Yeah, if you read that (and any related) thread there's all sorts of problems with the data they release that those receiving it point out. But since we'll be crowdsourcing some QA on it anyway, it's certainly better than nothing.

Regarding the link provided by LivingWithDragons. Is there any way to add/edit metadata to the OSM database via a simple HTML form? It seems a bit crazy to require a Flash based map editor to add or correct (for example) a post boxes ref number.

I was going to comment that the dracos database was just about to pass the 50,000 mark. I was vaguely aware that there's roughly 100,000 post boxes but I thought I'd google for the info.

It seems they've recently released more up-to-date info on the total number of postboxes (115,654 apparently) including ones taken out of service, more details here:

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/royal_mail_post_box_types_collec_3

leisure=pitch seems reasonable english to me. Could it be a UK/US english thing. Don't they call pitches, fields in the US e.g football pitch vs soccer field?

On the other hand, I've never heard anyone say Tennis Pitch or Tennis Field, only Tennis Court, which may explain why people are less likely to use a tag that seems wrong.

Reminded me of this, a computer vision project that automatically finds tennis courts in satellite images:

http://ahathereitis.blogspot.com/2009/12/how-it-works.html

Does the Naptan info not also have street names (and larger localities)? It would be similarly interesting to see which of those names are not currently in OSM. I suppose the data might need some massaging but if the data exists it shouldn't be impossible.

You mention rivers glued to boundaries. Do you mean local council authorities and the like? I thought relations would be used for such cases:

osm.wiki/Relation:boundary

So if the boundary followed a river, then a road you would add both to the relation. (In practice I'd guess that rivers are split between regions, but maybe roads belong to one side or the other. Either way I'd probably, for pragmatic reasons i.e. laziness, still use a relation on the road rather than create a new way for the purpose)

If you mean a park or forest that ends at a river, then I'm not so sure. I'd probably glue them together in that case, but maybe not in a city where there may be a chance of someone micro-mapping the pavement, bus stops, benches, postboxes etc.

I think the subtlety was in the use of the word "general". It is sometimes used as a meaningless filler word but you're using it correctly to mean OSM routes well in some places, badly in others. Which is hard to argue with, when stated like that.

I'd suggest a bit of reverse psychology is in order. Instead of the message being "OSM is perfect and already finished" which clearly it isn't, you can spin it as "OSM only has a few untouched spots available in the UK, this is your last chance to get the satisfaction of being the first one to sketch out a blank area".

You're still emphasising progress, but finding a blank spot is seen as a good thing. From comments here and elsewhere there are a variety of things that drive contributors but one strong motivation is "filling in the gaps". Maybe it's better to leave these for the newbies to get them started?

I'm also interested in historical mapping. Particularly since out-of-copyright maps are available to trace from it seems a shame to not trace the parts that have since been demolished or built over too. It should also provide the opportunity for nice animations of city growth over time.

I wasn't aware of the import catalogue, but I was going to suggest just adding a source tag, since every source has an implicit date (e.g. the Yahoo photos can be years old, out of copyright maps are older still).

In the OSM evaluation found here: http://povesham.wordpress.com/2008/08/07/osm-quality-evaluation/ one of the simple measure of completeness was total road length versus a simplified OS map.

I don't know if you, or anyone else, has the ability to derive a similar number for the rail network. Some figures I found on network rail's site:

20,000 miles of track (and infrastructure)
40,000 bridges and tunnels
2,518 stations

You might want to look into the lakewalker plugin for JOSM. Not used it myself but I believe it helps automate this process.

Hi, that was me. We're not the only cycle map with a big gap now, as it was when I saw that Sustrans had updated theirs, and announced that the route had closed, that I made the change:
http://www.sustrans.org.uk/default.asp?sID=1095084657765
http://www.sustrans.org.uk/webfiles/map%20updates/Clyde%20to%20Forth%20-%20NN75.pdf

There's slightly more to this though. At zoom level 11 (e.g. your link) it looks like there's a big gap in 75 (which there is), but if you zoom one level further then you can see the cycleway, so it still looks like you can cycle the route, it just isn't an official ncn route.

I marked the closed sections with access=no, which I hoped might be rendered in a way that shows that it isn't simply missing at the high level, and show it's still there, but (apparently) closed. Of course, as well as being a "closed" cycle route, this should also now be marked up as a "proposed" railway line, and a new "proposed" cycle route following a route somewhere alongside it which might complicate things further.

I guess confusing people who compare with paper maps is a general hazard of online mapping. Another change discussed by sustrans is rcn 43 becoming ncn 754. I changed the whole route into a relation so that it can easily be switched whenever it becomes "official" but you're guaranteed to have someone looking for 754 before it changes, and 43 afterwards and assuming we're wrong, because we're not a 'proper' map. Should we transition these things in some way for say 6 months, a year?

Just FYI, landuse=farm shows up on Mapnik for me, as a slightly unpleasant shade of light brown.

It appears the provided list includes postboxes contained within Post Offices, but the OpenStreetMap data on Post Offices isn't shown by balloons (but you can see a circled envelope on the map at appropriate zoom levels). For example, PA1 1AA – Paisley Post Office | 34-36 Central Way (ref. PA1 2) which I have just matched manually.

I *think* it looks nicer at the the lower zoom levels, e.g. looking at Europe or the UK as a whole, but it's hard to tell without an A to B comparison as the changes seem quite subtle. The change in colour for industrial areas is welcome though.

You're seeing a spam bot that takes content from real posts, mixes it up a bit and then inserts keyword links. They've even grabbed text from a post talking about the problem of spam in these diaries (the purging accounts bit).

Why the links go back to this entry rather than an actual spam link I don't know. A security feature? Or just a test post before linking to something actually harmful?

I'm glad someone posted this. I had thought this was the way to go, but had some strange feeling that it wasn't considered correct (e.g. I knew that JOSM would complain and had read some confusing discussion on the wiki) and so have being doing it the messy way for fear of breaking some unwritten rule of OSM.

Regarding Andrew's comment about buildings. Why would a building be different from a grassy common, car park or other area? If they adjoin a road (i.e. there's no garden between the building and pavement) then they both end at the inside edge of the pavement, which is included in the road way (at least in the UK by default). If the roads the wrong width then that seems equally problematic to the building being mispositioned.

For "city limits" you might want to check out: osm.wiki/index.php/Key:boundary