Abubakari,

I notice that 2 footways were changed to a a track road and a service road in this changeset.

I originally mapped way 625179286 (osm.org/way/625179286/history) as a footway based on Bing imagery. Looking at the latest imagery from Maxar (Digitalglobe), I don't see a road here, after the houses, but a narrow paths. I think the original class as a path is correct, except maybe for the first part past the houses - that part should be highway=residential, because it accesses an area with about 6 houses, not just one or two houses.

Also, please use highway=track only for roads used to access agricultural and forestry areas. In Indonesia these are sometimes found in areas of rice paddies and palm oil plantations, but here in central Papua, we have almost no track roads. Forestry and farming is done by hand, without vehicles, almost exclusively.

The first part of the "service road" (625179290) leads to a hamlet with over 15 houses, so it should not have been classified service but as highway=residential, since it accesses a whole neighborhood (some of the houses are round, brown-roofed huts, so they can be hard to see, but there are 9 with metal roofs). I've fixed that. The second part is probably still a path, but the latest satellite imagery (Maxar premium) is badly tilted, so it's pretty hard to tell without visiting in person if it's a road or a path.

In general I think it's better to accidentally map a small road as a path than to map a path as a road - that causes more problems for map users. If you are not sure what it is, you can also use highway=road, and local mappers (like me) can fix it when we visit in person or when better imagery become available.

Terima kasih (Thank you),
Joseph Eisenberg
Wamena, Papua Indonesia

All of the highway=track in this changeset are misclassified. Most should have remained as paths or footways. We don't have very many agricultural / forestry tracks in this area; the farmers and local people can't afford tractors and logging trucks, so it's all footpaths, except for the new main roads.
- Joseph Eisenberg, Wamena, Indonesia

Neema,
Thank you for checking the alignment of roads and paths here in Papua.

I noticed you changed way 72008626 to a track: osm.org/way/598548289/history

Please be careful about changing highway=path or =footway into a track. Most of the agricultural paths here are only wide enough for foot traffic or bicycles, not cars or tractors, so they are not tracks. The tag highway=track should be used for roads used by tractors and logging trucks to access areas of forestery or agricultural land.

Here in Wamena, the farmers do everything by hand, so there are very rarely any tracks. Roads area usually residential or higher, and most of the ways between fields are highway=path or footway.

I've changed them back, but it takes a lot of time to fix.

Joseph Eisenberg,
in Wamena, Papua, Indonesia

Hi Akrimullah,
It's nice to see some other Indonesian mappers working on Wamena. I've been living here for the past 3 years and working on mapping this area.
I noticed way 72752943 was changed to tertiary instead of secondary. However, this is the main road south from Kabupaten Jayawijaya to Kabupaten Yahukimo, and crosses through 3 distrik (kecematan) on the way. I believe this reclassification was incorrect. Earlier Iko IRM-ED told me :
"Highway=secondary connecting city or town to sub-district (kecamatan), trough sub-district (kecamatan) boundaries, and also connected with primary road"
Jadi kalau begitu, this should be a highway=secondary (or maybe highway=primary once it reaches further into Kabupaten Yahukimo)
Happy mapping! Selamat hari raya,
-Joseph

Hi, I noticed that you moved node 1701246317 a kilometer south, which breaks one of the roads. Sorry, this can be easy to do on accident. Please check carefully before uploading changes, especially in towns that are already well mapped.

Also, way 72752943 was changed to tertiary. However, this is the main road south from Kabupaten Jayawijaya to Kabupaten Yahukimo, and crosses through 3 distrik (kecematan) on the way. I believe this reclassification was incorrect. Earlier you told me :
"Highway=secondary connecting city or town to sub-district (kecamatan), trough sub-district (kecamatan) boundaries, and also connected with primary road"
Jadi kalau begitu, this should be a highway=secondary (or maybe highway=primary once it reaches further into Kabupaten Yahukimo)
Happy mapping!
-Joseph

Furaha,

I see that you changed ways 585495437 and 585495436 to highway=track. This is quite incorrect. You are never going to see a highway=track over a major new bridge around this part of Indonesia. This bridge is going to be the new main road to the next district. The rest of the road is under construction, but the road is finished. I've surveyed it by bike: See my comment on my changesets when I last edited this highway:
"Added newly constructed highway bridge across Baliem"
"Updated highway classifications near Wamena based on aerial imagery and local knowledge"
I supposed I should have mentioned "survey" too.
Anyway, only use highway=track for agricultural and forestry tracks.

Hello again. I noticed that you added a culvert to the stream that I roughly mapped: new way 708389084 (osm.org/way/708389084/history)

I hadn't added a culvert here, or a bridge on the highway, because I can't remember which it was (I've driven and ridden my bike this way about a dozen times), but I'm going to check it eventually.

