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Eircode design
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It is also frustrating when people attribute a stereotype to one nationality when the same attribute is common in many other nationalities. I can't think of one Western country who would not also have people think and behave the way you are attributing to only the Irish.
My experience is that Irish people are worse than average in this respect. It's not for nothing that we consider ourselves expert begrudgers.
When my company first started using Eircodes, we contacted all our customers to ask them to let us know theirs. One replied "don't use it, will never use it".
In how many western countries will someone reflexively refuse to use their postcode without even bothering to articulate - presumably even to themselves - a cogent reason not to?0 -
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oscarBravo wrote: »Someone needs to explain to the Dutch how stupid their car registration system is.
Their number plate give you an indication of when the car was registered. Also they use codes for certain uses.
http://ifarm.nl/plates/rules.html#cars
So I have no idea what your cryptic comment is meant to imply....0 -
That's fine. I'm happy to explain if there's something not clearI don't really understand your points,
They are going around in circles because the same point is indeed being made over and over - for whatever reason.they seem to be going around in circles and not really based on anything about Eircode.
Well, if the Eircode databases were free to download that would certainly mitigate the main problems. Or even if a free dataset was made available that would be equivalent to what you get for free from other postcodes, while keeping some datasets paid-for, that would work too. It is the case though that the commercial model is closely tied to the design, despite what some people are saying.Can I clarify, if the Eircode database was available to freely download off a government web site, would all your objections go away ?
If that's true, then all your complaints are about the commercial model.0 -
Bottom line: if it was designed to prohibit the free use of it. Then the free use of it would not be possible. But guess what, the free use of eircode is entirely possible, making your arguement null and void.0
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This is a good example of how this discussion goes round and round. Most people who have criticised Eircode, just give up in the face of continuous posts like this.sondagefaux wrote: »It does change the overall point - relying on pre-existing knowledge to understand a system ("Once you understand their system (like ours) is based around 'post towns' rather than administrative areas, I think it makes sense.") is the very opposite of 'intuitive' knowledge.
Many, many UK postcodes are no more 'intuitive' than Eircodes. ZE for Shetland is a very good example. BT for Co. Fermanagh is another very good example. NE for Newcastle rather than North-East London (when NW already means North-West London) is another very good example.
You obviously have a specific interpretation of the word 'intuitive' but for all intents and purposes the UK system is more intuitive than Eircode. BT does not stand for Fermanagh, it stands for the largest town in the area (Northern Ireland) that it covers, and that town is Belfast. It's not rocket science.0 -
That's not correct. If it was designed hierarchically, then it would not have been possible to prevent people from using it for free, for some purposes. That is very different from the point you are making, which is that the state might decide to make it available for free (which they haven't fwiw).Bottom line: if it was designed to prohibit the free use of it. Then the free use of it would not be possible. But guess what, the free use of eircode is entirely possible, making your arguement null and void.0 -
Most people who have criticised Eircode, just give up in the face of continuous posts like this.
If that was true then this thread and all the others like it would have died a long time ago. Instead people like yourself keep raising the same old arguement over and over again and then in some sort of twisted irony complain that things keep going around in circles!0 -
It was Alan_p who first 'complained' that it was going round in circles.If that was true then this thread and all the others like it would have died a long time ago. Instead people like yourself keep raising the same old arguement over and over again and then in some sort of twisted irony complain that things keep going around in circles!0 -
That's not correct. If it was designed hierarchically, then it would not have been possible to prevent people from using it for free, for some purposes. That is very different from the point you are making, which is that the state might decide to make it available for free (which they haven't fwiw).
You claimed that it was a "design problem" that prevented eircode from being free. That's not true. Now I'm not sure what point you're trying to articulate here. You seem to be now saying that a code could have been designed to make it impossible to licence? Which is a different thing again. I really don't know anymore. I think it's arguing for the sake of it now.
There's absolutely nothing in the design of eircode that prevents it been made freely available.
They made it non hierarchical because of the reasons outlined around grouping houses and areas together and the issues that causes. Not to make sure to licence it. You can licence any code. Loc8 is hierarchical and subject to licence. Having a heirarchical code would not have eroded any revenue streams from licening. So you're into pure conspiracy theory nonsense now.0 -
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That's a bit vague. What were those reasons exactly?They made it non hierarchical because of the reasons outlined around grouping houses and areas together and the issues that causes.
