West End Avenue marked as "W End Ave" , even though "West End" is actually the name of the street, rather than it being the west section of some "End Avenue" as the abbreviated directional would imply. Or, even worse: North Avenue in Chicago being rendered as "N Ave" .)
That's an interesting point, because one might ask why abbreviating directional elements in street names should be taboo but other abbreviations are okay. For example, Mount Clemens and Mount Pleasant are the legal names of those two cities in Michigan but I don't give it a second thought when I see Mt. Clemens or Mt. Pleasant on maps or road signs. However, like you, when I'm on US-10 and I see the control city for the M-30 exit is W Branch, I'm irked because it should read West Branch. Why is one okay and one isn't?
Because there's no Branch that it's west of. In my area, there are North Andover and North Reading, which are commonly abbreviated on signs and are perfectly fine.
I am not sure why this matters. You can abbreviate the city of "North Reading" to "N. Reading" because there is a "Reading," but you can't do the same to "West Branch" because there is no "Branch?" I don't understand the logic. Either you should be able to abbreviate cities with their acceptable abbreviations....or you shouldn't.
This is EXACTLY why this problem exists! It is really hard to program so many minor exceptions into a computer without just naming every single exception.
I.E.
if road_name contains(north,south,east,west):
Abbreviate(N,S,E,W) unless road_name (Central Park west, west end avenue, north avenue...)
It's a lot easier just to say abbreviate, or don't.
Quote from: Road Hog on September 19, 2021, 09:24:06 PM
We're going to nitpick on municipal minutiae and give that whole Giant Greenland thing a pass?
...but giants come from Greenland (https://youtu.be/5kdJl8h2-XM) so it's okay.
The Google map lady pronounced St. Joseph Hwy near Lansing as "Street Joseph".
Quote from: GaryV on September 20, 2021, 06:04:19 PM
The Google map lady pronounced St. Joseph Hwy near Lansing as "Street Joseph".
Reminds me of a GPS in a friend's car that pronounced roman numbers as though they were words... for instance, IV would literally be pronounced "iv" and not "four".
I always remembered the US 209 freeway connecting I-80 with PA 33 marked when it never was.
Then General Drafting marking many NYC freeways as divided arterial streets and NY 9A as undivided south of 57th Street due to the freeway removed. NY 9A is twice divided as a boulevard between the Battery and the start of the Henry Hudson.
My biggest peeve is when maps use some shit version of highway shields to sign numbered routes. I'm look straight at you, Delorme. When they started switching over their cartography to the current style a decade or whatever ago, their interstate and US shields are just dogshit. What the hell is that even?
They would also commit a cardinal sin of using the same line style for business interstates as regular interstate highways. Yuck!
I have this recreation atlas in my vehicle of southern Wisconsin that attempts to show public lands and trails, but boy do they phone it in sometimes. It's like if they didn't have the actual boundary of a park, they'd just fill in all the space enclosed by the nearest road. But that's not as bad as using the same line style for a ramp that they do for the freeway (or whatever). It looks terrible, cheap, and lazy, man.
Oh labeling unsigned routes on the map; that helps no one. RandMac is guilty of this for all those 'follower' state routes that shadow every US route in several southeast states. Unnecessary clutter. Get rid of it.
Failure to indicate non-interstate freeways as such; the first offending example that comes to mind in the the official MnDOT map of Minnesota. I hate that style.
Oh and speaking of Minnesota's map, unnecessary detail is bad. Like how MnDOT tries to show the configuration of every interchange on the city insets. On one level I get it, but it's difficult to make that look good at that scale so it's best to not bother. At a previous gig I sometimes had to make maps where the customer wanted unnecessary detail; every road at a scale where it is not appropriate; that kind of thing. And it looks bad. It's like someone sneezed on the map but their boogers were all letters. :-P
If a map is using squares for interchange symbols, they look so much better when they are oriented to match the angle of the roads that are intersecting at that interchange.
In general I hate maps that look like they were clearly auto-generated by a GIS application with very little review by human eyes. Algorithms should only be a starting point for the final product, not a cheap-ass shortcut to churn out any ol' piece of shit.
And this is why I miss Thomas Brothers.
Although, who knows if they would have maintained their quality had they managed to not get bought out by RMN and dismantaled.
Quote from: triplemultiplex on September 24, 2021, 04:20:00 PM
Failure to indicate non-interstate freeways as such; the first offending example that comes to mind in the the official MnDOT map of Minnesota. I hate that style.
Failure to indicate a non-interstate freeway as a freeway, or as a non-interstate? If it's the former I agree.
