Today the trend on OpenStreetMap is moving decisely towards adding sidewalks as separate ways, as this allows for more fine-grained tagging of wheelchair accessibility, etc. I will do some mapping in Campia Turzii and will likely restore at least some of the sidewalks which you have deleted. Just letting you know.

Why have you tagged Strada Constructorilor in Turda as highway=tertiary? This road does not meet the definition for tertiary on the OSM wiki and is not distinguishable from other highway=residential in Turda.

"You seem to have a lot of spare time."

This seems like an odd statement from a man who edits OSM all day every single day and who belittles other editors for not showing the same obsessive activity.

The problem with your approach, as I see it, is that you are not leaving any room for visitors to Lithuania making personal surveys, to improve the map. Based purely on your QA tools you are reverting changes for POIs, while not leaving a heads-up on the original changeset so that the mapper knows what is going on. (It was a mere coincidence I looked back at this recent changeset.) Obviously traveler-mappers are not going to monitor changes for every single POI they have mapped across many countries. Surely you are aware of that, and so it would have been helpful for you to add the relevant tags instead of simply reverting. Otherwise, the result is going to be a lot of wasted effort from mappers passing through, and mere stasis for OSM in Lithuania instead of more detailed mapping.

If you believe the building is "simple abandoned/disused", then why did you revert to building=yes instead of adding the appropriate tags?

Why have you reverted building=ruins to building=yes for Baltosios Vokės dvaro sodybos rūmai ? A personal survey shows that this building is dilapidated, the windows are covered with boards and parts of the building are left open.

I just gave you a source: Brouter. The code is on Github. In this case, the Brouter devs' understanding of what the tracktypes mean is set out in vm-forum-liegerad-schnell.brf.

I have also just spoken with User:Richard, developer of the cycle.travel routing engine and longtime OSM developer. He concurs with my use of grade2 and grade3, respectively, on tertiary routes to represent this difference that is of importance for cyclists, and his own routing engine makes use of it.

"I see no reason to change the way we use tracktype then."

I really don’t care about the way you use tracktype= on roads that presently lack the tag. But if a cyclist comes along and tags a road based on his personal survey, in a way that is verifiable for any other cyclist who comes along, then it is inappropriate to revert it out of a purist fiat that “we have only grade2 in Lithuania", without ever actually traveling that road yourself on a bike.

Obviously road tagging is meant to benefit everyone, including travelers moving internationally and on different forms of transport. These non-Lithuanian users will not know (nor should they need to know) that some local editors in Lithuania refuse to permit a distinction in tracktype widely employed internationally and which routing engines actually draw on.

Sorry, that should have been: "It sees tracktype=grade3 as a road that is maintained, softer than grade2, but not unmaintained like grade4."

"do you really believe this would help persuade them to do the work for you"

I am not trying to persuade local mappers to do anything. My edits are purely made to document the state of a road for the sake of future road users. I then expect 1) my personal survey helps guide other cyclists in route planning, and 2) if another cyclist is routed down that particular road, he or she will agree with my tagging and feel that they were appropriately guided.

"primary use has NEVER been for bicycle usage"

I never claimed that the tracktype tag’s "primary usage" is for bicycles. Rather, what I said is that its primary usage (as mentioned on the wiki) is to denote a distinction between consistently solid and not consistently solid, and after that tagging definition arose, cyclists have appreciated using that distinction between type 2 and type 3 for their own routing.

With regard to real-world usage of this distinction, take Brouter as an example. It sees tracktype=grade3 as a road that is maintained, softer than grade3, but not unmaintained like grade4.

As I said above, even gravel can be soft sometimes. There is gravel that consists solely of stones, and there is gravel that is a mix of stones and loose soil, and there is a ton of the latter in Lithuania. (In June I cycled some roads in central Lithuania that were dozens of kilometers of this horrible loose-soil gravel.) The difference between these two road types has a big impact on the speed and feasibility of cycling, and it should be represented using the internationally recognized tracktype tag for the sake of data consumers.