But PDVerse acknowledged this already and he designed it. He said that a hierarchical code could be used "without reference to the database" implying exactly what I said.Not to make sure to licence it. You can licence any code. Loc8 is hierarchical and subject to licence. Having a heirarchical code would not have eroded any revenue streams from licening. So you're into pure conspiracy theory nonsense now.
And why do you keep bringing loc8 up? Nobody mentions loc8 on this forum as much as you. loc8 is not relevant to this discussion. Even if we had a licensed geocode like loc8, there would still be free uses of it.0 -
That's a bit vague. What were those reasons exactly?
But PDVerse acknowledged this already and he designed it. He said that a hierarchical code could be used "without reference to the database" implying exactly what I said.
And why do you keep bringing loc8 up? Nobody mentions loc8 on this forum as much as you. loc8 is not relevant to this discussion. Even if we had a licensed geocode like loc8, there would still be free uses of it.
This is what he meant by it if you bothered to look it up. But you'd rather have another arguement with me by playing dumb like you've never heard any of the argunents against a heirarchical code before. Round and round we go.
https://www.autoaddress.ie/blog/autoaddressblog/2016/07/28/what-if-alternative-eircode-history-in-a-parallel-universe0 -
That's a really good blog post. Sadly, the last line is probably the most relevant.
It's all too easy to pontificate about how an entirely putative alternative system would have been better - especially when the pontificator didn't actually have to put any effort into designing such a system, or - worse still - dealing with the fallout of its inevitable flaws.0 -
oscarBravo wrote: »That's a really good blog post. Sadly, the last line is probably the most relevant.
It's all too easy to pontificate about how an entirely putative alternative system would have been better - especially when the pontificator didn't actually have to put any effort into designing such a system, or - worse still - dealing with the fallout of its inevitable flaws.
Yes really good, it dissects why only 5% of the population are using it!0 -
No it's not rocket science. It's simple geography. The largest town in the area of Co. Fermanagh is Enniskillen.
This is a good example of how this discussion goes round and round. Most people who have criticised Eircode, just give up in the face of continuous posts like this.sondagefaux wrote: »It does change the overall point - relying on pre-existing knowledge to understand a system ("Once you understand their system (like ours) is based around 'post towns' rather than administrative areas, I think it makes sense.") is the very opposite of 'intuitive' knowledge.
Many, many UK postcodes are no more 'intuitive' than Eircodes. ZE for Shetland is a very good example. BT for Co. Fermanagh is another very good example. NE for Newcastle rather than North-East London (when NW already means North-West London) is another very good example.
You obviously have a specific interpretation of the word 'intuitive' but for all intents and purposes the UK system is more intuitive than Eircode. BT does not stand for Fermanagh, it stands for the largest town in the area (Northern Ireland) that it covers, and that town is Belfast. It's not rocket science.
Complaints have been made that some Eircodes routing key cover too wide an area, e.g. that the H91 routing key covers large parts of Co. Galway and parts of Co. Clare.
Yet when I point out that the BT postcode area covers all of Northern Ireland (with a population approaching 1.9 million) it's claimed that using a code that stands for Belfast ("the largest town in the area") for all addresses in Co. Fermanagh is more 'intuitive' than Eircodes.
You're correct - your post is "a good example of how this discussion goes round and round".0 -
The last point made on the blog post is bang on the money:
"[font=Cabin, sans-serif]When the obvious parallels between Togher/Wilton and neighbouring townlands whose postcodes defined their border was put to Joe Leogue he responded with "grouping distinct areas under one postcode is not the same as claiming/reclaiming one area as another". There's none so blind as those who will not see"[/font]
[font=Cabin, sans-serif]Does Joe Leogue not have any knowledge of the history behind the Dublin postal district of D6W (Dublin 6W before Eircodes)?[/font]
[font=Cabin, sans-serif]Originally this was intended to be Dublin 26 but many residents of the intended postal district objected because they thought that Dublin 26 would be more readily associated with Dublin 24 (centred on mainly working-class Tallaght) than Dublin 6 (centred on mainly middle-class Rathgar/Rathmines), and this may have lowered property prices in the area.[/font]
[font=Cabin, sans-serif]I also remember reading an article about 20 years ago about how developers of one new housing estate lobbied to have the estate assigned to the Dublin 20 postal district instead of Dublin 24...[/font]
[font=Cabin, sans-serif]Ireland had postcode snobbery even before it had postcodes! [/font]
It's utterly disingenuous of Joe Loegue or anyone using similar arguments to claim that "grouping distinct areas under one postcode is not the same as claiming/reclaiming one area as another".
