That flowchart looks very good, though I agree with some of the suggestions that other users are making. I suggest you create a page on the OSM wiki that describes this import/upload process.

I have one question though. Why do you think that people should create a separate account for uploading the data?

@iandees With all due respect, it is not that important nor necessary to to mention his bad English.

Regarding WorstFixer’s post, I really agree that OSMF needs to play a bigger role in supporting OSM. Especially with major changes that are happening, like the license change. I would have appreciated more information about the license change, and I would have appreciated it if said information was posted on the User Diaries, not just the mailing lists. Not everyone knows about them and I would say less than 25% of mappers actually subscribe to the mailing lists, and even I do not subscribe to those. Because I am not part of this clique of mailing-list subscribers, I felt like I was pretty much left in the dark about the license change.

I don’t really think that OSMF needs to have paid staff. It just needs people like WorstFixer who are committed to improving the project. And those people should listen to the advice of others, and implement their suggestions. It’s fine for those people to have actual jobs or have their own business, but they ought to be enthusiastic about volunteering their time to OSMF. And of course, improving it!

@AndrewBuck But what if the road is two ways? Would the “left” and “right be defined as the way it’s viewed on the screen?

An example of a specific type tag that needs to be changed is the tiger:zip tag, which ought to be changed to addr:postcode since ZIP codes are the US equivalent of postal codes. The weird thing about these tags is that they are called “tiger:zip_left,” “tiger:zip_right.” What on earth does the “left” and “right” mean? Things that are on the left side of the road when you’re driving north on it would be on your right when you’re driving south on the same road. Most of the time they are the same (for both left and right) so I just delete one of them and change the other to the more-correct “addr:postcode” tag.

Once OpenLinkMap is more complete, we should implement it into OSM. That would be AWESOME!!!

Hello, as a fellow Seattle mapper, I welcome you as a new OSM user! Thanks for your help with uploading buildings in Seattle, saves a lot of work for the rest of us! Of course, there’s already some buildings there, so make sure to avoid uploading buildings which already exist on the map in order to avoid duplicates. :)

Thanks for your help!

-Compdude

@Gnonthgol, I didn’t know that info about SSD drives! Learning something new every day… :)

Glad you like OSM more than Map Maker. I’ve tried out map maker before and it just isn’t as user-friendly as Potlatch 2.

The coastlines can be grossly inaccurate in some places and are often not smooth like they should be, because the PGS import (this is an import which added all coastlines worldwide) is not the best.

As for the nodes you accidentally deleted, sometimes they have a source=PGS tag or a created_by=*** tag. The source tag is not really necessary if the way (that is any line made up of nodes connected together) is tagged w/ a source=PGS tag, and the created_by= tag isn’t needed at all. I don’t know if these are the tags that were on those nodes; these are just some tags I’ve come across when cleaning up coastline in my own area.

If I were an admin, I really wouldn’t trust SSDs to store frequently accessed data. While they are very fast, they have a limited number of read/write cycles before they go kaput without warning. That’s the only problem with SSD drives (and even those little USB flash drives).

I’m sorry if I didn’t show some respect to you, but please understand that 100% of human beings can get frustrated quite frequently. And such frustration can result in not respecting others. If we developed a more respectful and welcoming atmosphere in OSM, that would be a wonderful thing.

About your mention of Wikipedia’s of bot approval, this is very sensible (why wouldn’t they have some sort of approval system for bots?) but the rules on OSM seem to not be laid out really well (unlike wikipedia) and as a result rules can be unclear, and people may not understand why they got blocked (like this person). Also, where could WorstFixer have gotten approval for his bot/ script? (If your answer is “uhhh…. I don’t know” well then I don’t blame him!)

Also, have a look at Wikipedia’s guideline of assuming good faith. Don’t take that out of context. It says to assume good faith, except when it’s absolutely clear that a certain user is not acting in good faith (i.e. continually vandalizing pages despite warnings to stop). Another wikipedia rule is “be bold,” but to avoid taking that rule out of context, I should mention that being bold is not the same as being reckless.

Finally, not only should I, as a regular editor, show respect to the creators and admins of OSM, the creators and admins should show respect to people like me.

OSM claims to be like Wikipedia, except with maps. Can we all adapt wikipedia’s user guidelines then? Especially consider “assume good faith” meaning assume that the person is trying to suggest how to improve OSM and is not simply complaining. Please stop giving people crap about complaining and whining about OSM when they are genuinely trying to suggest how to improve the project. Instead, listen to their suggestions and _IMPLEMENT THEM!!!!!_

To make sure this gets implemented I am going to email someone on OSMF and make sure they take a look at this.

That’s even worse than the TIGER data that was imported in the US! But the TIGER import, even though it was very inaccurate, was actually connected to all adjacent ways. And because it included names (which were actually in lower case), it was worth it because without the TIGER data, the US would be largely incomplete.

Here, you’re only going to be able to salvage the street names from those ways and you might as well redraw the way completely.

Probably the other reason why it’s so fast is that everyone is holding off on major edits/ imports, which the OSMF kindly told us all to postpone.

Spam must DIE!

I agree 150% with you!

In P2, after 20+ minutes, it displays a message telling you to save your darn changes. IMHO, P2 is a lot more user-friendly than JOSM. I used JOSM occasionally when I got mad at P1 (which had more bugs than it did features) but P2 allows me to leave JOSM in the dust. I haven’t used for a while since P2 was introduced.

That’s good, most of the coastline has been replaced with Canadian GeoBase data which is of much better quality than the PGS coastline data. I’m glad someone stepped up and did this. Thank you to whoever took care of that!

FYI they actually said the opposite on this post on their blog. It said this:

“The long awaited and eagerly anticipated license upgrade is coming soon, the conclusion of a multi-year process. To minimise disruption to OpenStreetMap mappers and users, we’re taking the opportunity to install our new database server (funded by your generous contributions) at the same time – reducing the total amount of downtime needed.”

Anyway, whatever. At least we had the pleasant surprise of having additional time to complete the whole remapping process.

It’s not enough for them to just post on a mailing list. Most users including me do not subscribe to those; in fact some people might not even know about them. The post they had on their blog was not as clear as what you quoted here. It is about time OSMF realize that they need to make these important things crystal clear to reduce confusion.