An early definition of wilderness is waste land. If land could not be used for anything then it was left alone - thus it remained in its natural state, and being waste land survived to become what is now regarded as wilderness.

Nice. The fire stations around me are logged/tagged. But not the fire hydrants. They have put blue cats eyes on the roads so the fireies can find them. But not mapped in OSM here.

Additional resources .. water sources .. specifically swimming pools, lakes, reservoirs, rivers as well as water tanks get used as emergency water sources. I know the lakes, reservoirs, rivers get used by the water bombing helicopters so it may be useful to have them show up.

The helicopters probably want the power lines to show up as well… particularly when they are high compared to the surroundings.

Yes for leaving note and source tags! Please.

There are two things marked as ‘construction’ near me .. Both have been that way for over a year. The fact that one of them has no construction on the ground (and I suspect will not have for the next 10 years) leads me to think it is ‘wishful thinking’ rather than fact. But neither have source nor notes .. so I might just delete them and await complaints :P .. But I think I’ll just change them to ‘planned’ … start date = bluemoon :)

Hi, Heaps of mapping to be done. For roads Nice to get the locals involved. :) Though you have to watch the ‘short cuts’ they may make from time to time. There is a fair bit of India’s country side not mapped either.

POI As a tourist I’m interested in restaurants, toilets, parks, train stations, air ports, theaters, shops, police stations, hospitals .. these would be of interest to locals too Then historic sights, hotels - less interesting to locals..

I’m primarily correcting routing errors - mainly roads not joined together. But while I’m there .. I do see other things that I correct if I can. But nothing beats a local on the ground.

Good luck people.

If you are adding things .. add the ‘source’ tag so people can see that it is not a copyright source? Might make it clear to those who might delete if they consider it copyright.

Welcome … more Ozies is good!

OSM is a data base of information.

Then the app gets to use that data.

So you have two possible sources of ‘error’. Correcting OSM is easy - you can do that.

Correcting the app means getting the author/s to do something .. depending on how they see it, it may get done or it might just take a while. With the apps .. you can chose to use another one that might better meet your requirements.

Good luck.

1. Different types of maps .. yes. But this is a renderer issue .. tourist maps? Well tourist usually use public transport.. and want hotels, bars, etc

2. Offline maps are essential in some places .. e.g. those places don’t have cell phone coverage. In Australia the biggest telco advertises 98% coverage .. that is 98% of the population - where they live.. but that would be less than 15% of the actual land area. I like the way OSMAnd renders for bicycles… but to include ‘tourist’ on it? No .. too cluttered. I think the tourist map would be better rendered as a separate thing.

3. I’m considering a trip to India .. so down loaded an OSM map for there .. many of the roads are not connected .. so auto routing does not work. There is a lot of base work to be done in various areas to get the map world wide into a more consistent state. These changes may be small and you may not see them .. but they have an impact on useability.

Keep thinking .. ideas are welcome, as is basic work on the map where ever your interests are.

Normal thing, nothing unusual.

GPS specific; When you go into a tunnel some GPSes assume you travel in a straight line to the next place where they get a signal.

All GPSes when they loose a single satellite signal can ‘jump’ in sensed location - even if the real location has not changed. Simply the single satellite signal sullied a correction signal .. that is lacking when that satellite is lost.

You may have a reflected signal off some local object that distorts the GPS signal in such a way as to off set the calculated location. Expensive survey GPS systems exclude signals below 10 degrees above the horizon. They even have options to do more, thus allowing for local conditions.

Some GPSes will display the expected ‘error’ under the present reception conditions .. this is usually the mathematical standard deviation (1 sigma). I’d expect that your GPS has a 10 meter expected ‘error’. Most of the time it is less than that .. but some of the time it gets up towards that figure, even exceeding it for a little of the time. Thus your tracks are ‘about right’. People who have access to many GPS tracks of the same thing apply maths to get a good single track.

Rather than something great .. I just add stuff. Local mostly, some times in places I am interested in. There is a wiki page on Ozie specific things .. umm

osm.wiki/Tips_especially_for_Aussies - index osm.wiki/Australian_Tagging_Guidelines - most usefull!

Not so long ago, as a new contributor, I quickly learnt .. don’t delete stuff. Even when I’d been past something for years .. and ‘knew’ it was not there .. I’d go and actually look and there it was.

