I’d say notes (and changeset comments) could do with a notification service on the OSM website - like personal messages - rather than just using emails (as some people have said they went into spam). That way they will get noticed more and conversations can occur.

For notes - there could be status categories which can be selected for each note:

awaiting new imagery - to allow a basic outline of the construction area and/or new roads needs a GPS survey - driving/cycling/walking through needs a full survey - to get all of the street names and details

Surely once you tag a path with bicycle=designated it is no longer just a basic “path” and therefore that information (that it is for bicycles) should be rendered on the map?

One issue I have with notes (and changeset comments) is that users are only notified by email or any comments/resolved notes.

Wonder if it would be possible to get an unread notification in the top corner of the website like when a user is sent a message?

Hi, I notice you have already resolved a few notes, including this one: note/1160783

This note refers to the tagging on this path: way/294956771 - however you have not edited the map and actually fixed the problem before resolving the note.

Same with this one - note/1191105 - you need to actually edit the map to fix the problem instead of just resolving the note.

Richard, I clicked on maldav’s location and saw a note here: note/1227280#map=14/54.4893/-1.1352&layers=N - where the Sustrans route differs from OSM.

I would be wary of trusting the Sustrans map too much, as when I first began editing cycle routes in my area I noticed some signs on the ground disagreed with the Sustrans map. They corrected their map once I emailed them.

If you can - survey the route, make the changes in OSM and also contact Sustrans if their map is wrong.

Also the 52 route you mention in your note has been renamed to “Former RCN 52” relation/5651364 so maybe it’s no longer signposted? (and could maybe be removed if that’s the case).

Don’t forget any changes may take a week or two to show up on Andy’s map.

You can use https://overpass-api.de/achavi/?changeset=xxx to analyse a changeset. For the bookmarklet - you don’t drag and drop a changeset url, you just click on the bookmark when on a changeset page, which then opens up the first url I posted.

Yeah the ESRI imagery isn’t as good quality, but in most places it is newer or the same age as the DG imagery. Useful for updating areas marked as construction. With offsets it’s normally a case of aligning back to Bing, especially if there’s no GPS traces to help.

Might be worth posting in https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-scotland/ or contacting the mappers from Edinburgh Uni who seem to be doing most of the work on buildings/gardens/walls etc.

If you can survey areas, then having a look for OSM notes to resolve, or issues in QA tools like Osmose and keepright can be useful for the map.

@Warin61 problem with using fixme for something that needs fixing soon is they aren’t as visible as notes. You need to use something like Osmose, keepright etc. for fixmes rather than the simple OSM website notes interface and you can keep an eye on them in your area with an RSS feed.

Is it allowed to use Geograph images to map other things as well?

Wouldn’t it be a good idea if important places like this were semi-protected like some Wikipedia articles? Or if there was a tool which kept an eye on any changes to important nodes?

Good stuff. Don’t forget to add surface and smoothness tags where possible :)

And if you’re looking for things to map, make sure you turn on the Notes feature and also check out http://keepright.ipax.at/report_map.php?zoom=14&lat=56.06445&lon=-3.21931 for possible errors you might be able to fix.

@RobJN that would be a good quarterly project, though maybe better for spring/summer when people are more likely to get out and about to survey things?

Would be nice if there was a better way to keep track of all the Fixme/Notes though. Something where you could add extra info and sort by category, eg construction/future developments, shops, road names, etc.

but let’s just focus on the mast/tower issue since it seems independent enough to be eventually resolved in a positive way.

Well that’s why I posted the example images, to see if you thought they were a mast or tower.

The point I was making with man_made=communications_tower is, if it is just the same as man_made=tower + tower:type=communication then surely the single tag can be eliminated? Having a third tag just adds confusion, results in inconsistent tagging and means there’s another tag to render.

Fixme-tagged items are also highlighted in keep right! http://keepright.ipax.at/report_map.php?zoom=14&lat=56.06445&lon=-3.21931

@BushmanK didn’t realise there were so many towers mapped - even more reason why they should be rendered on osm-carto! I like your inverted T/Y idea, and I think for prominent masts/towers (height>100m?) they should be rendered at a higher zoom level than the z17 currently for masts.

Reading the wiki it does make me wonder, what is the point of having a third tag - man_made=communications_tower? It’s apparently for a “huge tower” but in the UK it’s being used both for mobile phone masts and some, but not all, large towers. So should this tag be discouraged, given it’s only been used ~ 3,800 times? Surely tower+tower:type+height is better?

The wiki’s photo of the “mobile phone mast” for a mast is also confusing. That should probably be changed, and a proper description of how to tag a “cell site” or “base station” added.

Editors could be improved as well - iD has man_made=mast described as Radio Mast, and other presets could be added.

Here’s some examples to consider, from a good site for UK/Ireland photos:

http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/310144 - mast, but not shown anywhere in the wiki

http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/4952269 - probably a tower?

http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3383904 - again a tower, but a mast in the wiki?

http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5198501 - tower

http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1613094 - it is guyed so should be a mast, but needs additional tags to add detail. A good example of why man_made=mast shouldn’t be rendered on its own!

http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/803411 - towers

I agree it is confusing, especially when the wiki’s “Is it a mast or a tower?” examples all look very similar yet are defined in three different ways. Then you have osm-carto which only renders a mast, so many people will just add a mast to the map so that it gets rendered when it might indeed be a tower.

For example in the UK - this is mapped as a tower when it should be a mast as it is guyed: node/872106782 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_Hill_transmitting_station

In the UK cell site are normally called “mobile phone masts” when technically they are not masts but rather small towers. But then if you add them as a tower/communication_tower they don’t get rendered on the map.

Perhaps you could find a number of worldwide examples, with both the technically correct, colloquial word for each structure and OSM definition so we can see how big the problem is?

Well we’re now at 89.3% according to http://robert.mathmos.net/osm/schools/progress/ so it’s reaching saturation point. Perhaps another post on talk-gb etc. will help, and an update 1 year on at the end of next month would no doubt help get some of those remaining schools mapped.

Yes, use fixme=needs survey instead of creating a new tag - then it will be picked up by QA tools like keepright and osmose.