Ups, der letzte Halbsatz gehört da natürlich nicht mehr hin.

Kurzer, unverbindlicher Kommentar:
Ich würde wann immer möglich die natürlichen Eigenschaften eines Weges in die Karte übertragen und virtuelle Eigenschaften (wie rechtliche Einschränkungen) nur zusätzlich taggen.

Das die sac_sale auf das Elbsandsteingebirge nur wenig passt ist leider richtig.

Also nur weil der weg nicht

A very simplistic solution to the same problem is: Just copy a tagged building (I additionally use source = Bing sat map) and past the tagges to all new buildingd. Thats just one key combo when the created way is still selected.

But your solution has more style, granted.

@Sandered17 Encrypted GPX? You mean writing an own logging application for every smartphone OS + ruling out any Garmin or other dedicated GPSr? Don't think so. Sorry.

But I see we can agree on a seperate website. And forcing someone to participate was never my intention. The crux lies in the way the game data/goal needs to be decoupled from the real OSM data. I have to do more thinking on that.

@Niels Another good idea. Some kind of 'task of the day'. The hidden list is also a nice game aspect. I just think it doesn't scale well with global players, as you are by definition very local if you put specific street names in your list. If you go broader (i.e. map 15 post offices) you are loosing the 'hidden list' aspect and therefore the fraud protection that comes along with it.

Just to be more clear of what I aimed at with my proposal (which by the way doesn't claim to be perfect or even finished): I was looking for a way to motivate existing mappers to do more. I was proposing a reward system with doesn't need a change in behavior by the mappers, but rewards them for their normal work. But yes, I see the danger in attracting fraudsters without mapping, but only gaming interest.

But please keep the ideas comming. It just can get better.

Hm, I see a conceptual problem here. If you build your system on the assumption that all gamers are evil and will try to fraud, then don't bother creating a game at all. There is no way to build a tamper-proof game system that is still fun.
GPX files can be manipulated just as easy as any other file, so there are worthless as verification device. If players are likely to give false initial tag data to achieve more points, it's just as likely they will just waive through any already present data if they get points for that too. So thats no verification device either.

My assumption is that
1. Gamers and mappers are not two distinct groups. They overlap by at least 90%.
2. Gamers are good and responsible people, with just the same amount of vandals as in any other group.

What about that: Achievments are rewarded with the current database status in mind. So the "Most different amenities in one day" award may be gotten by cheating and entering false data. But as soon as someone recognizes the 'mistake' and corrects it, the award vanishes again. So the evil cheating gamer has just a very short win from his behavior. Maybe his award actually provoked a good mapper (or jealous other gamer) to go out and check the data. Well, thats win-win then. Of course this could lead to edit wars, but chances are slim (with my assumption that vandals are rare) that two nutcases find each other.

I don't think your game idea is bad by the way. I just don't think it serves the purpose I had in mind (motivate existing mappers to do more). It's more of a OSM-based game for other people not currently involved. Also I see that implementing your idea is waaaayyyy more comlicated, which mostly means that it won't be realized soon unless your are a very skilled coder yourself. (Well I'm not.)

To keep track of vandals and users who try to fraud the system, maybe the awards should not be generated by the users themselfes, but by a website where you have to log in with your osm credentials. So if someone goes a bit crazy on the whole thing, it's more easy to stop him or even the whole project from doing more damage.

Woah, I didn't know there's a word for that. Thanks for that link.

The competition (even if it is just between you and yourself) is exactly what causes the inceased motivation. So it is not a by-product, but the target.

I don't deny that this can cause damage. Even if implemented with most caution.
The question then remains: does it do more good than bad? Can this be balanced? How much 'bad' is acceptable? If it motivates 10 people to contibute more, and one of them overdoes it and starts shifting nodes to get last_edit_by status, is this still good? Let's discuss this.

@Sanderd17 How do you think the 'layer between' will help here? And isn't human review the only layer that would be affective? Love to hear your thoughts.

@Vclaw Didn't know they existed. Thanks for that. But they are way to rare to be useful for motivating the masses (like me).

@Sanderd17 Nice idea too, but not quite what I meant. It's not about creating a game and then using its data as a byproduct. (Game design is a very very hard job.) But just to give some gamey aspects to the OSM activity itself.
I especially see the problem in the need to postprocess the data of your game proposal and the problems you face in sparsely populated (by gamers) places, where you don't have enough data to validate inputs.

@Richard I'm with you on that point. Any point- or reward system has to be carefully balanced so that it doesn't encourage behavior destructive to the map. This won't be easy, especially to enforce this on the technical side.

I'm currently looking into what data is available for this purpose.

But as with any purely artificial point system, it's all about the social component. If it is not recognized by others, it's not attractive to the single user. I think OSM contributors are a quite fair and responsible group of people. I think geocachers are worse for that matter ;)

Well, sorry if this didn't came out clear enough in my post. It's not about promoting geocaching or geocaching.com here.

