> I know that you are equating things that are not equatable, since I have personally been affected by businesses relying on "datasets" to claim that my real world address, which definitely existed, did not exist.
It sounds like people at those businesses equated a dataset to the real world, not me. You're an adult, direct your frustrations appropriately.
> Data is not the same as reality.
That glosses over a lot of nuance.
Obviously, no dataset perfectly represents reality. But, this fact is often used to dismiss data entirely, resulting in people making decisions with absolutely no evidence whatsoever.
An appropriate use of an address database might be: when the user enters an address not in the database, do a fuzzy search and suggest the best match you can find, asking "Did you mean X?" At that point, if the user says, "No, I really meant what I put in," then you accept the data they gave you. This catches most mistakes while allowing users to put in addresses that aren't in your dataset.
It sounds like people at those businesses equated a dataset to the real world, not me. You're an adult, direct your frustrations appropriately.
> Data is not the same as reality.
That glosses over a lot of nuance.
Obviously, no dataset perfectly represents reality. But, this fact is often used to dismiss data entirely, resulting in people making decisions with absolutely no evidence whatsoever.
An appropriate use of an address database might be: when the user enters an address not in the database, do a fuzzy search and suggest the best match you can find, asking "Did you mean X?" At that point, if the user says, "No, I really meant what I put in," then you accept the data they gave you. This catches most mistakes while allowing users to put in addresses that aren't in your dataset.