Basically either the land is used or it is natural.
Roads, tracks and paths go through residential, farmland,forests and natural land.
If I walk, ride or drive on any one of the above then I am on the relevant landuse/natural area; e.g. a residential road going through a residential area is on landuse=residential.
For an extreme example of excessive mapping around roads goto:
osm.org/?lat=-36.90&lon=174.65&zoom=13
using JOSM.
I contacted the contributor about this time consuming redundant work but I was unable to convince him. As I said to him/her: It not wrong so do it your way.
As far as my own work is concerned, it is being continually corrected by others and that is good so. What I don't understand, though, is why my contributions are no longer in the relevant changesets: They are lost in history, but that does not worry me at all.
As anyone who uses OSM-Inspector knows, there are hundreds of thousand of geometrical errors in the OSM Databank. Where areas have mutual boarders then it only makes sense to link these boarders together thereby reducing the risk that new users will once again create new geometrical errors.
My tribute goes to the renderers who somehow make usable maps out of the OSM data. It is the chaos theory working here!
As far as buildings are concerned, where is the benefit within a defined residential area. Are we heading for door to door routing? Nice to have but not needed. Or is it 3D animation? Nice to have for game players I suppose.
We OSMers just do the bits we like to do and leave the rest for others and that is as it should be.

That is very well done. Congradulations

How do you define 93%. i.e. Are all POIs etc. included.

If a single way that is to be uploaded has more than 2000 nodes the server will not take it. The way must be divided into segments of less than 2000 nodes and a relation created.
For an example of a large single entity see
osm.org/?lat=38.4006500244141&lon=-7.27157592773438&zoom=10
It is the Barragem de Alqueva/Embalse de Alqueva (Relation Number 1.464.895):
With a surface of 250 km2, the "Barragem de Alqueva" is today the biggest artificial lake in Europe.
The relation contains 275 islets, all objects have 48.996 nodes.
Its outer ways have a total length of 1.124 km (1.124.139,19 m)

You really need to read and maybe printout the Map-Features and Proposed Map-Features pages.
One of the most important phrases at the start of Map-Features is
"You can use any tags you like as long as the values are verifiable. However, there is a benefit in agreeing to a recommended set of features and corresponding tags in order to create, interpret and display a common basemap."
What this tells you is that you yourself can define any tag you want, i.e. you are not restricted to the Map-Features tag definitions.
For example, a fellow user near me has his own tag building:roof:shape=pyramidal
(It is now in the Proposed Features Page) which I think the universities are using to render 3D Shapes.
For most of the OSM contributors (including me) we stick to the predefined definitions and as a newbie you would be well advised to go step-by-step in steady increments before attempting to change the OSM-Database.
If you are not yet aware of Routes, relations and multipolygons,etc. then there is a large chance that you will destroy the work of others.
If where you are living is not well mapped (Highways and Landuse,etc.) it would seem to me to it would advisable to complete these before going to the more complex issues of routes, relations and multipolygons but having said that it is your area of influence so do what you want.

I have no experience of Potlach.
Three years ago I started with JOSM as advised then by experienced contributers.
I suggest you do the same. Once you get the hang of JOSM (ask for advice here)
your editing will be far easier.
There are hundreds of thousands of geometrical errors in the OSM-Database. See
http://tools.geofabrik.de/osmi/?view=geometry
which, if what you say for Potlach is true, can only be corrected with great difficulty using that editor, whereas in JOSM it is, in most cases, very easy.
Another error-check tool is:
http://keepright.ipax.at/report_map.php?db=osm_EU&zoom=14&lat=48.20808&lon=16.37221
It always a good idea to check your work (and that of others in the neighbourhood).
and have fun

Viel Spass in Urlaub. Ich habe von Anfang an JOSM verwendet und komme mit Mapnik
nicht zurecht. Good mapping!

I tend to agree with Skippen. i.e. Remove users who not contributed any data at all. I know it is not statistically representative but here is a summary of the activities of those in my vicinity:
9 users with 0 input
10 users with last input over 2 years ago
5 users with last input over 1 year ago
12 users with inputs during the last 12 months
Where lies the argument for keeping those with 0 data imputs:
Is it to bloat the number of users to the press by about 33%.
Let's face it: The more data there is in OSM and the more complex (multipolygons and relations, etc.) it becomes, the more difficult it will become to make data additions/changes in the future.
Take a look at OSM-Inspector and see the errors being made by newcommers and I mean errors and not just missing tags/attributes.
Minh Nguyen is probably right, the newcomers are looking for route directions; don't get them and return to Google.
I suggest that newcommers only become users when they make a single entry.
This does not have to be field data, it could be other information in the Wiki format.

