osm.wiki/Relations/Relations_to_GPX will convert a relation to a GPX tracklog: a bit of fiddling and it could be adjusted to make a GPX route, I guess. (NCN 4 isn't entirely tagged as a relation yet, though.)

And there's always the downloadable Garmin cyclemap...

Essentially I think it just needs to be four single pages:

1. what OSM is and how it works (including brief explanation of copyright and GPSs);
2. how and when to use Potlatch;
3. how and when to use JOSM;
4. an introduction to the OSM community, and ideas for where to go next.

All the core stuff, but nothing more, should be on these pages. Trouble-shooting stuff (e.g. how to download tracks from your GPS, which GPS to buy, etc.) should be on separate pages - ideally those which are already on the wiki.

We don't need a comprehensive manual, just a getting-started guide. Something like osm.wiki/Beginners_Guide_1.5 is way too much detail (I mean, does a newbie really need to know how Osmarender works?), and I think we can be fairly light on the "why do it", too - if you've gone to the Beginners' Guide, you already want to do it.

Happy to help if you get stuck into it. :)

Could you be persuaded to "slash and burn" rather than "edit", Harry?

TomH has generated z15 tiles and they'll be in Potlatch in a week or so. I wouldn't want to offer z16 or above, though - it'd imply a level of accuracy that simply wasn't present in the original surveying.

DO NOT USE JOSM FOR TRACING FROM NPE

(can I stress that any more?)

The NPEmaps/JOSM WMS layer was done by taking the raw sheets and rotating the entire sheet, very crudely, in the likes of Photoshop. The new NPE layer in Potlatch has been rectified to the National Grid on a 5km x 5km grid - vastly more accurate. Please, for the sake of accurate maps, use Potlatch's new NPE layer for tracing (or, alternatively, provide a 900913 plugin for JOSM so it can use it too :) ).

You'll find out about relations when you start editing!

You can often find what's a right of way by the signposts. I don't know Snowdonia that well, but last time I went up Snowdon (halfway - it started snowing something chronic so we came down) there were little waymarker signs on the gateposts pointing the way, and indicating whether it was a footpath or a bridleway.

Ha ha. FSVO "easier" maybe. I tried using the proper way to do it - in fact, I spent half the afternoon using GML which should logically be much more flexible than GPX - but the only thing that'd work (in this browser, at least) was said evil piece of GPX code...

(seriously, welcome!)

Coo, the big name geobloggers are moving in - we'll have Jack Dangermond as an OSMer next...

It takes up to a week for the map to be updated - usually every Wed/Thu or so.

But aside from that, you need to give your trail some tags for it to show up. Right now it's just a line. Without tags there's no way to know what it is - a road? a footpath? a county boundary?

http://www.airdriebathgateraillink.co.uk/faq has lots more. From the FAQ it doesn't seem that the route is all necessarily closing instantly. I'd be tempted to keep it tagged for the time being but with a note/description tag.

I should add something to let you ignore coastline ways, really. They're a pain in the ****, don't really have anything in common with the rest of the database, and are probably best left to those who understand them (who are invariably JOSM users).

Anyway, if Potlatch says "it's saving for three hours", it probably isn't. More likely the server has timed out and hasn't sent a response back.

A lot of areas have really good rural coverage thanks to NPE now. I've done lots of rural roads in the Cotswolds, Steve Chilton's done huge numbers of rivers in Wales, and so on.

Best to use the Potlatch layer (rather than the JOSM WMS) if possible as the rectification is much, much more accurate. I'm rectifying a bunch more sheets at the moment, should have them uploaded before too long.

The other thing to do is make sure you take the back-roads parallel to your usual commute!

Forum: http://forum.openstreetmap.org/

Mailing lists: http://lists.openstreetmap.org/

Nom nom nom.

L-R: Dave, me, Shaun, Tom.

lcn?!

You can delete a whole way in Potlatch by selecting the way then Shift+Delete. :)

The majority of the National Cycle Network in the UK is on-road in this way, so I'd be tempted to tag as either ncn=yes or rcn=yes (depending on whether you consider the Route Verte national or regional).

Brilliant. Really good to see how NCN1 is coming together through the efforts of lots of different contributors...

I'd call it more an opportunity than a cause for concern (sorry, I know that sounds cheesy). All open source/crowdsourcing/whatever projects are predominantly male. OSM actually has a chance to be more equal, because the barriers to entry should be less - no need to learn a programming language or an arcane set of rules like Wikipedia's.

But to do so, we'd need to encourage other forms of mapping than the ever-so-slightly-Aspergers housing estate standard; make the tools more user-friendly; and offer them on less geeky platforms too (think less Java, more iPhone).