NZ TV has clearly gone downhill since 2008. The words Stock Effluent come to mind. Unless you want to watch it on Sunday morning, when the programs are funded by the taxpayer rather than advertising.

Ah yes Stock Effluent Disposal Points - like the one that is here - but not marked (currently) in OSM. Thanks for the pointer about what to map while riding on public transport.

If you have ever followed a stock truck (and trailer) B-train on one of New Zealand’s highways you will quickly learn why it is important for the (truck) drivers to know where the Stock Effluent Disposal Points are. Because if they haven’t disposed of their Stock Effluent and the tank fills up then you will need to have a full windscreen washer tank in your vehicle to keep the screen clean, or increase your following distance by a few more seconds.

This is also a good reason to know where the passing lanes are. (Passing a B-train stock truck, even on those long straight Canterbury roads, should not be attempted lightly, if at all.)

Oh, and it is useful for campervan drivers to know where the Stock Effluent Disposal Points are, too. So their drivers can dispose of the effluent generated by these vehicles as well.

Tagging a one lane bridge also has me puzzled. I don’t think that many OSMers understand the issue. The way is bidirectional but can only be used in one direction at a time. And one direction has priority over the other. About the best suggestion I have seen is bridge=yes, lanes=1, priority=forward. Though my final worry is how does one tag a one lane road-rail bridge? Perhaps bridge=yes, lanes=1, priority=train:forward?

I understand and accept that a map may visualise features in a different way that reality. For example: The road width on a street map needs to be large enough to print the street name inside it, although this means it might seem to cover the front lawn and half the house on properties on both sides of a street. However, it is good to know that when putting something new on the map that if I have plotted it 5 or 10 metres away from its real world position, but, relative to everything else, it is in the “correct” position, then it is reasonably “accurate” even thought the position is not “precise”. And since GPS be unable to do much better, I can feel comfortable that my contributions are, at least, not harmful.

I have already realised that just deleting stuff is probably not a good idea. Sometimes, though I feel I need to replace stuff with different stuff, or move stuff around because it is in the wrong place or designated as the wrong thing, so correct it by changing it - not deleting and replacing - changing is easier. I have even spotted discrepancies in data imported from a government agency! But I am loath to touch it because I assume it is accurately plotted, so can still be useful as a geo-reference point in the absence of GPS data. And I also realise I didn’t really KNOW the area quite well enough to put it on the map, unless I went and had a(nother) good look at it (twice) before putting it on the map - even after living in the area for over 20 years! I see so much more now which I just never noticed was there before.