Can you really tell from the aerial imagery if it's a stream culvert or a road bridge? I can certainly tell that it's not a ford.

Hi Furaha,

Thanks for helping out with mapping here in Papua, Indonesia.

I noticed that you added way 702370497 as a highway=track, but this is not correct. A highway=track is a road used for agricultural vehicles (like tractors) or forestry vehicles (logging trucks). This way is a footpath. Most of the narrow lines in the farmland around Wamena are footpaths, because the farmers here do everything by hand, so it's very rare to find a highway=track in the central mountains of Papua. I've fixed this one:

osm.org/way/702370497/history

Godfrey,
I noticed that you changed a couple of highway=path to highway=track near my town, for example, way 587611499: see osm.org/way/587611499/history - and nearby paths.
These are footpaths between sweet potato fields. In the central mountains of Papua, there are almost no agricultural tracks, because agriculture is done by hand. I've visited these areas in person. I'd recommend caution before changing a highway=footway or =path to a track in this part of Indonesia, especially if they path was added by a local mapper.
Thank you,
Joseph Eisenberg,
Wamena, Papua Indonesia

Nuru Athumani,
I noticed that you changed a couple of highway=path to highway=track in my town, for example, ways 596083898 and 587131244: see osm.org/way/587611465/history

These are paths. In the central mountains of Papua, there are almost no agricultural tracks, because agriculture is done by hand. I'd recommend caution before changing a highway=footway or =path to a track in this part of Indonesia.

Thank you,
Joseph Eisenberg,
Wamena, Papua Indonesia

I'm afraid that you incorrectly changed way 584324898, way 584757638 and way 589728974 to a highway=track, among others. I have walked on these footpaths. They are very step footpaths up loose sand between boulders. It is not possible for motor vehicles to pass this way. Please do not change paths to tracks near Wamena which I have added with survey tags on the changesets. All of the areas with landuse/landcover near Wamena have been surveyed and mapped carefully. Thank you.

fatur, saya mau tanya tentang sumur nama jalan-jalan ini, contoh Jalan Wola, Jalan Kobagma, etc.
Berasal dari nama desa di OSM, atau dari peta lain, atau dari data pemerintah?
Mungkin ada beberapa yang salah?

I wanted to ask about the source of the road names in this changeset. Did you get them from the names of the villages, or from another map, or from a government database? Are they all definitely correct? Some seem possibly wrong; like several "jalan kobakma / kobagma" and "wolo" vs "wola".

But thank you for helping map this area! I've actually taken your advice and started mapping more primary highways (but also secondary).

Joseph Eisenberg, Wamena

Hi charles Frank,

I noticed that you tagged a few highway=track in this area.

In Indonesia, we only use highway=track for forestry tracks (used for logging, woodcutting) and agriculture tracks (used for tractors, agricultural vehicles). For small roads to remote houses or hamlets, use highway=unclassified. Or use highway=tertiary if it connects to a village.

However, there are many footpaths in Papua. These can be hard to tell apart from roads. If it is very curvy and quite narrow at parts, it might be a highway=path instead of a road. If you're not sure if it's a path or road, it's ok to use highway=road and I'll check later. :-)

Also, please specify if the source is DigitalGlobe Premium or DigitalGlobe Standard imagery - these are quite different here.

Joseph Eisenberg, Papua Indonesia

Hello, charles Frank.

Thank you for helping improve the map in Papua

I noticed you added the name "Jalan Kobakma" to a couple of roads in the Kobakma area. What is your source for the name of these roads? Usually more than one road in a town or village can't have the same name.

Also, if a street or road has more than one or two houses on it, usually it should be highway=residential rather than highway=service

Thanks for your work, happy mapping!

Joseph Eisenberg, Wamena

Terima kasih, Pak iko. Saya baru masuk grup facebook itu.

Tentang "import=yes" - if I have updated a road and checked it's location, can I remove the tag "import=yes" or should I leave it for the next few months until the project is complete?

Thank you for explaining the system you've been teaching for determining the different types of highway. That sounds like it should work quite well in islands like Java where there are many provinces and small kabupaten, and the kecematan boundaries are all mapped. However, here in Papua we have only one province for almost the whole island, and the kabupaten are huge - some are larger than Yogyakarta or Banten province, and we don't have very many roads. The kecematan boundaries are often not defined, and very few are mapped in OSM (I tried adding them in my kabupaten, Jayawijaya, but it was very hard to get good data).
Also, there are islands like Serui, Biak, Lombok etc that are only in one province or one kabupaten, but I think they can have a highway=primary connecting two major place=town, no?. So I think mappers here, and perhaps in Kalimantan and NTT timur/barat and Maluku, should also consider what kinds of settlements are connected, especially when there is a road that stops at a village or town.

