Thanks for the heads up. First, I am up-to-date on F-Droid at 43.0. Second, I knew better than to add crossing info through StreetComplete but I did so anyway, while pumping gas. Both StreetComplete and iD have presets that are making crossing info useless for accessibility routing. Such a shame. A driveway either needs a special tag "crossing=driveway" or shouldn't be tagged at all. I understand, there is a lot of pressure on both projects to continually add features/presets even if they aren't appropriate and in some cases, like this one, are destructive. I'll remove my tag and leave yours, out of respect. Though, I strongly recommend that you remove any crossing related tags you've put on driveways or create a useful (and new) tag to distinguish highway crossings from driveway crossings.

In this change set, the project URL, barrier=fence, and construction area were deleted. Was this intentional? I don't want to return them if you removed them for a reason.

Yes, I intentionally used degrees of rotation (or "Angles" as OSM wiki refers to it). Cardinal directions would have been equally applicable.

osm.wiki/Key:direction

I'm glad we understand each other.

Thank you for the slack link but slack is a side channel and not an official OSM communication channel. It is not one of the appropriate places to bring this issue up to the community. I do not have a slack account and I do not wish to create one nor is it appropriate for you to expect that I should.

Since it is clear that reverting these changesets myself is not an action that the community would condone and I have seen people whom bring very legitimate issues up to the DWG get threatened with a ban, I guess you get your way. I, like most of the OSM community, is powerless. Feel free to continue to dilute the database with pride. From what I can tell, you are in good company.

This very well may be my final days in the project. We will see.

Just so that we are clear. You are comfortable with defending your estimated error of 100 bad poi based on nothing but wishful thinking. I’ll remind you that you have already received 8 confirmed bad pois, which is awfully close to your lowest estimate of 10.

You both find this data important enough to import and are comfortable with shouldering the OSM community with correcting your erroneous data. I assume are not planning on informing the community that they now have 30,000 pois to check. You are not bothered by all by 30.000 pois that most likely have names that do not conform to OSM’s agreed upon naming scheme. Technically, that would bump up the number of erroneously imported pois to 100%.

You are begrudgingly willing to revert this valuable data but you refuse to revisit this import if it requires you to abide by the wishes of the greater OSM community and follow the import process.

You feel that because other OSM contributors imported erroneous data against the wishes of the OSM community that it makes further poor quality imports acceptable. You feel that because there have been times where the OSM community has willingly accepted a certen level of bad data from imports that this somehow means that you are grated the same green light for your import yet without needing an acknowledgment or agreement from the OSM community. You feel that repeating bad behavior and adding to poor quality data is preferable to presenting your import to the community.

I hope I captured what you are saying correctly.

I take you at your word that this was not employment related for any 3rd party. In that regard, I’d like to apologize to you. I do not wish to impugn your character or that of the company you work for. Not as a defense but simply as an explanation. I clearly inferred incorrectly a potential motivation which was from your statement, “on a data consumer for this scheme”. I better understand what you were saying. Again, my apologizes.

I wish you hadn’t named the company you work for and I employ you to not name your employer. They were both referenced to better frame my concerns. I did not name either because I have no reason to believe your actions are anything other than your own.

Please, revert this import and follow the Import Guidelines.
osm.wiki/Import/Guidelines

There are two stations in my area that have moved less than a mile away. They are now double mapped. I picked a random firestation and Node: Somerset Volunteer Fire Department (9365469104) appears to be a sign and t-shirt shop. Obviously, these issues are on-top of the Oswego, Chicago, and Spokane issues.

Also, copying the name field of the USGS database directly into OSM may have been a bad choice. It appears that some of those names do not exactly adhere to OSM's naming conventions. Following the Import process would have given the community an opportunity to help you make a much more useful and less error prone import. As of this moment, the wider community now has work they didn't ask for in cleaning up your import that is spread all over the US.

Thank you and happy mapping.