It's about how to apply things that work for geocaching (4-5 million people) to OSM, so we get even more free map data.

But lets just count that as +1 for people who don't need more motivation.

I know this problem with junctions I didn't take. I know there its a junction, but I didn't go there. So drawing just a road would be missleading to anyone counting crossings (like in '3rd junction left'). I then normally draw just a small stub of crossing road to record the junction as such, but don't give new road data I can't back up with a track. This leads to the problem you describe: short sections if unfinished roads that aren't tagged as such.

@!i! Interesting. I once thought about this technique when doing whole villages on my motorbike. But to put something on the map which just was a dot till then, streets are enough for me.

Turn restrictions are things I want to add while on the go, while driving in my car or walking along in the city. Mostly I WANT to do it when in a foreign city and my Garmin tells me to turn left where I'm not allowed to.

So I'm looking for something for everyday use. Not for gearing up and 'go mapping'.

Thanks nevertheless.

@Rhubarb I thought about this method, but found some flaws for my setup. My phones gps system is slow to get a fix and not very precise. So to get a good geotagged photo it would take me some two minutes. And I would probably not even know from which side i approched the crossing when looking at the coordinates of the picture.

Not to mention the hundreds of photos I would have to take which most of them being completely useless as the crossing would have perfectly fine turning restrictions. thats the thing I would have to evaluate with the OSM Tracker software. Can I quickly determin if there are turning restrictions present in the osm data or not.

There are online maps for this: * http://osm.virtuelle-loipe.de/restrictions

but can I get it on my phone?

I will certainly take a look. Thank you.

>How long have you been using OSM?
approx. since two years
>Approximately how often do you use and edit OSM?
Use: about 2-3 times a week (on my garmin gps unit)
Edit: about once a month
>What are your incentives for editing in OSM?
Getting better maps mostly. Sometimes the fun of editing itself.
>What is your preferred method of attaining data to upload (e.g. GPS points, digitizing, uploading photographs)?
GPS traces by my garmin etrex, personal memory and sometimes field notes.
>Do you feel there is much disparity in the reliability of OSM data?
Yes, and even more from country to country than from urban to rural areas.
>If so, do you think this could be the result of the socio-economic dynamics of an area or the method of attaining data etc?
I don't think the method of attaining data differs that much. It's simply a matter of how many mappers cover an area.

Thanks. Is this permanently enabled, or just when I switch to 'bicycle' as the mode of transportation on my garmin?

Nevertheless I won't make myself new friends when going with my motorbike along designated bicycle lanes and ways. It's really about using public roads for motor vehicles, but avoid big (and boringly straight) expressways.

You are absolutly righht. I should go and fix some osm bugs.

But I also agree that (at least my) failure in doing so on my own is mostly due to the...well....inferior interface. You can't even search for a city on the osm bugs map.

You also mentioned getting an rss feed for my area. Where can I do that? I can't find a link on the openstreetbugs site nor in their FAQ.

Die Zeitverzoegerung bei JOSM ist dieselbe. Das Rendern der neuen Kacheln wird nciht vom verwendeten Editor beeinflusst.

Du meinst die Offline-Version von Potlatch (dem Editor hinter dem "Edit" Button am oberen Rand)? Anders als die Online Variante werden dort die Anderungen nicht sofort uebernommen, sondern erst wenn man explizit "Speichern" klickt. Hast du das getan?

Sorry, Typo: Trachback -> Trackback

Auch hier der Hinweis: die Funktion "Tracks speichern" ist etwas verwirrend benannt. Sie dient nicht dazu, den Track irgendwie zu archivieren. Die Funktion ist dazu gedacht, sich aufgezeichnete Tracks fur die "Trachback" Funktion zurueckzulegen. Die Tracks werden dabei deutlich vereinfacht, da es pro gespeicherten Track ein Punktelimit gibt (1000?). Zudem fliegen wie schon bemerkt die Timestamps raus.

Bessere Loesung: Tracks auf der SD-Card speichern lassen (ebenfalls verwirrend als "auf dem Chip" benannt.) Damit werden die Daten nicht komprimiert, vereinfacht oder gekuerzt. Zudem steht natuerlich viel mehr Speicherplatz zur Verfuegung. Zumindest mein eTrex legt zudem fuer jeden Tag eine neue Datei an, was beim Sortieren hilft. Ausserdem kann man die .gpx Tracks einfach in andere Programme laden, ohne erst z.B. mit MapSource oder GPSBabel aus dem internen Speicher uebertragen zu muessen.

Btw: the 'Save Tracks' function of Gramins GPSMap and eTrex units is (despite the confusing name) not targeted at 'storing' the tracks, but just for making them available for the Trackback routing function. The get compressed by that action and loose a lot of detail (and quite possible tha timestamps).

This function originates from the time before SDCards and was used to fit as much routable tracks into the tiny internal memory as possible saving every unneccesary bit.

You should definatly use the 'save to chip' option and get you full detail tracks from that using a card reader or the mass storage mode of your device.