(Apologies for the gigantic image on my previous comment! I forgot to preview before publishing… 😬)

This is such a great initiative. Congrats on taking this unconventional route to collect suggestions (which really ought to be a lot more common!)

My suggestion is to invest in a couple relatively minor adjustments that would make iD usable from mobile devices. Now that we have StreetComplete and EveryDoor, what we’re missing is a similarly user-friendly interface that would allow actually adding and editing map elements more complex than single nodes.

I was surprised to discover that it’s already ~90% of the way there from another Diary entry:

An example of a small change that would do a lot to improve usability in small screens is collapsing the sidebar on first load (since it’s empty anyway as nothing should be selected), and generally auto-expanding/auto-collapsing it when an object is selected/deselected. Both of these changes should, naturally, only happen on small screens, keeping the existing experience unaltered.

Another useful change would be to show a magnifier when dragging nodes on the map (or perhaps have a “move” handle offset downwards from the node’s position), so that we can actually see where we’re placing them on the map. There are other issues listed under the touch-stylus tag, but I’d be happy to provide further feedback or concrete suggestions if this is a direction that would be considered interesting to pursue.

Since I registered my OSM account back in 2006, I was almost always an armchair mapper until recently when StreetComplete and EveryDoor came into the scene. I believe we all agree that direct survey is the best way to map, so having iD be usable on a mobile screen would, IMHO, make long strides in democratizing the ability to contribute to the map. (And yes, I previously tried Vespucci in multiple occasions, but always found it too cumbersome to use). I’m not even talking about distributing iD as a mobile app (though that would also be quite welcome!), but even just focusing some energy on making the browser-based version cross the final small UX issues to be usable as a bona-fide editor on mobile devices would be extremely helpful.

There’s a miniature of the Cape Verde Islands in Buracona, Sal island, Cape Verde. The actual miniature island shapes are not yet mapped, but they can be seen in Bing’s aerial imagery. Here’s the link: https://www.bing.com/maps?&q=16%2C7976%2C%20-22%2C992&PC=SANSAAND&ssp=1&safesearch=moderate&setlang=en&cc=PT

Update: I have just experimented again and both the /edit and the /id URLs seem to be handling the gestures correctly now (i.e. tap+drag no longer starts zooming the map after the first time it is used). Can you re-check if this is also the case for you?

Does it actually automatically expand? It doesn’t for for me.

I stand corrected: Indeed it doesn’t expand when selecting an element, but it does when creating one. Which I think is a good default. I just wish it collapsed back when the newly created element is deselected (i.e. one taps the map background).

This is actually kind of mind-blowing. I didn’t expect iD to already have good support for touch gestures.

The fixed scale is actually a good thing for mobile screens, so that things aren’t too small for fingers to touch accurately. I tried both the /id and the /edit URLs, and managed to make edits in both reasonably well.

IMO, iD is only a few tweaks away from being a very decent, full-featured mobile OSM editor! For example:

• Fixing the touch gestures in /edit so they remain working (seems doable as this is already working in /id)
• Collapsing the sidebar by default, so it doesn’t overtake the screen (with empty content, no less!) when first opening the editor
• Automatically collapsing the sidebar when an element is deselected (just like it already expands automatically when one is selected or created)

I surely hope these and other mobile-friendly tweaks are implemented — I would definitely start using it to edit OSM on mobile :)

Sorry to hear about your experience on Commons. Can you link to some of the pictures that got deleted (or nominated)? Maybe I can help :)