For hamlet vs village vs town, I usually count or estimate the number of houses and other large buildings. In Papua, hamlets have only 2 to 20 houses, no big church/mosque or school buildings, while a village has at least 10 houses (usually more than 20) and probably has bigger buildings like schools, tempat ibadah, kantor, etc. - and a town has a market (pasar), many shops, some big government buildings and so on, as well as hundreds of houses. This can be used to classify hamlet vs village vs town, even without good population numbers.

I appreciate your explanation, and I'll make sure the Tagging Guidelines are updated in English to explain that option as well, especially for Java (and Sumatra? Sulawesi?) where there may be many roads in one area and it can be very helpful to think about which roads are the ones that you would take to get to the next kabupaten or the next province.

If you or any friends have time, maybe take a look at the changes I made to the Indonesia Tagging Guidelines, please correct any mistakes I made - bahasa Indonesia bukan bahasa ibu saya, ka?

(Bahasa Indonesia di bawah)
Hi gibranhalil, where did you get the iao code and name "Webile" for the airport in Weawen? The local people in Lolat told me that they call it Weawen. Also I found another website that suggests the ICAO code is different, maybe WWT1 but who knows?
Terima kasih, gibranhalil. Saya mau tanya dari mana Anda mendepatkan nama dan ref IATA untuk bandar udara Webile / Weawen. Karena orang asli daerah itu bilang bahwa landasan ini bernama "Weawen", dan saya tidak bisa menemukan satu code IATA resmi. Juga ada situ internet yang lain dengan ICAO = WWT1, jadi saya tidak tahu kalau ICAO juga benar atau bukan.

Terima kasih banyak atas jawaban Anda.

I will ask about the import=yes tag on the mailing list. Perhaps there is a better alternative to using this tag on each object, such as a tag on the changeset?

Thank you for the reminder about osm.wiki/Indonesian_Tagging_Guidelines#Roads - I think this needs to be updated, because it's not so clear how to determine the type of highway tag.

Is there any active forum or mailing list right now for the HOT mappers in Indonesia, or for other Indonesian mappers, where we could discuss this?

I know it's hard to decide when to use highway=residential, =track and =unclassified. Mappers in England, the USA and Germany argue about it all the time too. ;-)

I would personally recommend using highway=trunk for major roads like Jalan Trans-Sumatra, Jalan Trans-Sulawesi, Jalan Tran-Papua, which connect cities to each other. And I would use highway=primary for roads that connect towns to other towns or cities. Highway=secondary would be for roads that connect towns to villages (desa, dengan >100 orang), and highway=tertiary for minor roads that connect to small dusun (hamlets) and kampung. Highway=unclassified would be for roads to just a few farms or isolated houses, or connecting a hamlet to another hamlet.

This is basically how the road system works in England, but other countries like Germany and France use the highway=trunk tag in a different way. So at some point we need to discuss the best way to tag roads in Indonesia - since the government doesn't have a clear classification system, we can base it on function.

If that sound like fun, I'd love to find a good forum or "place" on the internet for this discussion with other people who map in Indonesia.

- Joseph Eisenberg

I believe user "VLD103" created this changeset. It looks like this mapper is with fb. See osm.org/user/VLD103

Hi Iko IRM-ED, thank you for improving the map here in Papua!
(Maaf, saya berpikir bahwa Anda bisa bahasa Inggris, tapi kalau saya salah, tolong menjawab dan saya bisa respon dalam bahasa Indonesia)

I appreciate having more mappers at work adding the many missing roads, streets and rivers in Papua.

I noticed that you added the tag "import=yes" to some roads. This tag should only be used as a changeset tag when you import data from an outside source, like another database. If you are tracing roads from aerial imagery, don't use this tag, just set the source.

Also, I'd recommend considering using other types of highway, not usually highway=service or highway=track, for any roads that have houses or other buildings along them in rural areas. If there is a road that connects several villages, it's probably a highway=tertiary. If it's just a road through to one tiny village or a few houses, use highway=unclassified. And use highway=residential for roads with houses directly on them, like village streets.
Highway=track should be used for roads in plantations, farmland and forests that are just used for agriculture or forestry. On aerial imagery, these roads usually won't have any buildings along them and will not be the main way to access a town. They may be rather overgrown.

The tag highway=service is used for driveway, alleys, aisle in parking lots, and similar service roads within one property; usually these are private, not public roads. In remote areas there can be service roads at a mine or plantation, but they won't connect a village to another.
Sorry for the criticism. It took me a long time to figure these things out myself, and highway classification can be a little debatable sometimes. If you have no idea what type of road it is (or if its really a road, not a path for just walking and bikes), then you can always use highway=road, which lets other mappers know to add the right class later.

Have fun mapping!
Terima kasih,
Joseph Eisenberg
Wamena, Indonesia