what 3 words

[Jaded]

It really is a problem looking for a problem.

[andrew_s]

That's good to hear.  Apart from the postal address thing.  TBH, converting map coordinates to postal addresses is always going to be a bit sketchy, so I'd hope the system wasn't doing that automatically, and was merely passing through something reported by the caller.

It would be simple enough for a fire service or other similar body to set up. They are PSGA members, so have access to the full national address gazetteer. Either download the data for the area (updated every 6 weeks) or use the API.

The only awkwardness would be when the closest address location was the other side of a railway line, motorway or river.

[Afasoas]

Main bug bear with W3W (proprietary nature aside) is word length.

For some places, it's a lot of characters to exchange phonetically, which in a situation where communications are a compromise (national disaster/large scale emergency), phonetics are important. Especially as misunderstanding two similar sound words can put you in a completely different location to the one you mean.

The other, perhaps slightly less important concern, is relaying W3W locations between speakers of different languages. I undersand W3W is available in 50 different languages but that doesn't necessarily resolve the issue.

[Jaded]

necessarily resolve the issue.

resolve.the.issue doesn't work. You need

resolve.they.issue
resolve.them.issue
or
resolve.then.issue

Easily memorable and no problem telling an operator where you are in a crisis...

[Kim]

Main bug bear with W3W (proprietary nature aside) is word length.

For some places, it's a lot of characters to exchange phonetically, which in a situation where communications are a compromise (national disaster/large scale emergency), phonetics are important.

If you're exchanging characters phonetically, wouldn't it be simpler to just use numerical coordinates, with a bit of 'fife' and 'niner' to taste?

(Yes, of course it would.)

Anyway, I'm waiting for someone to come up with a cursed W3W-ified version of GPX files, for when 32-bit floats just aren't bloaty enough...   

[lissotriton]

The other, perhaps slightly less important concern, is relaying W3W locations between speakers of different languages. I undersand W3W is available in 50 different languages but that doesn't necessarily resolve the issue.

Yes, W3W is available in a variety of languages. But that's not much use if you want to share your location with someone using it in a different language. And doing a word for word translation would give you a completely different location.

[SoreTween]

Wow, it's a pile of steaming shite isn't it?  Tried to use it tonight to report a fixthathole.  Great idea, great implementation of the grid but the human wank-stains running it really need a life.  FFS, I find a spot on the map through their web shite and I can't even copy the text three words of the location to pass on.  Click here to create an account.  Click here to provide your credit card details, DoB, address, shoe size & grandparents maiden names.  Monetization appears to be the 1st goal, 2nd goal, 3rd goal and every goal down to infinity.  I hope it implodes when the vulture capital runs out.

There's probably a blocker add on for firefox that would block the blocker script that's blocking me copying the three words.  But really, I'd rather sit & laugh while they burn & use OS grid or Lat/Long.

Twats.

[Kim]

To be fair, if you're finding a spot on the map, you ought to be able to click on the one on the PotholeMan3000 FillThatHole website and have it automagically convert that into whatever internal coordinate representation it uses without you having to care about coordinates of any kind.

Prior experience of reporting water leaks suggests this is me being wholly unrealistic.

[JonBuoy]

Wow, it's a pile of steaming shite isn't it?  Tried to use it tonight to report a fixthathole.  Great idea, great implementation of the grid but the human wank-stains running it really need a life.  FFS, I find a spot on the map through their web shite and I can't even copy the text three words of the location to pass on.  Click here to create an account.  Click here to provide your credit card details, DoB, address, shoe size & grandparents maiden names.  Monetization appears to be the 1st goal, 2nd goal, 3rd goal and every goal down to infinity.  I hope it implodes when the vulture capital runs out.

There's probably a blocker add on for firefox that would block the blocker script that's blocking me copying the three words.  But really, I'd rather sit & laugh while they burn & use OS grid or Lat/Long.

Twats.

Did you try clicking the copy button that they have conveniently placed alongside the three words?

[JonBuoy]

To be fair, if you're finding a spot on the map, you ought to be able to click on the one on the PotholeMan3000 FillThatHole website and have it automagically convert that into whatever internal coordinate representation it uses without you having to care about coordinates of any kind.

Prior experience of reporting water leaks suggests this is me being wholly unrealistic.

In FillThatHole you can indeed click a point on the map and it does indeed place a marker there and store its location in the report.  Whether the hole gets sorted is another matter entirely.

