Yes, it seems semantically wrong to have semantically identical areas separate when there’s no actual boundary.

To me, the fake boundaries and their semantic wrongness create far more headaches than the alternative.

Huh, I’d say the opposite. I’m much more put off by redundant simple polygons than I am by multipolygons. I find working with multipolygons much simpler and easier than the alternative.

All fixed now; thanks. I didn’t realize how much JOSM’s validator caught that other tools didn’t, so I’ll put up with JOSM’s ugly UI for this. :)

SomeoneElse: “Trust me” isn’t a good argument here. I work with multipolygons frequently and don’t break them; it’s not hard. Constructing the big multipolygon, as I’m currently doing, is a little harder, but that only has to happen once, and future edits shouldn’t be a problem.

I don’t like JOSM enough to use it as my primary editor, but its validators can be helpful; I will check their output here. I’ve been also using the osmsurround analyzer, which seems to be OK on this.

Thanks for the input. I think this is semantically the right thing to do, but I want to make sure I do it correctly. :)

Thanks, I’ll check that. I’ve been very carefully checking for closure issues as I go, and using iD’s closure checker and sometimes other tools, so this is surprising.

SomeoneElse: The fact that it doesn’t have a name or any other identifying info is why it makes sense to join the wooded areas IMHO. The arbitrary boundaries between identical areas are nonsensical and should be removed IMHO, which is what I’ve been doing.

Note that I’m not treating the adjacent managed forest areas this way; I’m leaving the borders intact in case they indicate different ownership or status that can be filled in later. But one natural wooded area, with no particular difference in status, should surely be one multipolygon.

mmd: I don’t think the relation currently has any closure issues, although I’ll look at the point you mentioned. There was an error that I fixed.

yvecai: There’s a reason this is a multipolygon, not a simple way. Each way in the boundary is in general fairly short so that editing doesn’t become problematic.