I started a discussion about this on the OSM-US Slack (invites at https://slack.openstreetmap.us/ ). Someone suggested looking at what the state publishes: http://gis-michigan.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/counties-v17a?geometry=-93.520%2C40.004%2C-76.831%2C42.886

I'm not really convinced that the state intends that data to be authoritative, but it's a data point for using the shoreline.

Wikipedia is not a primary source and there is no citation for the statement about the counties having water boundaries.

The thing to do is to find the text where the counties were initially laid out (and any subsequent alterations). I've not managed to do that, but I've examined lots of other information and not found anything that particularly indicates water boundaries (for example, nothing saying where the boundary would be between Emmet and Mackinac).

The % water areas listed on Wikipedia are just naively computed from the boundaries that Census publishes. They set those boundaries for statistical convenience, not legal precision.

All my research indicated that Michigan counties don't really enclose the great lakes.

Like the sheriff has some jurisdiction on the water, but that's about it (and it's not exclusive jurisdiction, the Sheriff from either nearby county might have jurisdiction).

Yeah I fixed it at about the same time I commented.

The name:prefix came from osm.org/changeset/6786718 and I think is not widely used (At least not like here. It's used a lot in Russia: https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/name%3Aprefix#map ).

I don't quite remember why I felt the need to comment though.

An 'st' went into the wrong field for way 7312271 here.

I tripped over a camp_site you added in this changeset on Friday. I was looking to walk into one and expected a detailed tag like camp_site to be accurate. It wasn't ridiculous, off by something like 1/3 of a mile, but I would have made a better plan if I hadn't assumed the marker was accurate.

(It wasn't a dangerous situation or anything like that, and it all worked out quickly enough anyway, just remarking on it)

Changing "Terminal Road" to service was incorrect. It's clearly a publicly maintained street in an industrial area. Those are highway=unclassified in the US.

Hi, please take care when editing, this changeset caused problems with a city border close to the golf course.

Max

Yeah, that was incorrectly matched back in v1, in 2007. I went ahead and corrected it with the CDP population from the census.

Some empty tags introduced in this changeset.

If you wanted to revisit this, the JOSM validator (or search) can flag objects based on size, with rules like 'area[building=house][eval(areasize()<75)]{
throwWarning: tr("Small building tagged as building=house.");
}'

It's some work to get it going, but after that, load data+validate generates a list of candidate errors. Could do a greater than also, to catch churches and schools and the like.

Hi-

Most roads in a rural area are probably highway=unclassified or highway=residential. highway=tertiary would be for connecting routes that receive less funding compared to primary/secondary, or for major collectors.

It's more a rule of thumb than a strict rule, the general idea is that a map maker can use the classifications to reduce the amount of information they try to include in maps that cover larger areas.

Max

Got here via osm.org/changeset/61339116 and no reason to split the same conversation up.

On the highway=secondary page, the most important piece of information is "A highway linking large towns.", and then bear in mind that for the US, a *small* place=town is 10,000 people.

So a 10 mile stretch of paved road with a divider that links a few dozen houses to the main state highway network does not meet that definition.

In general, US highway tagging suffers from the idea that the construction should guide tagging, as we have lots of relatively well built roads. It's useful to also consider the role of the road in the highway system when deciding which tag to use.

I can't really say. I've never had to, but I haven't visited all that many campgrounds either.

Lots of US campgrounds don't have anything like a reception desk, just a drop box, so they invite people to come camp/work. They look after things, clean up, call law enforcement when necessary, etc., and get a spot to camp.

This is Crossville Alabama here, not TN.

Also, it looks like you are probably editing with a group, so a little tip: If you press the 'Q' key after you get done outlining a building, the editor will square up the corners for you.

I've fixed the addresses in AL.

Max

You've added info for a school in San José California to a closed school in Casper Wyoming here. I've fixed it in Casper, I've not checked the school in San José.

Additional source is NAIP, the building and parking lot are visible in that layer.

In addition to the feedback from user_5359, the values of "addr:street" should match the street names in OSM. So "Georgia Street" rather than "Georgia St ", for example.

There also appears to be trailing spaces in many of the field values. There should not be any trailing spaces.