Rochester kind of petered out after that day you mentioned. But as a whole Rochester is a case study on Pokemon GO (and more broadly, gameification-inspired) vandalism at its worst. By some miracle, Niantic actually updated the map data they (still) use while the vandal was active, but somehow none of their bad changes made it in.

TravGW is still active, but Pokemon Vandalism seems to be a bit subdued for now. The decline in shenanigans seems to have coincided with Niantic opening up their "Wayfarer" reviewing and POI submission tools for Pokemon GO players, which in-turn seems to have redirected a lot of the mischief and desperation onto Niantic's own platform.

I'm not saying it's stopped, but over the first 3 quarters of 2019 (over 3,000 edits), we saw about a ~1/10 rate of parks added by new users as being fake in Australia, the US, Canada and New Zealand. It's no where near that rate since Wayfarer dropped.

Hi dddave,

Welcome back to OSM!

I can't find any information on these parks existing under these names. These look very much like residential yards, are you sure that leisure=park is the best tag for them?

leisure=park

@freebeer - by all means, be my guest :D

Keep in mind that in this case, the mapper is a rampant sock-puppeteer and has continued to attempt to make strange changes as recently as a couple of months ago such as:
changeset/77344731

Unfortunately, for the OSM community, games like Pokemon GO encourage a culture of multi-accounting (despite it being against the terms of service) and an often unhealthy level of persistence which often seems to translate to some cases of prolonged vandalism such as this location; as well as Akron, Indiana; and of course the very persistent "Rochester Vandal" in Michigan.

Hiya!

You might want to check the buildings around: way/761896210

They're a little strange!

Cheers!

Provided this mapper doesn't add anything else to this location which will send people on a wild goose chase looking for non-existent bed and breakfast business or park, I'm done with this location.

I've taken SomeoneElse's comment here: changeset/73595085 as essentially hinting that they're more or less the same.

Is it ideal? No.
Is what is mapped here useful? No.
Am I happy about the outcome? No.
Do I have better things to spend my time on here than arguing with some fopdoodle over the sketchy use of leisure=garden on the side of their house when no one else seems to care either way? Yes.

That's really generous of you!

Not to be a sceptic, but something like that is kind of a big deal, especially for what is quite a large property. Do you have any local news paper articles or anything you can link me about it?

Sorry to ask, but parks are a common fictional addition thanks for Pokemon GO, and this isn't the first time someone has made similar claims for what turned out to be fantasy changes to the map.

Hi Michael,
No problem at all :), did you need some help un-duplicating things? If so, what was the source you used for the boundaries?

Hi dtfan58,

I commented on one of your earlier changesets but you didn't respond. I've tried searching for Parkerton Forest Park and can't find any information on it.

You've added multiple parks at this location (there's currently 4, 2 of which are stacked on top of each other) are you able to provide your sources or more information on these parks?

Hi Michael,

Are you sure that leisure=park is the right tag for this?

leisure=park

"A park is an area of open space for recreational use, usually designed and in semi-natural state with grassy areas, trees and bushes ... they are largely a "human-sculpted landscapes. Note that there are also areas called "national parks," "landscape parks," or similar that may be shortened to "park." Such large, national-level (and state- and provincial-level in North America) parks not so designed and manicured, but rather left in a more wild and natural state should not get this tag"

There's also an existing area for Nanya station, is it the same feature or different?

relation/7120076#map=12/-33.1801/141.2828

Hi dtfan58,

Welcome to OSM and thanks so much for your recent contribution!

Have you checked out the OSM wiki yet? It's a great resource.

I noticed that you added a park in this changeset, but it looks like it might be a farmyard or something similar?

This is how we define a park on OSM:
leisure=park

Hi EntroFlux, welcome to OSM - I sent you a message about this location several hours ago. This appears to be the location private residence, and you appear to have included some of your personal details in the tags here.

I get that. Tagging on these kinds of places can be kind of confusing.

No problem, I'm not sure if forest is the best fit by OSM definitions, nature reserve tagging or similar might be more appropriate. But this almost certainly isn't an open green field with pitches and other features ;)

I think that you might want landuse=industrial or a similar tag for this location then.

If the building and business has been totally removed, it can also be removed from OSM :)

Hi Schmmidtty, I just received your private message. Apology accepted. I'll respond in detail via DM.

Hi blackcat3434,

This location is already on the map:
way/82862977

On OSM there's a few principles we try to maintain for good practice, two of them are:
Not tagging for the renderer:
osm.wiki/Tagging_for_the_renderer
and
One feature, one OSM element:
osm.wiki/One_feature,_one_OSM_element

If a particular renderer isn't displaying national parks, that's an issue with the renderer, not with OSM.

Yeah, this individual has openly admitted to mapping for Pokemon GO in the past, and unfortunately they seem to represent the small sub-section of the GO community who treat OSM like a game map editor rather than respecting the project for what it is.

Adding fictional parks and paths is unfortunately a very common behaviour for less than honest GO inspired mappers.

I promise that we're not all like that.

How is all of this a nature reserve?
leisure=nature_reserve
It has a school right in the middle of it?

What makes this a recreation ground?
landuse=recreation_ground
"An open green space for general recreation, which often includes formal or informal pitches, nets and so on."