Grouping an area (its distinciveness may be a matter of sometimes fierce debate) under one postcode was already controversial even when only Dublin was divided into widely known postal districts.
It's not at all hard to imagine how the scenarios outlined in the autoaddress blog post would have caused massive division across all of Ireland if a UK-style postcode had been adopted.0 -
PDverse put all of these arguments at the beginning of this thread and I think I responded to them.This is what he meant by it if you bothered to look it up. But you'd rather have another arguement with me by playing dumb like you've never heard any of the argunents against a heirarchical code before. Round and round we go.
https://www.autoaddress.ie/blog/autoaddressblog/2016/07/28/what-if-alternative-eircode-history-in-a-parallel-universe
It made life easier for the design team. They were able to deliver the project quickly, by avoiding controversy, but also by avoiding useful functionality in the system. That is what it boils down to and everyone needs to understand that.
The Togher/Wilton controversy that is relied upon heavily in that blog only happened a couple of weeks ago. So, it's slightly misleading to suggest that it was part of this secret design process a few years back.
It seems the fear is that Togher/Wilton-gate would be replicated across the country, though I think this is simplistic and there is plenty of flexibility in postcode designs to avoid this problem. Other countries seem to manage it. Despite the impression you might get here (and in the Daily Mail) the UK postcode which is hierarchical and area based, is hugely successful and accepted by the public. Problems like Togher/Wilton when they occur, tend to be in urban areas. If we used small areas as the basic unit, then they are much smaller than areas like Togher or Wilton and the higher level area distinction could have been just avoided altogether by using a grid system for naming the SA’s. Yes, there could have been issues even still, but that would be a sign of public engagement rather then indifference.
Other issues like the cost of insurance being tied to postcode is misleading as well. Address/location has always been a factor in insurance costs. It's not just going to start happening were we to have an area based or hierarchical postcode.
The bottom line is we will never know. There was no public consultation (ie with the public), no attempt to find out what kind of postcode the public wanted. So, instead of designing a postcide that the whole country would leap upon and be mired in controversy, what we got is one that 95% of us are indifferent about and are ignoring, a PPS number for houses if you will.
I think he is being unfair also to Joe Leogue, who is perhaps the only journalist who has taken a long term interest in the affair. He is essentially being criticised for being open-minded and presenting material that is favourable to both sides of the debate. It's just that some people don't like the idea of someone shining a light on Eircode and how it came about.
I'm happy to explain it to you, if you are genuinely interested, but I don't think you are. I didn't say impossible to license. I said impossible to charge money for particular uses. A hierarchical code can do exactly what the autoaddress app does in terms of sorting and grouping of deliveries, except you don't need an app. It is visible directly from looking at the codes. That is why it is not possible to charge money for this. Whereas with Eircode, they have a choice. They can either charge for it, or decide not to charge for it. I would have preferred a simpler postcode that didn't need an app to do simple things like this, and when circumstances change, they might start charging for it in future.ukoda wrote:You claimed that it was a "design problem" that prevented eircode from being free. That's not true. Now I'm not sure what point you're trying to articulate here. You seem to be now saying that a code could have been designed to make it impossible to licence? Which is a different thing again. I really don't know anymore.0 -
Perfect example of pontificating. "I would have done this" "they didn't bother to do that"
When are you going to realise that there is no 1 postcode that is perfect in every single way.
A design had to be chosen, they chose one, they explained why, you don't like it, I get that.0 -
I quite enjoy reading the ridiculous contortions you and sondagefaux get yourselves into. But, the main reason I am involved is to argue for making the best of what we've got (at each stage). At this stage, I think the best way forward is a free dataset giving each eircode and the SA code for each. Publishing the whole ECAD for free might be risky from a data protection point of view, as well as killing off all remaining commercial potential.Perfect example of pontificating. "I would have done this" "they didn't bother to do that"
When are you going to realise that there is no 1 postcode that is perfect in every single way.
