In that example the nodes have been redacted. Presumably the track was traced by someone else previously, then Wbski split the way for some reason. So it was a ‘new’ way, but mostly using ‘old’ nodes.

It sounds like someone else had edited those ways, but they had not agreed to the licence change. So their edits are redacted.

And Potlatch will not show the redacted versions in the history.

You are changing road names previously added by others, which were probably from a survey and/or local knowledge. What you makes you sure those other mappers are wrong?

And by doing this it makes it harder to find actual surveying errors, as the area will now show as ‘correct’ on tools comparing it to the OS data.

If you want a ‘complete’ road map you can use the OS OpenData already. There is no need to to dump it all into OSM.

Have you surveyed any of these roads, to see if the names are actually correct?

What is your real name? What is your real OSM account? What company are you working for?

See http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo

You can subscribe to a list, or read the archives there. Note you probably won’t be able to post to a list unless you are subscribed to it.

Good work, especially considering there doesn’t seem to be much aerial imagery available. Is it all from GPS surveys?

Some suggestions: You could check that area on Keep Right, it highlights a number of possible errors: http://keepright.ipax.at/report_map.php?lat=54.4492&lon=-6.33111&zoom=14 Also try using the JOSM validator.

eg I notice there are some untagged nodes, and some overlapping or unconnected roads. And some strange tagging, eg you have tagged all of the school area as building=yes, when presumably it is not all a building?

Also I notice the school/church etc are mapped as an area and a node. You should just have one and not the other (preferably an area). See osm.wiki/One_feature,_one_OSM_element

Great to hear you are interested in mapping charity shops, I have been mapping quite a few around here. First thing to do would be to find where they are, and add them to OSM. Sometimes it can be a bit tricky to find all of the obscure local shops!

I have made an example map of charity shops here (now a bit out of date): http://green.osmalba.org/charity.html Note you can click on the icons to get the name and details. It would be possible to use different icons for each charity etc. I can explain how to make something like that if you want.

The consensus in OSM is only to map roads as separate ways if they are physically separated. If it is just a white painted line, then they are not physically separate (even if it is illegal to drive across the line).

Yes, nodes which are not part of any ways or relations and which don't have any tags are an error. See osm.wiki/Untagged_unconnected_node
It is worth checking how old they are - if they only a few hours or days old, they might be from some sort of ongoing upload or import. But if they are much older, they are probably just a mistake, so best to delete them.

For feature requests, you add a ticket on Trac: http://trac.openstreetmap.org/
Set the component as "website".

I agree, it would be nice if the website could accept more kinds of coordinates.

You need to split both of the ways at the intersection node. ie select that node, then click the little scissors icon.
Then you should be able to set the streets for from and to.

Individual wifi access points are not usually mapped in OpenStreetMap. Because they are often temporary, and may be private etc.
There are a number of other websites where you can map wifi access points, eg http://openbmap.org/

Though if a business / amenity etc provides wifi (eg pub, cafe), then you can map the business in OpenStreetMap. Then tag that it provides internet access. See osm.wiki/Key:internet_access

I assume the roads cross at the same level, ie there isn't any bridge or tunnel?
If so, then the ways should cross with a shared node at the intersection.

And you should add turn restrictions, to specify that you are not allowed to turn off. Yes, Potlatch will show this with a little road sign symbol.
Its true you don't see that often in OSM, but that's because not many turn restrictions have been mapped yet (this will probably vary by area, there may some places with lots of turn restrictions mapped).

Most types of roads are two-way as default. There is no need to set this for each road. You only need to set the oneway option for the roads that are actually one way.

Note there are a few types of roads which might imply they are one-way, eg motorways, link roads etc. So it can be helpful to specifically set whether these are one-way or two-way.

Have you checked whether that council roads list is copyright?

There's some guidelines here: osm.wiki/Vandalism
Or this question: http://help.openstreetmap.org/questions/216/what-should-i-do-about-vandalism

The first thing to do would be to contact the user who changed/deleted it. It might just be a accident, or they might not realise they actually editing the map.
Also worth discussing it on the local mailing list or forum, to see what other mappers think.

The incorrect edits can be reverted if necessary.

If they continue to vandalise the map, then you can contact the data working group. The data working group can ban the user or revert all of their edits.

It sounds like most of those strange anomalies are from the US TIGER import. osm.wiki/TIGER
It can be very inaccurate or out of date in some places. You can look at any source tags, or the history of the objects to check where its from. Its probably not jokers or vandals, just wrong official government data. TIGER data in OSM should be checked and fixed where possible.

Also despite the name, OpenStreetMap is not just a street map. There is loads of other geographical data in the project, and it is welcome. Database clutter is not really a problem, extra detail doesn't really slow down rendering.

Though if you have something like a small pond mapped with hundreds or thousands of nodes that would probably be excessive. That sort of thing is probably from an unhelpful import, eg TIGER.

I think it is all correct, its just Mapnik hadn't rerendered those tiles. I have marked those tiles as dirty, which caused them to be rendered.
And its showing the courtyard now.

Also, if you want data for a large area, you should probably use a Planet extract: osm.wiki/Planet#Country_and_area_extracts
These are available for a number of countries or regions.

The Planet extract contains all of the OSM data for that area. If you only want the data for roads, then you can process the extract to filter out what you do/don't want. For software to use for this, you could use Osmfilter osm.wiki/Osmfilter or Osmosis osm.wiki/Osmosis