One of the biggest problems with taxonomic data quality is that the names change all the time. It’s very common for a species name to change or to be split into two separate species. But it even happens at the genus level and above. One of the most common trees in Arizona was formerly known as Prosopis velutina, but now it’s called Neltuma velutina. The original name is semi-valid, but it’s considered a synonym. Is there any mechanism in Wikidata to add a new name and link from the old name in a way that indicates the old name is a deprecated synonym? And what do we do with all the trees in OSM that have the old name?

What settings did you use on the GoPro to capture the images at a reasonable distance apart?

These are great ideas for enhancing tree mapping. I just have one little correction: Casuarina is an angiosperm with “true” leaves that appear needle-like. A better example would be a pine tree.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casuarina_equisetifolia

How do you mount the camera on your bicycle?

One of the issues with tagging plant names is that the names change over time. For example, Prosopis velutina is a very common tree in my area (velvet mesquite). But the name was recently changed to Neltuma velutina. Most people still call it Prosopis, and will likely do so for years, as it takes time for the public to adapt to name changes. So it would be confusing to change every instance of the old name to the new name. There doesn’t seem to be a method for tagging taxonomic synonyms in OSM. It seems the best option is to use the wikidata tag and make sure wikidata is updated with the current name and synonyms.

Thanks for the clarification. I wish more local governments would follow their lead!

Not all government data sources are compatible with OSM’s license. Federal sources are public domain by default, so those are fine to use. But state and local sources could have any kind of license, many of which are not compatible with OSM. Often the license is not specified, which seems to be the case with several of the sources mentioned in this post. You need to check each source and make sure it is compatible. When in doubt, contact the provider and get explicit permission to use the data in OSM.

You can learn more here.

Thanks for sharing your experience. Your contributions are so valuable.

I’ve been an active mapper since 2018, and my contributions are still mostly just mapping details in my city. I enjoy going to conferences and reading diary entries from people doing the high-level work of management and software development, but I’ll leave that work to the people who enjoy doing it.

Welcome to OSM! I’m glad you’re working on your hometown. It definitely needs a lot of work. I’ll be visiting San Diego in a few weeks, and I look forward to doing some mapping while I’m there.