@craigloftus
Existence seems pretty concrete to me. If you can stub your toe against it, it can be mapped. Unless it's been obliterated and fully wastelandified, that is.

If it's just for other mappers, a note-object with what you expect to come back squirreled away in some namespace is polite. Not sure if it needs documenting really, but you should definitely make the tags non-current somehow.

I don't think we actually -need- a complete life-cycle representation, but we seem to be evolving something like {construction → current → disused → abandoned → historic}. Ick.

@Sanderd17 OpenGPSTracker uses google maps tiles for its line display. That's too close to tracing from a proprietary source for me :(

@JeF Currently I use a combination of "GPS Logger" http://gpslogger.codeplex.com/ and "OSM Tracker for Android™" http://code.google.com/p/osmtracker-android/ to collect tracker data in GPX format for loading into JOSM (see the OSM wiki...). The situation hasn't changed much for me since I wrote http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/2010-March/048790.html , although osmtracker-android now uses OSM layers for its background (when networked!)

oneway=yes implies a legal restriction, so it's *technically* the wrong tag to use in situations where it's legally possible to ride in both directions (even though that's a really bad idea around road junctions). That said, we blur the distinctions over here (UK) between {cycleways, bridleways, tracks, service roads, footways} by tagging by how the thing appears rather than how it's signposted. Smooth (signed-as-)bridleways are highway=cycleway with horse=yes not vv., at least in Oxford... there's always designation=* for legal RoW status.

The UK doesn't force you to use adjacent cycleways if they're present. We leave forcing cyclists off the road to passing motor traffic driven by shouty red-faced future heart attack victims... :(

I could go with oneway=yes on a cycle track for representing the direction a "suggestion" arrow goes in (the UK has these just over the bike symbol, and they represent turns too). But I'd prefer something like oneway=suggested (for {+arrows -legal}) or oneway=advised (for {-arrows -legal}, to show that the _OSM Mapper_ thinks it's wisest to use the way as a oneway).

Perhaps it would be cleaner to draw a small bounding box with a note explaining that Yahoo!'s imagery is out-of-date here. Much like http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/way/32737099 only in reverse...

Assume you mean replacing somebody else's nodes and ways representing the trail. Yes, it's OK provided you're replacing it with mapping of equal or better quality. It's a Wiki: what you do is done in the expectation that people will change, modify, delete, fiddle with it, and improve it.

Generally though, for really simple edits, I try to retain existing objects where possible though because it makes the object's history easier to read. Though that's a lot less important now with API 0.6 and the History tab.

(It's not possible AFAIK to delete somebody else's uploaded GPS trace: repeated surveys aggregate by design so that you have more GPS points for a given stetch and can position your ways and nodes more accurately :))

Oh excellent. Another fill for the footpaths I've seen and not been able to map on the day :) Those service roads do look to be hanging in space though. Do they continue and join up?

Found a bit of it up on Boar's Hill the other day too, while rolling around adding to the cycle map. Ditto a fragment of Shakespear's Way a day or two before. For now I'm just adding the stuff I cross to the relevant relation as best I can, hopefully without creating duplicates.

Strongly considering getting an HTC Magic (G2, ish) when they come out in the UK, partly because I want to get tinkering with Vespucci. How well does Android shape up for more traditional GPX tracklogging and photo-mapping, OOI?

Being able to edit data directly when on the move is really neat. I enjoy fiddling with Osm2go way too much. Now we just need editors for iPhones and WinCE kit so the orange-sunglasses and pointy-hair crowds can get mapping too ^^

Given that this is Just Plain Wrong :) [1] some JOSM tools for those trying to fix messes like the one above and work with correctly-laid-out areas:

* Drag-select with shift to select multiple nearby nodes before moving,

* Node unGlue, now built in to JOSM. Hit the G key when a single node is selected to split it into /n/ nodes, one per way. And then you can position the nodes correctly. Lovely!

[1] It *is* plain wrong for buildings, which have definite shapes and do not terminate at the centreline of roads. It's less clear for landuse, which is at least in part a notional, balance-of-use-based distinction (along the lines of "this road is residential" vs. "this road is tertiary/unclassified", in fact. Especially for landuse=residential)

A workable scheme seems to have emerged for Oxford's colleges, departments, and PPHs. I prefer it to the Durham system as documented because that conflates 6th-form colleges with university colleges, and doesn't use name when it should. Obviously (inevitably?) the way that's been used in Oxford is a little Oxford-specific, but it could possibly be adapted and reworked into a more generic pattern for representing collegiate universities if there's some general agreement.

Welcome aboard!

Garmin units are apparently getting cheaper in the UK right now - hopefully on the continent too - and by all accounts they work well. You'll find reviews in the Wiki of various different kinds of device. It's worth paying a bit extra for one with a 'good' (obtains its lock speedily; higher memory capacity; accurate; keeps its lock; waterproof?) GPS unit.

A children's playground should probably be tagged leisure=playground. Check the Map_Features page for the exhaustive list.

Comments! People read these things?

If someone who knows the area better could figure out the status of the A329 North and South of Wallingford, I'd be much obliged. If you believe the OSM data, it turns from a highway=tertiary into a highway=primary by passing through the middle of a small town with a torturous one-way system and 4-minute-cycle traffic lights on all approaches. Unconvinced...