@lyx, no, layer=-1 does not mean underground. It simply means that a feature is below those nearby with layer=0 to layer=5. The fact that the default is layer=0 and is used for the vast majority of features that lie flat on the ground is just a happy accident.

FWIW, I agree that the vitriol in the said diary entry is too much. The website owner may have been rude in his second e-mail, but Paul's response by ranting here in OSM is not appropriate.

I'm glad to hear that our blog posts inspired you to contribute to the project. OSM really needs all the contributors it can get!

Have you seen maning's Philippine maps for Garmin devices made from OSM (http://esambale.wikispaces.com/osmphil_garmin)? He has an experimental edition for Magellan units (http://esambale.wikispaces.com/osmphil_garmin#toc6) and you might want to try that and help him improve it. :-)

It appears that they want to have their cake and eat it too, which OSM's license won't let them.

But NearMap isn't good enough. The accuracy estimates say that the NearMap photos are accurate to about 1-3 meters. If you have a 1-meter-wide sidewalk, that's a huge amount of error.

Oh, and Israel too. :-)

Aside from France, Bulgaria also had a season of their Survivor there.

I've thought about this too (mapping streets as areas), but until we get very precise GPS (down to the 10-centimeter level?) or highly-accurately-orthorectified and very-high-resolution aerial imagery, I think this sort of nano-mapping will be several years off.

But I certainly want a short-term solution to mapping routable sidewalks, especially sidewalks without any separation from the street.

How did you get such a zoomed-in image? It seems to be higher than zoom 18.

If the admin boundary has its own postal code as this example seems to do, why not just tag the admin boundary relation with an additional addr:postcode tag?

@Candid, well, the Google Map Maker TOS states that contributors should not copy from copyrighted sources without permission. However, I don't think Google and the Map Maker user base actively police for copyright infringement unlike in OSM.

Nice! Someone has been editing in Romblon also recently. It's good to see other areas in the Philippines get some action. :-)

Thanks for contributing to Romblon! Places outside Metro Manila and other urban areas really could use some map loving. :-)

Well, I've been sending messages to some newbies via the OSM messaging system. I only send to newbies that seem to want to stick around, so I wait until they contribute for at least several days before sending them a welcome message. This is to avoid bothering the one-time contributors. :-)

I guess we need to start "organizing" the welcoming committee to help bring the newbies up to speed. :-)

Well, there *are* some geodata stuff that is ill-fit to be included in OSM (in its current schema). DEM data (whether as a grid of points or as contour lines) is one such thing.

I agree with RichardB's solution. Draw an unconnected way approximately where the road is and just have a note=* tag and definitely no highway=* tags. This makes it visible to other editors but without affecting renderers.

They have male-only urinals on the street there? I thought we only had those here in my city. :-P

Good luck with your son! Despite what some other people here in OSM might think, family comes first before mapping. ;-)

I personally tag the lot a church is on with amenity=place_of_worship. After all, the lot is owned by the diocese and the church includes both the physical building and the church grounds.