Donald, I'd be interested in joining such a mapping party.

I don't know if anyone has looked at publicising OSM on a local level and trying to get people involved. Using real-world advertising might be successful, but obviously it would have to be well targeted as very few people have the equipment necessary to take part.

Perhaps targeting walking groups etc would be one route to go down.

Alternatively, targeting schools etc, as way to learn about geography and map-making. I know I'd have loved to have done some OSMing while at school, and I think teachers would be keen on it too.

Neither route would get everything, but schools could probably map towns and villages easily (and safely). Walking groups could map some of the more obscure roads, but a fairly small percentage - I'd guess.

Well, I imagine the UK is better off than most places. How the hell will we ever map the real remote places of the world?

If you ask them both, they might come back with different answers and you'll be responsible for starting World War III.

It certainly looks like it could do with cleaning up. The village borders do somewhat clutter the map up...

highway=track, surface=sand. If you're feeling obsessive, you could use smoothness=[something] too. In my experience, cycling on sand is asking for trouble.

I've done a few I know of.

Generally, holding down shift in Potlatch does what you want. Shift click the middle of a way to add a new node. Shift click on the end node of a way to extend it, etc...

Indeed, you should never be adjusting the map data to make the renderer work correctly. As long as you follow the conventions for the data, the renderer should catch up. I imagine there's somewhere you can report such issues.

Looks good. Added a roundabout for you!

You may want to make each side of the avenues one way in the correct direction... Also, you can mark on the pedestrian/access roads for the buildings too, once you've got the basic roads in.

Here in the UK at least, we wouldn't generally map pavements/sidewalks. There's fairly reliable rules as to when they'll exist (e.g. not down motorways)... The only time I would map them is when their path significantly deviates from the route of the road (e.g. perhaps round a junction where a safe route has been made)...

An impressive piece of work! Wish I had the time (and a nearby unmapped area) to work on... Well done!

Well, as you've found you can do lots of stuff without a GPS receiver, but having one is a major advantage! Street names and POIs are important and can be done without GPS (to some extent anyway), assuming the roads are already mapped, of course.

Looks good, though it makes all the other woods north of the railway look rather blank!

I can see why - the Google Maps coverage seems to be terrible and almost incomplete!

Welcome! Looks like Brighton is pretty well mapped already, but if you feel like a trip down the coast, Seaford is looking distinctly blank! Most of Seaford is covered by the good quality Yahoo imagery, so you can start by tracing it. You'll have to visit it to get street names and clarify certain things.

Anyway, just an idea! Have fun!

It's perhaps best known (to me at least) as the location of Huntington Life Sciences, which all the animal protesters have been campaigning against for years... Sounds like a lovely place!

Well, that's good news :)

That's a pretty long walk to do in an evening!

I meant zoom level 13. 14 is too large too, but on level 13 is quite ridiculous, it's larger than any of the surrounding towns.

Richard, there's many confusing aspects of the editor:

- Took me a while to realise you can click the icon next to the drop down to switch the type of things in the list (car/bike/on foot etc)
- The node names etc are confusing. This is the main issue. The editor could provide some help for each type. You could be able to search for 'bicycle' and see the options and use one of them. Perhaps even some buttons which let you use the last few you'd use for fast access.
- You can't subtly adjust a node's position, it locks on to the place it was before. There might be a keyboard key to modify that (like in Photoshop), but I've not found that.
- I'd seriously consider making a simplified mode where the values to fill in are prescribed, with easy help saying what to do with them. Guide the user through the process and don't try to allow everything possible to be done. Allow an advanced mode for that...
- Things like one-way streets are not obvious. It's not obvious how to mark a route as for foot and cycles for example. Sure you can search through the wiki for it, but the editor should make that obvious. One way streets could show arrows on them, as the direction arrow can be meaningless on a crescent-shaped street.
- Adding a point on a way can be done using key combinations, but from the UI it isn't obvious. At least not to me. Having a photoshop-style palette might help, with a 'add point to way' cursor etc.
- Maybe I'm really stupid, but I can't tell how you undo something. Can you?

There's probably more points I've got. I think Potlatch is pretty good, but it's still not intuitive.

Ed