Question to HannesHH
Will the SanDisk card in the link be OK?
Is there a cheaper alternative that also would to the job.
What I want to try is to put the Map Droid data on the memory card.
Would MapDroid work that way?

http://www.digitfoto.de/p-SANDISK_SDHC_Card_Extreme_32GB_30MB_s_-SANDISK94157-73.html

What I do to align the Bing imagery is to load the saved tracks to Josm, (preferably a main twisty road with a lot of tracks). Your eye can then average the tracks and you align the Bing imagery to those averaged tracks. I know it only works when there are a lot of saved tracks to average on so this method of alignment will only work in remote areas.

You guys really amaze me with your knowledge. I have just bought my first mobile phone and I have no experience at all how I can use it! I have been mapping for 3 years now (just for fun) and I want to see the OSM data on it but I don't know how to begin. My phone is a Samsung Galaxy I1900 which should have the capapilities I am looking for. Anyway, I just checked the Samsung Apps Store for MapDroyd,Zanavi and OsmAnd but to no avail.
What am I doing wrong?
Should I purchase a 32 GByte additional memory card and if so what make?
NOTE: Samsung states: Quote: "some brands may not be fully compatible with your device ... and may damage your device or the memory card".
Isn't that a great help!
Is the process of downloading an app like those above easy for a novice?
I ask this simple question because the Samsung Handbook and device is so full of acronyms and other expressions of which I have no idea what they mean or what they are used for.
Just like OSM doc. Chaos. Basically it leaning by doing both in OSM and my new device.

OSM is also very difficult to use on my Android (Galaxy I1900) too. It is so bad that I refrain from showing it to OSM strangers; I show them OsmAnd instead. I only wish I was a developer!!!

Excellent achievement. I too request you add bicycling and hiking.

All the above comments are on the right "track" (just a pun)
Seriously it is a difficult question because a track in the Australien outback will be used by HGVs, trucks, SUVs, etc. It Germany, where I live, tracks are very well defined and can be described in most cases by tracktype=grade1-5.
Then I went to Portugal where, so it seems, anyone can drive on any track i.e. no road signs forbid cars, lorries etc. to use them.
So, I set my own standards:
Tarmaced surfaces became highway=unclassified when no classification was visible
and unsurfaced became tracktype=grade2-5
whereby
grade2/3 could take cars
grade4 could take 4-wheel drive vehicles
(If the gradient was too steep I used grade4)
grade5 could take tractors and of course construction vehicles
(The go anywhere there are needed)
I saw no grassed over tracks in Portugal. The sun is merciless.
The point is: The tracktype definition will be different in each country.
Just a little anecdote from Portugal:
While I was in Portugal I was using OSM-Data for the very first time.
Some highway=unclassified which I wanted to take with the car turned out to
highway=path. So I contacted the OSMer in question to explain the error. He had used Bing to make these classifications. The Bing imagery was of course outdated and due to the population decline in the remote areas nature was reclaiming the land for itself. So be careful when using OSM-data in Portugal!

I can not quite agree on changing BUGS to NOTES:
Reason:
1. We already have a note tag
2. I agree that BUG is geeky: It implies an OSM corporate error.
What we have are map errors or map deficiencies which have been noticed
by some user who does not have the time, knowledge,or inclination
to correct/complete them.
3. So lets use the words ERROR (instead of BUG) and leave the FIXME for
deficiencies
Just a suggestion

Thank-you user malenki for the statistics. I am amazed at the numbers; maybe I should not have started. When I say 4 months it was not continous of course: I stoped for 5 weeks while in Portugal in March.
I looked at Scanaerial using your link. I don't think that I have the know-how to use it though.
Once again thanks

I forgot to add that I have foreigners who would like their offspring to see where they are going along with the above mentioned towns/restaurants and other pertinent links. It saves doing a lot of work this way.
dcp

Thanks for the information, ladies and gentlemen.
I'll have to work through the info you have provided and see if it will cover my ideas. I don't want to start bei copy OSM-data to a png or jpeg but want to link in to the current osm data and add my track as an overlay so that the club ramblers can see where they went and when they went. I also want to link to the town/restaurant websites on the rambling route but this it no problem for me.
Thanks for the info on Bing: Charges. I'll forget that idea!
If any more ideas are out there. I'll be pleased to hear of them!
Thanks again
dcp

Cycling is good. Mapping also. Using Bing makes the mapping easier, but you need to cycle anyway to get the attributs and POI's.
Happy new year!

Thanks sanderd17.
For me it is a pity as my main mapping area is to the south of my town.
That's the way the cookie crumbles!