[georss] Transport of Toponyms with GeoRSS

[Andrew Turner]

On 8/27/06, Marc <marc at geonames.org> wrote:
> > If the georss group does decide to enable encoding of civil address
> > information, why re-invent the wheel?
>
> I would not go as far and speak about 'invention' in the context of
> GeoRSS or RSS. All I am suggesting is using the country code invented by
> ISO, use it for the vehicle RSS and call this combination GeoRSS. (The
> same is true for ISO 3166-2, the postal code and similarly for the place
> name.)
> The really hard work, the invention and maintenance is done by ISO. They
> have invented the wheel. Using it in a xml schema is a piece of cake and
> I don't really care how this combination is called. I have therefore
> setup a draft for a "geonamesRSS" encoding :
> http://www.geonames.org/geonamesRSS.html
>

Marc, aren't you in fact reinventing the wheel/overloading the domain
by adding YAN (Yet Another Namespace)?

You're right that making an XML schema can be easy. The problem is in
use and adoption. Adding another namespace works against that. What I
had suggested was leaving GeoRSS as is, and then bringing in something
else (existing, like xNAL) for address encoding. Other people have
already spent a lot of time thinking of the problems and a solution.

Just as an example:
<georss:point>45.256 -71.92</georss:point>
<xnl:AddressDetails>
 <xnl:Country>
  <xnl:CountryName>United States</CountryName>
  <xnl:Locality Type="City">
   <xnl:LocalityName>Seattle</LocalityName>
    <xnl:Thoroughfare>
     <xnl:ThoroughfareName>MainStreet</ThoroughfareName>
     <xnl:ThoroughfareNumber>16</ThoroughfareNumber>
    </xnl:Thoroughfare>
   </xnl:DependentLocality>
  </xnl:Locality>
 </xnl:Country>
</xnl:AddressDetails>


-- 
Andrew Turner
ajturner at highearthorbit.com        42.4266N x 83.4931W
http://highearthorbit.com              Northville, Michigan, USA