I have some background in Belgian, and European copyright law. I sometimes read about USA laws, but I know nothing of Australian law. So I can’t clarify that to you.

Try to get the conceptual difference between a driveway and a residential highway.

In my opinion, a driveway is owned by private people (it’s part of their ground), but a residential highway is owned by the state.

So in this case, I’d probably tag it as residential.

This is an example of how I do it, I think it’s pretty comparable.

This is what works best In Belgium, I do not talk about other countries.

Even if a residential highway is a dead-end street and is only 2.5 m wide, I still tag it as residential (although I add the width tag for routing purposes).

And that issue with Stephane, you’ll have to resolve that with him.

Australia is indeed hit pretty hard. In Belgium, we never received any data from any external source, and as a result, I haven’t noticed a single difference between the before and after redaction period.

I believe they should have redacted it earlier. But now is not the time to complain about it because the earlier time lies in the past.

Look on the bright side of life, at least, you’re working for a very clear cause now. I believe hand-made data stimulates the community and creates a better and more maintained map.

Look at that ma again in two years and tell me what you think of it then. Two years is peanuts for cartography.

Ik heb al eens dezelfde situatie gehad, en de volgende tags gebruikt:

name=”name1-name2” (zoals je zou doen in Brussel, waar iedere straat een Franse en een Nederlandse naam heeft) name:left=”name1” name:right=”name2”

Dit is de meest complete manier om de namen te taggen. Als tools daar problemen mee hebben, dan is het hun fout. OSM kan op dit vlak niet beter doen.

Zie deze mailing thread. http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-be/2011-November/002360.html

Btw, als je zin hebt om de documentatie in de wiki te verbeteren, ga gerust je gang

People do read the entries, although not a lot of people.

When Australians say “freezing”, they mean moderate temperature, right? We’ve almost reached the hottest period of the year, and the maximum temperature for today is 18°C (64.4°F for those who do not follow the metric system). Although I think this is too cold for the time of the year, the weather man says it’s a normal summer.

JOSM is indeed great, I don’t think presets are that important, I like to work with CTRL+C and SHIFT+CTRL+V to copy-paste the tags when I’m mapping a lot of the same objects. For the rest, ALT+A and the autocomplete work faster than clicking a preset for me (I don’t know a lot about mac, I hope you can make the keyboard conversions yourself).

Relations are important though, there are a lot of things you can’t map without relations (see turn restrictions, or holes in buildings or surfaces). If you need a hint, read the documentation about the multipolygon relation, it’s the easiest to understand how it works, and it gives you a feeling about what relations can do. In JOSM, you have a relation button in the left bar (with tooth-wheels as an icon). If you click it, it will show or hide a list with relations in your current data. With the buttons below that list, you can create a new relation or edit existing relations.

About the license, it’s a good thing they’ll finally do it. A some people have slowed down editing because some edits could dispapear after the bot.

For a trackpad, I always use JOSM with trackpad. It just asks for a little different edit method. With two finger zoom, I zoom in, click to add a point and zoom out again. It goes pretty fast and accurate this way. While with a mouse, zooming is a bit slower, so there you have to aim better.

About your mac, well, I use gnome, and JOSM also looks ugly. The only advantage of Java is that it works everywhere. The disadvantage of Java is that it looks just as ugly, no matter where you launch it.

Merkaartor (an alternative for JOSM) probably offers a more beautiful interface, but you have less plugins with merkaartor.

For me, all houses deserve a point (and even an outline). So there is still a lot of work in your area.

Tagging houses with their housenumbers is very handy when you use a search function in a navigation device (certainly for longer streets).

Also, for companies, shops and amenities, add their opening hours and contact information. It’s very handy when you’re on the way and want to know which butcher is still open, or you want to pan for restaurants and call them immediately from the OSM data. (If you want an app that can do this, try OsmAnd on an Android).

In Belgium, trunk is used for “route pour automobiles”. There is no minimum speed, but it’s not allowed for slow traffic (pedestrians, bicycles, agriculture vehicles …). It’s also not allowed to stop, unless necessary.

But this is in Belgium, it’s best to discuss this matter in France, and document it on the wiki.

osm.wiki/WikiProject_Belgium/Conventions/Highways

(If this is a double post, sorry, but the first reply didn’t seem to come through)

There’s a big probability that the mapper(s) who uploaded the roads are just armchair mappers. If you check their history and see edits all over the world, or a lot of edits far away from where you live, you can just change the tags to the values you like. You live there, so you have the right to do so.

