I also use historic=memorial as that seems to best describe it (and the wiki page supports it, too). When I last tagged one I decided I would like to specify that it was a war memorial, as distinct from another memorial, so I had a look on Tagwatch to see what people were doing. Adding memorial=war seemed to be the most common, so I've adopted that.

Regarding doing it justice, if it is a large structure you could indeed use an area (polygon). If you mean doing it justice from the point of view of its importance, you could use name=, if it has one. I believe some mappers have even been known to record the inscription using inscription=x, which would certainly be doing it justice.

I can see that Yahoo do have 2008 imagery of Seattle, but I'm afraid I've no idea who you need to ask about whether we would have permission to use it, and adding that to the WMS, etc. Might be worth looking at the wiki:

osm.wiki/Yahoo

There are also other potential sources of data, including ground survey with a GPS device (many smartphones now have them built in), which is often the best way of getting the most up-to-date information. More info here:

osm.wiki/Beginners_Guide_1.1

I went through a phase of early morning walks with the GPS. Not sure whether OSM was the excuse for walking or the other way round! Must get started again.

Joining to roads helps walking routing, too.

Yes, so long as either they are public domain, released under a licence compatible with OSM's or you have the explict permission of the copyright holder to trace them for use in OSM. So for example, Google Satellite is definitely not allowed (except in one or two very limited cases, e.g., Haiti, where they have given permission in order to allow humanitarian mapping to take place). Yahoo! imagery is allowed because they have given specific permission.

Some useful links
osm.wiki/FAQ#What_images_and_maps_may_I_use_to_make_maps_from.3F
osm.wiki/Copyright
osm.wiki/Potential_Datasources

Having read their community guidelines and project goals, I can see that they would not want a link to the OSM wiki (in the context of those guidelines it could smell distinctly spammy)! I think if it were me I would read the policies the other user has very politely pointed out. As with any community project, it is probably wise for a newbie not to knowingly trample on what looks like a strong community consensus until they have a good feel for the project. If after getting a good feel for the project, they still feel their idea will further the goals of the project, then it is probably worth entering into discussions with the community before acting. IMHO.

Nor in Potlatch - just click on the Edit link next to the track in the listing. This works even while the track is still "PENDING".

Nevertheless, welcome to OSM! Keep adding those fine details - they are one of the things that makes OSM special.

And, of course, you cannot copy names (or anything else) from Yahoo maps or any other copyrighted map (unless you have managed to negotiate specific written permission to copy their data into OSM).

osm.wiki/Copyright

Welcome! As rendle says, you are not limited to the dashboard, but can add anything you like. The online editor you are using is called Potlatch. I recommend reading the wiki pages. It really is worth spending a few minutes on.

osm.wiki/Potlatch

Also useful is the general OSM beginner's guide, available from the wiki homepage:

osm.wiki/Main_Page

Useful for reference is also the help text available by pressing the Help button in the bottom left-hand corner of the editor.

I think there are differing opinions on the extent to which it is ok to look at a non-free map we are not licensed to derive from and say "oh look - there seems to be a street over there, let's go and survey it and get a GPS trace to map from (or lets see if we can trace it off landsat or an aerial we are allowed to use). My own view is it is probably ok, but I'm sure not all would agree. What would definitely not be ok would be to trace it from the restricted map (or fine tune its location and geometry), even if you then confirmed that landsat, etc., also showed it.

By the way, I assume you mean Yahoo aerials - obviously you can't use Yahoo Maps!

Yes - I am sure there may be fair uses of that data set. It is only its use in OSM that I am at all concerned about. I am not against parallel projects, such as Wikimapia existing. Where the law is a grey area or not well tested, it is for each project's community to decide what risks they wish to take. The OSM community always seems to have gone for the "whiter than white" approach, and I think it would be a shame for this to change.

I realise that there is a body of opinion that says that an aerial photo copyright holder cannot claim any copyright on derived maps. It would be interesting to see a test case happen - but let's not make OSM the test case!

Anyway, good luck. I'm afraid I won't volunteer, as I am spending all of the very little time I do have on on-the-ground surveying and mapping of my own surrounds.

"even if it turns out we cannot use it, at least we will get clarity, so the action would be to bring some type of decision to the question. "

I am not against your going off and creating a database based on GeoEye, and keeping it completely separate to OSM, to see whether they successfully sue you or not.

However, I would be against you using that derived database to "fine tune" OSM - if that means what I think it means (moving OSM vectors to line up precisely with the vectors derived from GeoEye). That would completely remove the safe separation and mean that OSM would be as "contaminated" as your separate database!

I don't see the difference, from a copyright perspective, between comparing OSM to GeoEye and comparing OSM to vectors traced from GeoEye.

Indeed this is impressive! Apologies once again. The amount of spam in the diaries lately has really got on my nerves. The name of the company quickly followed by the link, coupled with my extreme tiredness caused the knee-jerk reaction. This is no excuse - I should have read your post properly.

I hope the company likes the results of their evaluation and that this is the start of something good.

Sincere apologies! I was very tired and my brain was not working.

spam

spam

Have a play with OpenStreetBrowser. This has clickable POIs which make use of more of the tags:

http://www.openstreetbrowser.org/

Generally mappers only show two one-way roads where there is physical separation between traffic in each direction. However, if I understand you right, you are concerned that a side-road joining the wide road will be represented by a line going right to the centre line of the wide road? This is quite acceptable. In fact, it is very important they do meet in a junction, if the data is to be used for navigation.

When using lines to represent roads, we are really just mapping the centre lines of the roads and their connections. There has been some debate from time to time about whether micro-mappers should map roads as areas (in addition to mapping the centre lines), which would solve the problem of how it rendered on a large-scale map, but I don't think this is common at the moment.

Hidden in the depth of this there are one or two salient points, but they are drowned out by the rest of the drivel. Missed the point in so many ways, so many false assumptions, so many spurious comparisons, just so many "facts" that are plain wrong, it really would be hard to respond to! Really would not know where to start.

The fact that comments are closed says it all, really. Quite good for a laugh, though (at him, not with him).