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What3Words has some strange choices / consequences: * If you accidentally change the word order for a location, you could send a mailman to a wrong and faraway

What3Words has some strange choices / consequences: * If you accidentally change the word order for a location, you could send a mailman to a wrong and faraway location: - http://map.what3words.com/help.driver.lost is in Chicago - http://map.what3words.com/driver.lost.help is near Grand Rapids * If you accidentally mess up the plurals or spelling, you send people all over the place: - cosmetic.takeover.fries is in Amsterdam - cosmetic.takeover.fires is above the Pole Circle in Russia - cosmetic.takeovers.fries is west of Shanghai * Lastly, locations are 'named' quite randomly, with no apparent logic or explanation behind it. So, adjacent locations have a completely different name. How can we (or a mailman) deduct/reason about the 'address' of a neighbor, or the what3words for the other side of a property?

masukomi 8y ago
> How can we (or a mailman) deduct/reason about the 'address' of a neighbor, or the what3words for the other side of a property? why do we need to? Why can't it simply be this string = this place. that string = that place ? Why does there have to be metadata indicating relative positions of things? US address on the same street have relative metadata, but ones on different streets do not. They may be around the corner from each other or they may be across town. You don't know, and yet we get along just fine. I'd also point to "Massachusetts Ave." in Boston and its suburbs which has the same damn numbers like 4 times and thus 660 Mass ave. gives you NO clue where the thing is relative to 658 which may be next door and miles away and it may be east or west, or both. Somehow we've been able to get along just fine without relative metadata on different streets or even the same one. Why should it be a requirement here?
- jschulenklopper 8y ago
  Perhaps not a hard requirement, but a handy feature. It would be nice to know that "<number> <street>" is at least in the area of "<a number close to that number> <same street>" (if the city doesn't completely mess up giving out addresses). With what3words, "///ladders.chimp.drama" is exactly next to "///thick.candle.enacts" and "///nails.spit.blaring", but you can't tell. Also, you don't know whether there are other addressable points in between. It would have been nice if there was more method in this madness.

masukomi 8y ago

> How can we (or a mailman) deduct/reason about the 'address' of a neighbor, or the what3words for the other side of a property? why do we need to? Why can't it simply be this string = this place. that string = that place ? Why does there have to be metadata indicating relative positions of things? US address on the same street have relative metadata, but ones on different streets do not. They may be around the corner from each other or they may be across town. You don't know, and yet we get along just fine. I'd also point to "Massachusetts Ave." in Boston and its suburbs which has the same damn numbers like 4 times and thus 660 Mass ave. gives you NO clue where the thing is relative to 658 which may be next door and miles away and it may be east or west, or both. Somehow we've been able to get along just fine without relative metadata on different streets or even the same one. Why should it be a requirement here?

jschulenklopper 8y ago
Perhaps not a hard requirement, but a handy feature. It would be nice to know that "<number> <street>" is at least in the area of "<a number close to that number> <same street>" (if the city doesn't completely mess up giving out addresses). With what3words, "///ladders.chimp.drama" is exactly next to "///thick.candle.enacts" and "///nails.spit.blaring", but you can't tell. Also, you don't know whether there are other addressable points in between. It would have been nice if there was more method in this madness.