A great summary of where we are at so far.

Actually (from osmstats.altogetherlost.com) it is more like 4/5ths or 80% don’t make an edit at all (208,000 from 1 million).

[http://osmstats.altogetherlost.com/index.php?item=members under the graph No. of members who are the last modifier… (Node, Way or Relation)]

But there more as in the past since the license change 6 months about 350,000 new users have joined and only about 25,000 of those users have made edits. So the current rate is about 7% of new users in the past 6 months actually commit an edit.

But there are many reasons for this (I suspect even more spammers than we didn’t catch, etc) and didn’t want to be negative just to get a better understanding of the stats so we know if we improve the “conversion rate” - but lets shout about the million “users”.

Also there is a new group the Welcome Working Group that is helping address how to welcome new users and encourage more editing and identifying the reasons why so few do edit.

osm.wiki/User:Mvexel/Welcome_Working_Group

It is natural=sand that gets rendered. I see no problem with this.

I dabbled with mapping golf courses earlier this year. Even though I have never played and have no interest….I just thought it was odd that “famous” places/places in the news were not mapped when you could armchair map them easily.

I was considering it as a project (detailed mapping of golf courses and creating useful examples of the wiki - like leisure = pitch, sport = golf and golf = green for the green - both tagging for the wiki and render) but got bored (and started the football stadium project) and only mapped parts of a few.

Here is Muirfeild where I mapped the 1st hole as a sort of experiment.

osm.org/?lat=56.041594&lon=-2.82428&zoom=18&layers=M

There is one bunker that is mapped near green that is golf=bunker and natural=sand that is rendered, the rest are beach as that is what is mapped most.

This is very common I would say the de facto standard when mapping golf courses.

I don’t agree with tagging it as beach as I have no idea why they are not mapped it as natural=sand.

And now it is a classic case of the growing “anti-tagging for the renderer” and refusing to state it has sand in when it obviously has.

I tell you what rather than blindly following the wiki maybe someone could update the wiki.

From what I understand there are many dev but only 1 admin.

thanks for the support. Yes, lets discuss.

There are few issues that I am coming across.

I had a quick look it seems that you have not joined the footpath lines to anything.

Join them to the roads, etc then routing will work correctly.

But it would be nice to show the pub name like Google Maps goes. That area isn’t even highly/micro mapped yet.

Yeah as well the universally known blue square for train and tube stations……to go with showing all the (disused) tube lines underground on the map…..

At least Mapbox got UK styling right

http://mapbox.com/blog/improved-british-rail-icons/

Great you got them to switch however again our own map lets them down as the renders doesn’t display their pub name.

Why would any company want to switch when it is like that?

I know it is down to the renderer, zoom level, etc but unless you start getting other map providers involved and then their custom maps involved it will not appear (hardly simple/desirable).

I often find “OpenStreetMap is too cluttered”, etc really means “its not the same as Google maps” Most people want to see exactly the same as Google. Really do they complain that Google maps is too cluttered in areas it has buildings, footpaths compared to those without…..no they don’t. Therefore I don’t take too cluttered to seriously.

Personally I like seeing the detail. In fact I would like to see more things rendered, lets make multiple lane roads bigger, deeper zoom layers, etc on the main/Mapnik map. It discourages people from mapping in detail. Why should anyone map for example, a skateboarding park if it never appears? We need a full detailed map for these things. And like has been sated openstreetmap is the map for 99% of people.

Maybe just make the options to change the map style more visible - Maybe even first time visitors get a option screen for map style. Get new kids on the block have the map options on the homepage. Some of great terrain Mapbox style maps. http://mapbox.com/blog/mapbox-streets-terrain/ Or beautiful Stamen http://maps.stamen.com (great example of showing different options to maps on their homepage. We could do something like this…)

We do need to make more of this fact. Gary Gale from Nokia maps http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSRWy9kMf00&feature=relmfu thinks we need to do more with OSM styles too. (about 25 mins in)

And make it so you can save you settings you you always have your mapstyle.

Which of your chsngesets

@Jopparn/edits

is not showing up?

Completely agree pink duck.

The single most needed feature for OSM is to have the site with all the features we can offer. Have routing and everything else in between on openstreetmap.org

The map looks so dated.