They probably think initial data is better than no data, and that’s true.

I also added some streets in Nigeria (after a call here), I’m sure some tags are wrong, but at least the tracing is done, changing tags is easier than tracing.

If it’s not an armchair mapper, try to contact him/her and come to a resolution. Point to documentation here: osm.wiki/Philippines or create new documentation when there isn’t enough.

For changing values, you should certainly contact the mapper.

There’s a big probability that the mapper(s) who uploaded the roads are just armchair mappers. If you check their history and see edits all over the world, or a lot of edits far away from where you live, you can just change the tags to the values you like. You live there, so you have the right to do so.

They probably think initial data is better than no data, and that’s true.

I also added some streets in Nigeria (after a call here), I’m sure some tags are wrong, but at least the tracing is done, changing tags is easier than tracing.

If it’s not an armchair mapper, try to contact him/her and come to a resolution. Point to documentation here: osm.wiki/Philippines or create new documentation when there isn’t enough.

For changing values, you should certainly contact the mapper.

I agree with stevage. Only the rendering looked a bit weird, but it was perfectly usable. It was even good routing and searching (what you don’t have with certain features that are rendered great but lacking other qualities).

Although accuracy improving should always be done when possible, it’s not as valuable as adding new data (both rendered and un-rendered).

In a lot of cases, features are quite country specific. Like “how do I tag this interstate road?”. It’s a bit difficult to estimate the size of an “interstate road” in America when you live in Europe.

In those cases, it will be best to check out the conventions of your country or state: osm.wiki/Illinois

And if something is unclear, it might be good to contact your local mailing list: osm.wiki/Mailing_lists

Someone local might also be better to fix some things when something went wrong (and you could even gather in real life).

I almost forgot the most important message: have fun!

Happy mapping, Sander

Also note that there is a rather new tagging schema being implemented: osm.wiki/Proposed_features/Public_Transport

This makes use of the ‘name’ tag to denote the name of the stop, and for the directions, it uses a relation.

Also look at this: osm.wiki/Bus_stop

Note that there are differences with the old schema. In the old schema, you had to place stops next to the highway, and now you have to place a stop on the highway, with a platform next to it, and link the two with a relation.

The route relation has a name like Brussels-Leuven, so that denotes the start and end (note that Leuven-Brussels will be another relation). And it has a begin position and an end position.

But if you are unsure, contact the mailing list, as Georges said.

Typically, the http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_United_States is a good place to discuss such matters.

Although you would need with more people to maintain it. I suggest sending a mail to the US mailing list.

Welcome to OSM.

Hope you enjoy it.

The data that is distributed under public domain will stay public domain.

That means that, if someone already copied it, he has the right to keep it and do with it what he wants. So you can never complain when you see someone using that data.

If you now untick that box, you will redistribute everything under ODBL. So everything new will be under ODBL.

Bienvenue sûr OSM, (excusez moi pour mon français).

J’ai regardé a votre changements, et ça semble très bon. J’ai qu’une remarque: la tag “designation” n’est pas utilisé sur des batiments.

osm.org/browse/way/86110080

Et je pense que ce n’est pas utilisé en France en général.

Si vous avez des questions concernant les tags, c’est le mieux de regarder sur le wiki. Pour cette tag, c’est la page ici: osm.wiki/Key:designation

Les noms des tags sont les noms qu’on voit en mode avancé en Potlatch (l’éditeur online).

Merci pour vos contributions, Sander

I see you haven’t made any changes, don’t be afraid to add something (even houses with their address info is needed).

If you have questions, just ask (and if I don’t react, you can PM me, I don’t get notifications on reactions here).

And a lot of followers ;)

Welcome to OSM, happy mapping.

Btw, if you search work as a UK user, there’s work enough: http://tools.geofabrik.de/osmi/?view=routing&lon=-0.95469&lat=51.84651&zoom=7

At least, every red dot should dissapear :D

You could set your location in your profile, and see nearby mappers. But remember the 90-10 rule. 90% of the edits are done by 10% of the people. So only about 10% of the people in your “nearby” list will be interesting to chat with.

You can also search a preferred mailing list on this list: osm.wiki/Mailing_lists

Don’t subscribe to the big lists as “legal” or “tagging”, this will make your mailbox explode with mostly rants. But the local mailing lists are generally great to discover new people.

Also subscribe to the “announce” mailing list.