A while ago I completed the roads for Peasedown St. John in Somerset; put in the key buildings and thought "done".

This was largely done with GPS and a fine day. I was surprised at how inaccurate Google Maps was in comparison, with extra roads left, right and centre.

Then the Bing images were released and I found myself adjusting things and tracing over bits I wasn't able to (easily) map before. One spare lunch hour lead to another and I found myself chipping away at the whole village.

And today, I now declare the village buildings largely done. They're rough and approximate but a good starting place for somebody else to refine.

Comparing the original village (Centre & NW) to the newer homes (E/SE) really shows the difference in space between homes, garden sizes and the "just cram it in" approach modern houses get.

I've done some work on getting the land uses tied up, but there is room for improvement. There is also some clarity needed on paths.

With all this extra information on the map I feel that things are getting cluttered - and probably pointlessly so. Although it's an achievement to get homes on the map, it's generally useless for most map users. I feel OSM needs to take a layer-based approach to rendering, with streets and roads, and then optionally over-lay pedestrian, buildings, etc.

In all, my experience of OSM is similar to other community projects - there will always be dicks throwing their self-imposed rule on everybody else and declaring themselves guru. You either have to humour them or leave the project as they have far more time and persistence than the casual masses. I generally try and find small corners of the map which is ass-hole free.