[SoreTween]

Did you try clicking the copy button that they have conveniently placed alongside the three words?

Ah.  Er, no.    The symbol is of course obvious now.

[SoreTween]

To be fair, if you're finding a spot on the map, you ought to be able to click on the one on the PotholeMan3000 FillThatHole website and have it automagically convert that into whatever internal coordinate representation it uses without you having to care about coordinates of any kind.

Prior experience of reporting water leaks suggests this is me being wholly unrealistic.

In FillThatHole you can indeed click a point on the map and it does indeed place a marker there and store its location in the report.  Whether the hole gets sorted is another matter entirely.

You can indeed click on the map to place a marker but it doesn't give you the coordinates.  There is also a text box where you are asked to describe the location beneath which:

Please assume that the authority is unable to view the map above, and only has this description to find the hazard. Ideally specify the placename, road name, and nearby house number.

[Wowbagger]

In Radcliffe on Trent there is a BP Pulse electric car charging point whose What Three Words address is bottom.flinch.exits

[slope]

From walkingworld.com November 2023 newsletter

Locating yourself in an emergency.

A story did the rounds earlier this month that Ordnance Survey was discontinuing the OS Locate app for Android phones. Search and rescue teams have long recommended OS Locate for finding and reporting your position in an emergency. It has the advantage of giving the location in the standard OS Grid Reference format, so there's no need to do any 'translation' from another format.

OS Locate also takes the position directly from the GPS in the phone, rather than from the centre of the map on the screen. Other apps, including the widely promoted What3Words, can misreport your position if you accidentally shift the map, easily enough done in a downpour and under stressful circumstances. There have been several cases of rescue teams looking for casualties several kilometres away from the actual location and this is very likely the cause.

Fortunately OS Locate seems to have got a reprieve and is still available on the Google app store as well as on the Apple store. It might be a good time to install it. It's free and takes up very little space. You may want to go to Settings in the app and set the grid reference format to 8 or 10 figures, so you can report your location to 10 or even 1 square metre.

[Jaded]

There's a numpty post on our local FaceAche "Town: Cross Person, Wrongly Delivered Parcel, Missing Cat Reporting, Don't Report to Council but Post Here Service" which suggests that you add the W3W thing to your address details.

So your package gets delivered to a 1m sq block of sea 500 miles from Jakarta, on account of the Evri operator doing a one letter oops.

[Kim]

From the department of irony:

https://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/search/text.jsp?case=D2019-2439

Complainant contends that the disputed domain name [whatfreewords.net] is confusingly similar to Complainant’s distinctive WHATTHREEWORDS trademark as the disputed domain name is aurally and visually similar to the WHATTHREEWORDS mark. In that regard, Complainant further contends that the terms “three” and “free” are phonetically identical and indistinguishable when enunciated.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Next up, WHATTREEWORDS, a geolocation system using tree species found in Ireland and Jamaica.

[ravenbait]

To be fair, if you're finding a spot on the map, you ought to be able to click on the one on the PotholeMan3000 FillThatHole website and have it automagically convert that into whatever internal coordinate representation it uses without you having to care about coordinates of any kind.

Prior experience of reporting water leaks suggests this is me being wholly unrealistic.

My employer's Report A Thing service converts the map point into latitude and longitude, which is supplied to the relevant persons.

Sam

[Jaded]

Every time this thread pings I click in, wondering if they have gone bust.

[Lightning Phil]

https://NO.MORE.WONGA

[Kim]

To be fair, if you're finding a spot on the map, you ought to be able to click on the one on the PotholeMan3000 FillThatHole website and have it automagically convert that into whatever internal coordinate representation it uses without you having to care about coordinates of any kind.

Prior experience of reporting water leaks suggests this is me being wholly unrealistic.

My employer's Report A Thing service converts the map point into latitude and longitude, which is supplied to the relevant persons.

To be fair, I don't think it was the coordinates themselves that were the problem.  I suspect that the underlying Report-O-Matic issue is either:

a) The coordinates are faithfully stored in the database, and then ignored when it comes to creating a job for the Big Hole Gang to go and investigate the leak.

or

2) The coordinates are supplied to the Big Hole Gang in some useful-to-them format, but so is the [not necessarily a] customer's address, and like Hearing people in the presence of a telephone number, they just can't help themselves and rush straight there without reading the rest of the report.


Either way, your employer may well be more competent than Severn Trent.

[Jaded]

Oh.

still.not.bust

[Cudzoziemiec]

///send.remittance.please///