Here's a thought. It toook the Ordnance Survey longer than they had expected to survey the whole of the country in the 19th century for the first large scale (6") series of maps - over 50 years in fact from start of survey to last map published, despite it being a priority and putting large amounts of staff and resources into the project.

As co-author of said book I would encourage you to notify any errors you find on the "errata" page on the link you noted - so we make the 2nd edition even better. Enjoy your mapping! It is good to do on so many levels.
From just down the road (in Enfield) - Steve

Plenty of buildings can be done. Not much building detail outside of the ring road and the former industrial areas. I would start in your local area and work out.

I will be near Chepstow for several days over Christmas. If you want I could arrange to drop in for a half day and map some of it with you, and share experiences (always looking for un-mapped places, as most of my normal locales are done!). Always good to talk over mapping stuff one is not sure of one's self.

laura - are you aware of the work by Muki Haklay on OSM/OS at UCL?
eg: http://povesham.wordpress.com/2008/08/07/osm-quality-evaluation/
and http://www.envplan.com/abstract.cgi?id=b35097
and http://povesham.wordpress.com/2010/07/01/usability-of-geographical-information-the-case-of-code-point-open/
and http://povesham.wordpress.com/2010/04/04/openstreetmap-completeness-evaluation-march-2010/

Hope this helps,
STEVE

c2r - yep know about estate completeness, as I say one for a local. I also found this the case mapping in Witham at weekend. It gets quite boring going on your bike down all the little extension bits, and footways, in estates.
swing/randomjunk - thanks fro the tip
Steeplejack - the "don't copy" is really directed at in-copyright maps. StreetView is available out of copyright, issue is really accuracy/currency. Advice is best done with supplementary local knowledge

Thomas - get to know the editors and the mapping techniques and go for it. My inlaws live in Devauden so I have mapped loads of Chepstow on visits there. If you want to talk through any local matters or indeed techniques don't hesitate to ask.
STEVE

Gregory - The Thanet one. Wedding was in the church which indeed is beautiful. I just mapped a few paths round by the bowls club as I wandered round, and added the hotel up by the main road (near airfield). Reception in what seemed like the local manor house - a very well off family, in orchards I believe.

Colin - having had look around I note that in that area most streets are in StreetView but not that many of the rougher ones in estates, etc.

I have several possible responses, depending on the circumstances and my mood at the time. It could be a) if they seem interested in the "why" to evangalise about OSM and what they could do for it, b) if they just see "surveyor" I sometimes give out the old "you have not heard the new bypass is planned to come through here then?" line, or c) if they are just staring and want you off their manor ASAP I usually keep stumm and do the necessary and move on. One of funniest was when filming a scene for the OSM video in Brum with Nick and Tom Black (whatever happened to that?) and someone came out of his house to ask what we were doing - seeing bike, GPS, map notes, etc. Explained it all, and then he said "Oh, I work for the AA" (one of main map publishers in UK)!

I know the Map Features wiki page is not definitive but it has leisure=nature_reserve as the "norm", and that does render.

Shame I missed it! Can't make next one as it is half-term and I will be travelling. Hope to make first one in Mar if it is coming back northwards.

Thanks for that. Actually thanks for accumulating my tracks. I doubt if I could have worked out the scripting for myself. Slightly surprised that it wasn't higher but hey ho. Now, if the node editing stats were cumulative I would be flying - 100,000+ for this month and that is fairly normal for me. Doing a lot of data input from NPE of rivers and streams in SW England.

Can i ask how you count your tracks? I would love to know what I am up to so far.

Excellent. Whole point of NPE trace is to hope that someone will eventually go there and tweak it with GPS data. It will be interesting to see how the refining looks. If you get a chance take a before screengrab, and an after, and post on wiki somewhere, so folk can see the benefits. Let me know the area sometime.

If you tag as railway=abandoned and highway=cycleway mapnik slippy map will render the cycle way only (which is what you see on ground). The filter says if it is tagegd as highway='anything' then render as such, else render as a dotted line (for abandoned, which will still be visible).
See: http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=51.89775&lon=-0.58934&zoom=15&layers=B000FFFT

Donald,
Some of the NPE stuff to west of Wye has been done by me (visiting in-laws, who live in Devauden). Local knowledge telling me for instance that woods still exist. However, boundaries not surveyed, and subject to change when someone finds this out. That is one of beauties of OSM collaborative mapping approach. The footpaths and roads I have done I am reasonably confident of, having GPS traces of many and having walked/driven them too. Agreed it is a beautiful area, and yes, much to do still.
STEVE

Pedro
It is me (with family) that Ivan mentions - we discussed on IRC tonight. Will be in Sevilla 25-29th Oct, seeing my son who is doing a year at Uni there. Having looked at map had planned to do some street naming, and maybe even get some more gpx traces for some roads. Would be happy to meet up if you wanted - for a beer and a chat, or even to collaborate on some mapping.

Yep that is the place. Desperate. You might have noticed that Welshie and someone else had gone down the road and passed it by too! Can't imagine how you came to be down there, as it is a no-thru. I am guessing you came over the little footbridge between the allotments (all mapped now btw).

Dave (or Mr Emtb),
I did a lot of NPE tracing of streams in Wales and recently moved to starting on Lakes. Happy to cooperate on adding detail there if you want. I made a start from where NPE coverage starts near Grange over Sands and was planning to move in clockwise direction from there. Feel from to get in touch (thru page at user:steve8)