You keep mentioning "tags in Lithuania" and "Lithuanian mappers", but I am really not interested in perpetuating any country-specific tagging traditions unless I see real community support for these. So far, you appear to be the only person monitoring, reviewing, and reverting, and therefore it is impossible for me to know what is a local mapping tradition with real community support behind it, and what is the insistence of merely one editor. I make the same edits in LT that I would make in any other country, based on what I have seen across countries. When there is guidance on the wiki about local tagging practices, I may heed that (though if it is really different from the surrounding countries, then I think it makes sense to ask in an international venue like the forum or the mailing list whether the Lithuanian tagging might be harmonizing with the international mainstream), but in this case I assert that my edits are indeed verifiable for anyone else traveling those roads.

The distinction I just described has been relevant to bicycle routing for years. I assume that it was taken up by based simply on the wiki entry for tracktype: "Grade2: Solid but unpaved. Grade3: Mostly solid. Even mixture of hard and soft materials."

Obviously grade1 is not usable here, because that applies only to segments of tracks with an e.g. asphalt or concrete covering. The sole way to denote the difference between unpaved and consistently solid, and unpaved but not consistently solid, is thus between type 2 and 3.

My changesets these last days have been of quite reasonable size and typical of one doing a survey by vehicle where uploading each individual change on mobile would be awkward and time-consuming. However, if you are editing from a computer (as I assume from the fact that you are reviewing and then uploading such immense changeset), then it would be little trouble for you to 1) leave a quick comment on my changeset first before reverting, and 2) if you must revert, then do it in a dedicated changeset. This would be polite and helpful.

No, there is a distinction between tracktype 2 and tracktype 3 even on maintained roads that is commonly used for bicycle route-planning purposes. Tracktype 2 is high-quality gravel that remains a hard surface all the time. Tracktype 3 is either:

1) Gravel mixed with loose soil and sand that is not sandy enough to be surface=sand, but soft and slippery enough for cyclists that some would prefer to avoid it, or:

2) Roads that turn muddy after rain.

Thus, routing may guide a cyclist down type-2 roads, but it would avoid type-3 roads unless the cyclist specifies a trekking profile. By my personal survey of the road to which you link, this is type 3.

And no, these tags are not "pointless" even if you think the local community shows little interest in them. Residential roads in Finland are of equal standard to Lithuania's, i.e. track types 2 and 3, but many residential roads there now have the tracktype= tag. There is absolutely no reason that a mapper cannot come along and add these tags (which are verifiable, just get a bike and cycle after some rain) in whatever country on earth.

Also, this is not the first time that you have reverted a change which I made within a very large changeset that involves many other things. It is not easy to find the way/POI for which there is disagreement. Please do not do this again – and in general discuss these matters with me first before reverting – or I will have to bring this to the attention of the DWG.

For reference, see the wiki entry for tracktype: "It usually applies to highway=track but is often used for non-tracks too, especially in less-developed places where many main roads are unpaved."

Nevermind, that particular memorial was my mistake. However, my comment about tracktype= still stands.

Please do not remove tracktype= tags from highway=residential. Tracktype= tags are used to provide routing guidance for e.g. cyclists on unpaved roads.

I examined this POI firsthand yesterday, and it is not a memorial (it is not in memory of any individual or group) but rather a monument.

Please do not set tracktype=grade1 for roads that are unpaved. Grade1 is reserved for segments of tracks that have some kind of hard covering like concrete or asphalt.

Osmose generates a bug when it detects a combination of tracktype=grade1 plus surface=unpaved. Unfortunately, there are now hundreds of examples of this inappropriate tagging in rural Finland, and they need to be fixed.

Why did you set surface=asphalt for the parking lot outside the shop in Raattama? During my personal survey of the area, I found that it was unpaved (gravel). Please be more careful.

What are these ways all over Savo tagged only as follows?

operator=PSMKK
snowmobile=permissive
toll=snowmobile

If they are snowmobile tracks, they need some kind of highway= tag. Also, in many places they overlap properly tagged roads, and this triggers an error in many OSM tools.