But marking crossings *really* aren't "overkill" or "unimportant tedious details". Road crossings come in many forms. Toucan crossings are a UK term, but the cyclemap originated here. Basically, it's any signal-controlled crossing where both cyclists and pedestrians are allowed. That definition can be used internationally. The tags we use are just shorthands. Using these shorthands gets round problems with language difficulties.

Most road crossings in the UK and worldwide do not permit cyclists to cross whilst riding - so marking what type of crossing is actually useful information. In some places like Germany, pedestrians are forbidden from crossing until the green man appears; if you have a piece of routing software, you could build extra time costs for a way in your routing graph if a certain type of crossing is present. I really reject the fact then that crossing type is unimportant.

Unless you have professional GPS surveying equipment, then there is little reason to trust a single trace over multiple others, especially if yours is significantly different to the others. Use all of the traces and find an "average position" which hopefully will remove significant bias such as; GPS 'multi-path' errors, poor signal strength, having to move out to pass a parked vehicle etc. etc.

Having said that, you may often find traces uploaded where the signal strength was obviously quite poor and the traces jump around seemingly randomly. It's fine to put less "weight" on these traces, but I still wouldn't completely ignore them.

If you make your GPX tracks identifiable, then they are downloaded as ordered points with timestamps, so tagging with a source date is not necessary.

Secondly, in most areas, the geometry of roads/other features will not have changed at all over the last several years, so it's not clear why traces from, say, 2 years ago, are any less reliable than those taken today.

Thirdly, in many areas, there are multiple traces, and most people will use some degree of "averaging out" of GPS errors in getting the alignment. These traces could be many months or even years apart - so tagging source dates are either wrong - or will require many dates to be added.

"I also suggest that you need to at least discuss within the group the implications of Executive Order No. 45 or the PPCS-TM/PRS92 as a WGS84 variant"

PRS92 and the others mentioned are very localised datums (i.e. the Philippines), which will surely be inappropriate in Europe or the Americas. OSM is a global project and the datum used (WGS84) seems a reasonable choice, given that other choices could be inappropriate elsewhere.

landuse=grass should render

Hold on, that's not quite what I said. If you are going to actually mark them, then if it's effectively an internal note to other mappers - then the tag semantics are probably not important. Anything will probably do, as long as it's obvious what is meant by it. A note=* tag on an otherwise untagged way would suffice, where * = some description which says, in plain English, what this way is doing here, and that mappers shouldn't waste their time by going out and mapping it because nothing exists etc.

There are plenty of objects all over the globe tagged with note=* intended as notes to other mappers - usually on objects that do actually exist - but perhaps not all information has been recorded, or something is incomplete etc. You probably don't need to overcomplicate things by defining a complex system of tags to describe that something *isn't there*.

If there are hundreds of these within 50km^2, then perhaps the best suggestion is to use a more reliable atlas and complain to the company that makes them.

I can't imagine many people go tens of km out of their way to survey a single road - so a journey will not usually be completely wasted.

But if you must tag them, perhaps just put a note=* tag explaining why not to bother surveying. If you are just using it to effectively send an internal note to other mappers - and there are too many to use the wiki effectively, this seems sufficient.

Here's a possibility, a bit of an alternative.

Set up a wiki page/pages for each major area - and have a section detailing known mapping errors in that area (e.g. phantom roads) on other maps - akin to one we already have - Copyright Easter Eggs, but more localised. Make locals in your area aware of the page - as a mapping aid - so if they are going out to survey area xyz, they can look at the page before hand to check for phantom roads. You can be much more descriptive there as well. You could also use the wiki pages as an aid to collaborating with other OSMers.

Further to the above comments, I had a look at a couple of the rails where you have already removed tracks=* info. The information was added by someone who runs a company (ITO) that makes maps for people in the transport industry, which are used by many public bodies, including councils and I'm sure the Department for Transport. If he thinks having that information is of use to him, then it's far from clear that the information is "trivial" or "redundant".

And to answer a point in the other thread - yes, some people do play tennis when they're away from home. They might be looking for it if they have a match against the home club. There are namefinder applications which not only search for sports centres by name, but also can find the nearest sports centre to a particular place.

OSM has so many uses that it's difficult to argue that extra tags are trivial or redundant.

Don't remove information just because "lint" warnings appear. To be honest, any key may be used - the lint renderers should probably be updated to add tracks=x as a commonly used tag, and in this case it clearly adds extra information

There must have been something available before "EGNOS" was officially live as I've been able to get the "D" icons on the satellite signal strength bars for many months.

