Hi! I’m Fingrmouse.

I’m currently filling in the area around Southwell, Nottinghamshire (UK) to correct anything completely incorrect and add full land use and boundaries.

Generally, I’m using my local knowledge and aerial photography to classify agriculture, meadow and woodland, and particularly making sure that paths are clearly identified and are correctly located in respect to hedges and fences. That’s because I frequently use OpenStreetMap for walking guidance to show paths, tracks and bridleways and want to make sure others can use the maps in the same way.

Where people have mapped huge areas of agriculture, I’m also trying to split fields up a little more so that land use can be updated in the future without having to disconnect huge numbers of ways.

I don’t guarantee that I get every single classification correct, so if you spot something wrong then please do correct it. If it’s an unfamiliar area and something is unclear I’d rather make a “best guess” and leave something deliberately vague with a note than leave it completely blank — the hope is that people with better knowledge will update the features later, as It’s much more likely that somebody will correct something rather than mapping it from scratch. As long as features are not actively misleading and help people identify where they are on the ground then it’s better than nothing. Where possible, I’ll make a note of the feature if I pass by and frequently update my own mapping when better knowledge is available. Most of these “guesses” are things like classifying a farm as industrial (or vice-versa) or mixing up hedges/fences/walls where it’s not obvious.

You might notice some inconsistencies in hedges, as it’s difficult to work out where the line falls between hedge, tree row and natural wood. Sometimes I’ll map particularly thick and tall hedge areas as strips of woodland as it’s more representative of what’s there. If a hedge is visible running through then I’ll probably map as both woodland and hedge. The ultimate goal is for people on the ground to instantly recognise their surroundings based on the map.

For housing, I do tend to draw driveways for every property that has a connection to a road — even if the drive is very short. This might seem unnecessary but it helps to identify which road the house belongs to, which isn’t clear in a lot of current mapping. Where houses on different streets have gardens back-to-back, I’ll tend to draw in the fence/hedge boundary between them to give a good idea of accessibility. A group of houses in a huge empty area isn’t helpful for somebody wanting to navigate on food, although on the other hand I don’t map every single fence and hedge in residential areas as this would be overkill and create visual clutter.

Drop me a message if you think I’m doing something wrong, otherwise I’ll continue to fill in gaps whenever I get some free time and the inclination to map…