99% of people just look at the map (it is true no matter what the OSMers say that it is about data) and think we cannot do these things.

Good to see you still have the OpenStreetMap bug. Keep it up. You’ll be a pro in no time at all.

You might be interested in the following if you have not seen already. They are comparisons from “official” Ordinance Survey maps to the Openstreetmap one.

Stokey is nearly fully covered but it is nice to hightlight the odd road or two that might be missing (or new streets, etc) and if you are passing you can check the road names.

http://www.itoworld.com/product/data/osm_analysis/main http://www.itoworld.com/product/data/osm_analysis/area?name=City+Of+Stoke+On+Trent

There are a few missing just off Leek Road near the station so around where you have been mapping.

http://www.itoworld.com/product/data/osm_analysis/map_browser?bbox=387682.531,345176.717917,388512.969,345686.189083&layers=os_locator&base_style=white,aa_2&clear_map_history=true&referrer=area

Any questions about mapping just ask me via mail here or post on the user diaries.

Generally Bing imagery is very good around that part of the world. I am mapping down the road in Derby.

Most roads don’t change for decades so feel free to add/tweak them from the Bing imagery.

That junction looks fine (osm.org/browse/way/52998009/history) - you can see the road markings in Bing for one thing for direction - I am not sure what Sanderd17 is on about.

Oh about that junction is it really the A53 for that short distance and not the A52? Surely it is the A52 throughout there.

If you don’t think more detail is needed. (You have a load of detail in your area)

I would not feel under pressure to micro-map everything. Just take your time and map thinks you like and you think other people could sensibly need.

Many old school mappers have already forced out newer mappers (and existing) that use sources. There holy than thou attitude is problematic to the community.

Personally I try and survey on the ground and use it with OS locator in areas heavily mapped and/or I am local too.

But armchair mapping for other areas that are not mapped by local and not likely to be mapped. The around 50% coverage on OSM haven’t had anyone map on the ground for…well ever.

It is unrealistic to wait another decade or so until we get a mapper in the area.

For most of the UK these areas are tagged nature_reserve.

That is the way it is used in the UK.

You might have thought you were being balanced Harry but to be fair it wasn't very balanced - it was from an anti Armchair mapper viewpoint. And overall it still is despite my changes.

I know many people do dislike armchair mapping but an anti armchair mapping standpoint is not helpful overall to the community. Armchair mappers are a large part of the community who are seen as a second class citzen but the anti-armchair mapping movement.

I am up for some of this hopefully I will be back based on London in a few weeks for a new contract. I was thinking I would do some more effort in London before/for the Olympics.

Oh about "armchair" mapping in general:

Harry, that wiki on Armchair mapping is not balanced at all. It is very anti armchair mapping. IMHO written by an old school mapper that doesn't embrace the modern toools we now have available.

A balanced approach would be adding "advantages" rather than just "disadvantages".
(Here are a few advantages of the top of my head

a) quicker to get coverage. I can get many, many times more coverage mapped doing armchair versus normal/old school mapping.
b) Some things are difficult to do without armchair mapping/aerial imagery. Building outlines, etc.
c) more accurate quality “form” of the roads, etc- e.g. You can get much better curves of roads via armchair mapping. have spent ages changes traffic islands, major roads etc to this from obviously inaccurate. No one maps on foot, car, etc by going down the white lines in the middle of road. With armchair mapping you can do this with ease. (you can always realign, if needed, afterwards)
d) The entry level to participate is lower, you don't need expensive equipment, it is less elitist.
e) most things road, etc don’t change for decades. If roughly know an area and you are mapping/tweaking major roads that you know were there x months ago and have not heard they have changed you don’t need to physically walk/drive down the road to map it as some normal/old school mappers would insist on.

(maybe I should add some disadvantages to normal/old school mapping too)

It works best in a combination of some knowledge of the area rather than totally blind – which is how I try and do my mapping.

I have a write a more balanced view on the wiki later.

Yeah i expect a mistake/oversight too. I was a little worried OSM might cut them off from the tile server in fair use as they will have a lot of traffic.
It is early days for them and but a huge site to get onboard for OSM and one were a reasonable percentage might join OSM to make the map better.

and in the openstreetmap view of the map they use tiles straight from the tile.openstreetmap.org server

That isn't allowed either is it?!?