Quote from: ran4sh on September 25, 2021, 12:09:52 AM
Quote from: triplemultiplex on September 24, 2021, 04:20:00 PM
Failure to indicate non-interstate freeways as such; the first offending example that comes to mind in the the official MnDOT map of Minnesota. I hate that style.
Failure to indicate a non-interstate freeway as a freeway, or as a non-interstate? If it's the former I agree.
The MnDOT map makes no distinction between a 4-ane expressway and a non-interstate freeway.
Same with ODOT's x.x
The Windows 10 Weather app. Switch to the radar view and zoom in. A couple of months ago, they changed the Interstate and US markers to the black-and-white ovals that everyone else uses for state routes, with no distinction between them.
Quote from: ozarkman417 on September 19, 2021, 10:40:27 PM
Using the same shield type for every highway in a given area.
The offenders of this are typically small scale organization or businesses, from what I've seen.
It annoys me that OSM does this. I notice in the US, OSM writes out "US 20" and "I-79" in the shields to make it unambiguous, but they don't do the same in Ontario. This makes it impossible to distinguish provincial highways from regional/County roads. Particularly bad is in Kitchener, where RR 8 runs beside ON 8, OSM shows both as "8" in the same rectangular icon.
Edit: there are few spots where it says "RR 17", instead of "17", but it's very sporadic.
Quote from: 7/8 on September 25, 2021, 08:08:39 AM
Quote from: ozarkman417 on September 19, 2021, 10:40:27 PM
Using the same shield type for every highway in a given area.
The offenders of this are typically small scale organization or businesses, from what I've seen.
It annoys me that OSM does this. I notice in the US, OSM writes out "US 20" and "I-79" in the shields to make it unambiguous, but they don't do the same in Ontario. This makes it impossible to distinguish provincial highways from regional/County roads. Particularly bad is in Kitchener, where RR 8 runs beside ON 8, OSM shows both as "8" in the same rectangular icon.
Edit: there are few spots where it says "RR 17", instead of "17", but it's very sporadic.
This is another unfortunate side effect of OSM being built by European developers–those rectangles were intended to hold things like "A380" or "M6", and don't really work well with the shield system used in North America. (You'd think if you were going to create a system to build a world map you'd do a bit of research on that first.)
You could always go in there and edit it to be more like the way highways in the US are marked, but that would likely take a while, and it's possible you'd get some dolts who don't realize why the current system sucks reverting you.
Quote from: Scott5114 on September 25, 2021, 02:26:30 PM
You could always go in there and edit it to be more like the way highways in the US are marked, but that would likely take a while, and it's possible you'd get some dolts who don't realize why the current system sucks reverting you.
Especially early on. I could easily see someone reverting the changes on the grounds that it's inconsistent with the rest of Ontario without waiting for the rest of Ontario to be made consistent with the change. It's worth noting that this is also how the rest of Canada (with the exceptions of Manitoba and Nova Scotia) works as well, though I don't know the extent to which it causes confusion outside of Ontario.
I would just submit in general that the failure to apply cartographic practices altogether is what makes a map shitty.
Quote from: MCRoads on September 20, 2021, 02:36:34 PM
This is EXACTLY why this problem exists! It is really hard to program so many minor exceptions into a computer without just naming every single exception.
I.E.
if road_name contains(north,south,east,west):
Abbreviate(N,S,E,W) unless road_name (Central Park west, west end avenue, north avenue...)
It's a lot easier just to say abbreviate, or don't.
This particular problem can be pretty simply distilled into abbreviating only the directional prefix or suffix, but not the name proper. Then as long as your data source is adequate, there's no programming of individual exceptions at all.
Apple's text-to-speech (and probably every other one) has a built-in exception for Malcolm X to remain as is and not to treat X as a Roman numeral. And that's just one example. There are just way too many exceptions to get them all perfectly.
Quote from: 1 on September 25, 2021, 09:03:53 PM
Apple's text-to-speech (and probably every other one) has a built-in exception for Malcolm X to remain as is and not to treat X as a Roman numeral. And that's just one example. There are just way too many exceptions to get them all perfectly.
Is there an example of an exception for a cardinal direction that should always be abbreviated in a proper name?
Mercator projections were popularized by European sea navigators as a strait line will give you true bearing along the entire path. But this comic conveys my attitude (https://xkcd.com/977/) towards the Mercator projection better than anything I can say.
Quote from: skluth on October 05, 2021, 06:54:34 PM
Mercator projections were popularized by European sea navigators as a strait line will give you true bearing along the entire path. But this comic conveys my attitude (https://xkcd.com/977/) towards the Mercator projection better than anything I can say.
I think the complaint is less about the projection itself, but about its use in cases where the rhumb line property is not necessary or desirable. In other words, if you use a tool the wrong way and it doesn't work, is that the tool's fault or yours? :-)