In OpenStreetMap, we map what is actually on the ground, not what people wish to have or not have on the map.

See: osm.wiki/Good_practice

It is not for me to say which feature that GNIS node belongs to with any certainty without making a good-faith effort to research it. If you aren't willing to go through that effort, I would suggest leaving it alone so another mapper can do that. You can also use the "note" tag to leave a note for a future mapper such as "Pretty sure this is right based on X,Y,Z".

The cleanup and merger of imported GNIS data is a long term project in the US, and many lakes, ponds, dams, and reservoirs need to be traced where GNIS nodes are located or merged with existing features.

While it's true that there is no dam here, that GNIS node that you deleted should have been moved to the feature it described, which appears to be 600 meters to the east of that point.

This issue has been escalated to the Data Working Group. Ticket# 2021121610000167

Issues:
1. Repeated deletion of features which exist in reality
2. Changeset comments which hide the true actions/intent of the change

Restoring deletion of objects that exist in reality is a standard and accepted practice.

Please don't remove valid data. I've reverted this change.

Should be just "New York"

So this:
osm.wiki/United_States/2021_Highway_Classification_Guidance
is gaining rapid acceptance, and is in some stage of implementation for about half the states. Granted, the mid-Atlantic is underrepresented in that effort, but with your help we can change that. In that context, I wouldn't want you to go through wasted effort classifying roads given the major national conversation that is happening regarding highway classification (both on Slack and several threads that have happened on talk-us). There is also a talk planned at the national conference in Tucson on this topic. So it's kind of a big topic at the moment.

Re: classification, when we worked osm.wiki/United_States/2021_Highway_Classification_Guidance in other states, one of the things we did was to de-trunk roads that were parallel alternates to motorways, considering the combined trunk/motorway network as a coherent entity. There's still some question about whether that is still the right approach in big cities (DC definitely counts) so it's kind of an open question. That's why I really think we need to sort out some kind of agreement on Virginia (see link to 23 other state implementations in wiki link above) so that there's no question on the trunk/primary distinction -- we can just run around upgrading and downgrading according to that standard.

Around West Falls Church, there's an intersection between US-50 and the Capitol Beltway - that's the intersection I'm talking about.

The roads that go through MD-140 to the other side should maintain primary all the way through in both directions, and don't warrant a link or motorway classifications. Mitchell drive should not have a link road at its intersection with MD-140. Only the two connections to I-795 should be link.

Note that in general most of your classification changes seem to be okay after reviewing recent changes. If we can collaborate, then we'll avoid having to re-do a bunch of work later and everyone will be on the same page as to what the right classifications are.

Good change to fill in the gap. I suspect US-29 east of I-66 should be downgraded to primary all the way to Arlington since it's paralleled by I-66. I would also downgrade the section of US-29 that runs through the cloverleaf intersection with 495 to match the surrounding road, since a single intersection doesn't qualify a road as motorway.

Good change. I would extend the trunk routing all the way to US-460 through Pearisburg.

I think we need to either extend the trunk alignment all the way to the I-295 intersection in Maryland OR downgrade MD-210 to primary. It should be consistent end to end.

Good change to downgrade to primary here, but we should also eliminate the small trunk section on the overpass as well.

Hi, could you hold off on random changes to classification of dangling bits of highway like this? Please check your Slack messages. We would like to collaborate on defining what should be trunk on Virginia. Dangling trunk segments are inconsistent with the emerging national consensus.

Hi, could you please add more meaningful changeset comments?

Hello and welcome to OSM! Could you please add meaningful changeset comments so that we can understand what changes you're making?

I disagree with this edit to tag US-11 as trunk (and only partially at that). Since it parallels I-64, it should be of a lower importance, most likely primary.