So my principle is to add, maybe move, modify but try not to delete. I think the is a very good guide for everyone.

About 15 pages of these posts …. bug? or user error?

Some may have spotted something they can contribute in there local area, once done they leave. Nothing wrong with that, they may come back when they travel some and see something else to change.

I find them confusing… And for some of them I’ve found that there are not tags that precisely describe what is there e.g. arcade!. The highway at -5 is presently being reconstructed .. and was wrong before construction started (the western side one way at layer 0, while the eastern side (the other direction) was at layer 1).. However I’m letting that one go until construction stops .. Xmas? I think if the layer tag has been used inappropriately then it may also point to other inaccuracies?

The usual ‘universal’ file for GPS tracks/waypoints is the .gpx format … that can be imported by most programs.

Hi again, Just looking at your changeset comments .. How paths/footpaths and tracks show up depends on the mapmaker (render) you use… for bicycle riders there is velo map .. for hikers there is something else. All of them use OSM data .. but show it in different ways… if you have an android phone then OSMAnd has 4 settings .. the bicycle one I quite like .. but you can change it around to car and pedestrian versions - all using the same OSM data but give different views and different data.

Zoom levels .. you cannot change that using the OSM tags .. well more correctly you should not use the OSM tags to change the view .. that is called ‘tagging for the render’ - not a good thing because the data should be as correct as ‘we’ can make it .. then it is the renders job to show it correctly .. and in a way ‘we’ want. So select the render that shows the data the way you like?

I’m still not sure of the difference between a ‘Footpath’ and a ‘Path’ :) I take the view that a ‘footpath’ is normally alongside a road, where as a ‘Path’ is elsewhere .. and usually wider and more interesting…

For one view on what things look like and where they should/could be used wiki.openstreetmap.org/Map_Features‎ is helpful.

Welcome!

Please keep mapping things that interest you in your local area… they probably be of interest to others too. I also map stuff of places I may go to or have an interest in too. That way I can use the mapped data if I go there, and maybe correct and add to it for the future.

Fill in your details of where you are from … there are a few Windhams around about. From your data format your North American.

Thanks maxerickson .. Useful.

It picks up highways with different layers joining. … some of ‘mine’ are layer -5 to layer 0 … extreme disparity. http://keepright.ipax.at/report_map.php?zoom=10&lat=40.72381&lon=-74.00086&layers=B0T&ch=0%2C231%2C232&show_ign=1&show_tmpign=1 I can understand going form one layer to the next .. but not zooming from -5 to 0!

Does not pick up parks/industrial/parking layers .. so still using the text editor to find those.

I’ve a few to do so it will take some time.

Welcome. I’m newish too to OSM. I’ve been adding some of the local drinking water spots, and buss shelters (for rain storms)… around my home area lately. Oh .. toilets can be handy too - even for water or shelter. Yet to get to grips with tagging roads as (my) preferred cycle routes, others use them too so while they may not have some official status they are preferred to other available routes. Join the ‘local’ OSM talk group for local stuff .. you may have someone near you to keep an eye out for any errors you make. I usual manage to catch ,my own before someone jumps on me. Good luck.

I’ve been mapping well outside my area! Basically the other side of the world. My nation has an interest there and I think there are details there that would be of use/interest. So I’ve added them. There is still some work for me to do ther, but I’m waiting on - copyright permission, time to read a book.

‘We’ as mappers have a desire to map things that ‘we’ are interested in, have knowledge of. So I don’t think OSM is going to get consistency but rather a patchwork of interesting places, not a bad thing to have :). While it would be ‘nice to have’ a consistent map, the areas that don’t get used would be a waste of effort. And mapping those areas by someone who has not interest in them may well turn them off OSM. So while a nice idea it may not be easy to achieve, and I’d certainly not try to make volunteers do something they ‘d rather not do. The more people involved though the better - each of us has different interests and so all areas may well be mapped eventually.

Welcome!

It depends on where you are as to what is better .. In some places OSM is better.. in other places?

It also depends on what ‘better’ means to you … car, truck, pedestrian, bicyclist, shopper, ?

You can help make it better still by improving it - where the improving bit is judged by you and in those areas of the world that interest you. I’ve been doing stuff around my home, but also some stuff upto 4,000 km away.