And I've had location +/- 7ft displayed before the "switch-on".

UrbanRambler: Just for the avoidance of doubt, "Fake Liam123" is a parody, a la "Fake Steve Coast" / "Fake Ed Parsons" etc. of Liam123, who has been vandalising objects all over the south of England.

He recently moved/altered some objects you had previously edited - which is what is referred to above. These have all been fixed.

All of my OSM photos have been taken whilst I've had my GPS with me. There are several pieces of software out there that can automatically add lat/lon to exif based on a GPX file and using the time-stamps in the exif.

surely highway=byway, designation=public_byway would get most of the access permissions down.
Others have used date_on and date_off with dates for restrictions.
There's probably no easy way of tagging restrictions conditional on a gate being locked or not - perhaps put a note on the tags as well to explain?

In the first line, the "1 mile south of Ottery St Mary" should have been south-west

From the description in this link, you are in about the right rough area;
http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources.cfm?file=/9-1981%20G-ARBY.pdf

The description of the landing site says;
"The crash site was a large, essentially flat, grass field approx. 1 mile south of Ottery St Mary, bounded on its eastern edge by a disused railway and the River Otter, and on its west side by Fluxton Rd. The field was some 700 yards in length - North/South"
"The Viscount's port wing had struck a large tree on the line of the northern boundary of this field...before the first ground contact some 200yds south of this tree on a bearing of 190º...The propellor assembly (less 1 blade found beside a dead sheep) was found detached and adjacent to a tree located some 170yds beyond the initial fuselage contact mark. THe tree showed marked evidence of contact on its trunk, and the outboard section of the port wing and outboard aileron section were nearby...The 2nd tree impact caused G-ARBY to yaw to port as it slid across the remainder of the field, coming to rest on a heading of 074º adjacent to the eastern boundary fence of the field"

Might be enough to go on there??

OpenStreetMap is mentioned (and linked to) from the BBC website article about the game.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8245700.stm

I would suggest not tracing from NPE. It's not vastly accurate, there are no road names, and much of it will have changed significantly; and it still needs to be visited by someone to get road names. A better idea would be organising a mapping party. Potentially get OSMers from all over the country to come to Bolton and map it.

Widening the net, there could be a mapping party series - with Bolton, Bury, Rochdale and Oldham being the focus for successive parties.

And whilst I'm here, I asked Cheshire East to clarify the correct direction of a route as it was very unclear. They have an online footpath problem reporting page on their website. I imagine many councils have something similar. I got an e-mail back within a couple of days saying someone had investigated and agreed with me. I went back that way not long ago and there were new signs put up - and they'd also fixed a stile nearby as well.

There are usually waymark arrows, which gives you a direction to travel, and stiles/gates along the route. If there aren't any of these, and the route is lightly travelled such that there is no eroded trail at all, then ask the council to erect more signs/waymarks. They should do this if it's impossible to follow otherwise.

If there are waymarks, then follow them - again it can be inferred that if the council put the waymarks pointing in a specific direction, then that direction is correct.

If following the route is very difficult, then just do the best you can. If you are slightly out from the official route, then it's not the end of the world, particularly if the route you are following is the way everyone else goes (even if not the 'official' route).

To give yourself the best chance of finding the correct route;

When about to enter a new field, check for a waymark arrow on the stile or gate etc. Stop and look in the direction the waymark arrow is pointing. In the distance, you might be able to spot a post with a waymark arrow, or a 'fingerpost' sign-post or another stile or gate which is your exit point from the new field.

If so, then it's a reasonable assumption - in the absence of any other evidence - that the correct route might be a straight line between where you are and this waymark/post/stile/gate etc. in the distance.

When you reach this feature - have a look at the opposite side of it for a waymark arrow pointing back towards where you've just come from. Check the route you've walked matches the direction on the arrow.

Check the lie of the land; sometimes footpaths follow old trackways which might be slightly raised - or indeed lowered - above/below the level of the surrounding land. Follow this route rather than a straight line in this instance.

Many footpaths follow field boundaries - if your waymark arrow points you almost straight away towards a hedge or fence, then follow the hedge/fence until you reach a field exit, or another sign telling you not to.

Again, if you're slightly out, then it's not normally a problem. There are countless roads just traced from NPE which could be a hundred metres out or more.