A design had to be chosen, they chose one, they explained why, you don't like it, I get that.0 -
Join Date:Posts: 19346
Perfect example of pontificating. "I would have done this" "they didn't bother to do that"
When are you going to realise that there is no 1 postcode that is perfect in every single way.
A design had to be chosen, they chose one, they explained why, you don't like it, I get that.
They never explained why.0 -
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Sam Russell wrote: »They never explained why.
yes they did, have a read back over the last few posts, and also the blog I posted where they explained why they chose the design
https://www.autoaddress.ie/blog/autoaddressblog/2016/07/28/what-if-alternative-eircode-history-in-a-parallel-universe0 -
The vast majority (easily 99%) of the population could not give a FF about postcode design. Same goes for how roads or bus stops are numbered. This is a natural interest of a very small subset of the population, most of whom have contributed to this thread:)The bottom line is we will never know. There was no public consultation (ie with the public), no attempt to find out what kind of postcode the public wanted. So, instead of designing a postcide that the whole country would leap upon and be mired in controversy, what we got is one that 95% of us are indifferent about and are ignoring, a PPS number for houses if you will.
I think he is being unfair also to Joe Leogue, who is perhaps the only journalist who has taken a long term interest in the affair. He is essentially being criticised for being open-minded and presenting material that is favourable to both sides of the debate. It's just that some people don't like the idea of someone shining a light on Eircode and how it came about.
That is not to say it is not important. But to think that polling the population on this issue would have got you a better result is fanciful.0 -
What ridiculous contortions? The fact is that there were controversies over Dublin postal districts (with residents in parts of Dublin effectively forcing An Post to abandon the proposed Dublin 26 district in favour of Dublin 6W) decades before any sort of postcode was mooted for the entire state. It's not too hard to imagine that many people would have fought tooth and nail against being put into the 'wrong' Eircode area if they had been developed along UK lines, or if the first part of their Eircode was too close in number (e.g. D26) to the first part of an Eircode in an area considered to be undesirable by some snobbish people - i.e. Dublin 24. The reason D26 doesn't exist as a routing key is because of the resistance to people in largely middle-class areas of Dublin to being 'next' to Tallaght (D24) under the old Dublin postal districts scheme.
I quite enjoy reading the ridiculous contortions you and sondagefaux get yourselves into. But, the main reason I am involved is to argue for making the best of what we've got (at each stage). At this stage, I think the best way forward is a free dataset giving each eircode and the SA code for each. Publishing the whole ECAD for free might be risky from a data protection point of view, as well as killing off all remaining commercial potential.Perfect example of pontificating. "I would have done this" "they didn't bother to do that"
When are you going to realise that there is no 1 postcode that is perfect in every single way.
A design had to be chosen, they chose one, they explained why, you don't like it, I get that.
This type of snobbery isn't just confined to Dublin, as the Wilton/Togher case shows.
Imagine if Wilton was given the Eircode routing key of C12, with Togher being given C13.
Now imagine some people who thought they lived in Wilton being assigned a C13 routing key.
Repeat multiple times across the country as postcode snobbery, no longer just confined to a handful of Dublin postal districts, became a new national pre-occupation.0 -
That's slightly at odds with what the designers thought. They seemed to think that every councillor and TD across the land would be hammering down the doors of the DOE in order to get their constituents postcode changed due to snobbery reasons.The vast majority (easily 99%) of the population could not give a FF about postcode design. Same goes for how roads or bus stops are numbered. This is a natural interest of a very small subset of the population, most of whom have contributed to this thread:)
That is not to say it is not important. But to think that polling the population on this issue would have got you a better result is fanciful.
There are different ways to measure public opinion, but if we had done this, then the seeming antipathy towards non-sequential, random codes might not have been such a surprise.
Did you even read my post? I was arguing that Wilton or Togher should not have been identifiable areas in the postcode. Say there are three small areas in each. The six small areas might have prefixes of C10 to C16. Sure, you can identify whether a particular prefix is from Wilton or Togher (just like you can today with Eircodes) but there would not be one identifiable area of Togher or Wilton.sondagefaux wrote:Imagine if Wilton was given the Eircode routing key of C12, with Togher being given C13.0 -
then the seeming antipathy towards non-sequential, random codes might not have been such a surprise.
Have you measured the publics level of apathy towards eircode and attributated to it to the random nature of eircode? Or are you assuming the public feel a certain way?
If you look at the social media sentiment of eircode the trend is moving more positive and I hardly ever see anyone complain that it's random. (Apart from certain people with vested interests, think we all know them)
What people ACTUALLY complain about, if you listen to them, which I know you're a fan of doing, is that they cannot use eircode many places. The top complaint is google maps followed by complaints of the government not using it. Complaints like "it's bad because it's random" are pretty much non existent.0 -
I think if we want to know what people ACTUALLY complain about, we should have done the kind of research I'm talking about. I wouldn't pay any more attention to what you think is significant that you do to what I think. Twitter trends come and go, influenced by various people, but the reports in the media made quite a big thing of the randomness feature.0
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I think if we want to know what people ACTUALLY complain about, we should have done the kind of research I'm talking about. I wouldn't pay any more attention to what you think is significant that you do to what I think. Twitter trends come and go, influenced by various people, but the reports in the media made quite a big thing of the randomness feature.
I'm not just talking about Twitter. journalists took the easy option and most of their articles were copy and paste jobs of people with vested interest opinions. I challenged one of the journalists by email because the article was full of incorrect facts and their response was "I reported on what individual A said" they did absolutely no research and simply trotted out an article of someone's opinion as facts.0 -
That's slightly at odds with what the designers thought. They seemed to think that every councillor and TD across the land would be hammering down the doors of the DOE in order to get their constituents postcode changed due to snobbery reasons.
Of course, many people would feel discommoded if they felt part of a more prestigious area but were in a different postcode. But that would be a reaction to their particular postcode, not the design in general. People who felt lucky to be included in a more desirable postcode would be silent.
The random nature of the code system had its disadvantages. I won't repeat them because I think on balance the design was the right one.
One very positive outcome of the chosen design is that there is virtually no objection to it on snobbery grounds (over and above what already existed in Dublin).0 -
I think if we want to know what people ACTUALLY complain about, we should have done the kind of research I'm talking about. I wouldn't pay any more attention to what you think is significant that you do to what I think. Twitter trends come and go, influenced by various people, but the reports in the media made quite a big thing of the randomness feature.
People would probably have opted for some derivative of the British system because that what they are culturally familiar with.
I would congratulate our policymakers (for once) for not choosing a British solution and instead opting for a system which is more suited to Irish needs (non-unique addresses) and a technology infrastructure that has seen 50 years of progress.0 -
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You'd still have the problem that a bunch of prefixes would make up 'Wilton' or 'Togher', with the obvious problem that people who felt they had the 'wrong prefix' would still complain. Just because Togher would no longer be C13, but C13, C14, C15 doesn't mean that people won't complain that they shouldn't be C15 because they feel they don't live in Togher, which would be identifiable by the C13, C14, C15 prefixes.
That's slightly at odds with what the designers thought. They seemed to think that every councillor and TD across the land would be hammering down the doors of the DOE in order to get their constituents postcode changed due to snobbery reasons.The vast majority (easily 99%) of the population could not give a FF about postcode design. Same goes for how roads or bus stops are numbered. This is a natural interest of a very small subset of the population, most of whom have contributed to this thread:)
That is not to say it is not important. But to think that polling the population on this issue would have got you a better result is fanciful.
There are different ways to measure public opinion, but if we had done this, then the seeming antipathy towards non-sequential, random codes might not have been such a surprise.
Did you even read my post? I was arguing that Wilton or Togher should not have been identifiable areas in the postcode. Say there are three small areas in each. The six small areas might have prefixes of C10 to C16. Sure, you can identify whether a particular prefix is from Wilton or Togher (just like you can today with Eircodes) but there would not be one identifiable area of Togher or Wilton.sondagefaux wrote:Imagine if Wilton was given the Eircode routing key of C12, with Togher being given C13.
"Sure, you can identify whether a particular prefix is from Wilton or Togher (just like you can today with Eircodes) "
Eh? The T12 Eircode routing key covers all of the southside of Cork city, parts of the city centre and parts of county Cork (some suburbanised, some still rural or partly rural) close to the city.
There is no way of identifying a particular part of Cork city or its suburbs from the T12 routing key alone.0
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