Please, please, please help me understand how your proposal is significantly different than the solidly rejected and much more flushed out Mapping disputed boundaries proposal? osm.wiki/Proposed_features/Mapping_disputed_boundaries

Please, please, please walk me to the place where inserting this scheme into OSM, for the benefit of your customers and your company, is fundamentally different than corporate takeover of tagging? Maybe I have this all wrong. I see that Lyft has also just pretended to honor the proposal but ended up just doing what they wanted. [key:rideshare proposal]. I am happy to do away the proposal process, if that is the will of the community.
Unlike access tags for rideshare, disputed boarders is a very sensitive and contentious issue both internally, to the OSM community, and globally. I need to believe that a sitting OSMF member and an employee of a sitting DWG member is not running roughshod over the desires of the community, functionally exploiting their position and connections. I am desperately looking for the angle here that places your actions solidly into the well-intentioned category instead of the many less positive descriptors it presently looks to be fitting in.

[For Changeset: 116027622 as well]
Could you provide the source for these changesets? I do not understand how you determined the values for Key:smoothness.
osm.wiki/Google The following two ways show cracks greater than 1.5cm making them "intermediate" or at most "good". They do not appear to be "excellent".
For ways: 458124851 and 932523728 you changed junction=circular to roundabout. 9 months ago, a local mapper [seen here Changeset: 103211874] explains why they changed those ways from "roundabout" to "circular". How did you remotely determine that mapper was incorrect?
For junction=circular, oneway=yes is implied. You can remove the redundant "oneway=yes" key and help fight tag bloat in the database.
osm.wiki/Tag:junction%3Droundabout
I suspect there are more introduced errors in these two changesets. To be prudent and for the sake of the OSM's data accuracy, it might be safest to revert these (and any other similar) changesets and revisit them in a more cautious and conservative manner.

Dustin C,

“Some of the tension…”
There is no tension from me. I have a different opinion and that is as far as it goes.
I’m not trying to complicate anything. I am expressing my opinion. I am leaving the action to you. Make the path whatever you feel is appropriate for OSM and is also what the local community wishes it to be. Again, I have commented on your changeset so that there is a historical record of my opinion and that is the only reason I have done so.

As to what channels I am reachable on, they are the changesets, OSM User Diaries, and directly through my OSM profile and I regularly read the mailing list archive. Since the IRC and (I think) forums are official, I should follow them as well but at the moment don’t. OSMF just started paying for Mastodon, so I might rejoin that as well. We will see. I left Mastodon years ago because of a OSMF member.

With respect,
Ben C.

Dustin C

I agree that the loop around Green Lake isn’t a “bicycle_road” but I don’t agree that it is a “highway=footway” instead of a “highway=cycleway”. As a user of that path, I would be surprised to find out that ½ of the path is dedicated to wheeled vehicles if it was tagged as “highway=footway + bicycle=yes”. My conviction in this matter is not strong enough to get into a edit war with you. I have spoken my piece and I leave the final action up to you. Whatever you do I will support.

>concede that tags are based on what is legal.
Great, we agree.
>This is also where my concerns about safety fall in - they are accounted for in the law, not the OSM guidelines.
I strongly disagree. The law could care less about safety. Some laws might be created out of a concern for safety or (more commonly) from a concern for liability but the law itself is indifferent to safety. The legal system is exclusively interested in rights.
I am also concerned with representing safety. I believe that consistency in tagging aids in that goal.
>I myself have ridden in unsafe & unlawful areas because of cavalier OSM edits, so I know this happens.
OK. I am sorry to hear that you have been a victim of incorrect tagging. I hope most users of OSM data understand that maps are tools for navigation but are not navigation itself.
>I have determined that it is likelier-than-not
>it was inconsistent with the law.
It is our responsibility to determine what is “consistent” with the law. We have both admitted to being ignorant of the law, regarding bicycles and stairs. The original mapper may have been familiar with the law. Until we know either the law/rule or the original mapper’s knowledge, it is inappropriate (not in the spirit of OSM) to change it.
>"Bicycle=no" or "Bicycle=dismount" would be fine alternatives, though both would also have subjectivity baked in.
Like my very first response said, I wouldn’t fight a change to “Bicycle=dismount”.
>Perhaps leaving the stairs untagged may, weirdly, be the most accurate option
If you, I, or the original mapper doesn’t know the actual legal status, then I agree that untagged is the most accurate option.

@Friendly_Ghost
> The mailing list is the agreed upon final community discussion location. Just because you've isolated yourself with like-minded people, on discord, does not make it an appropriate alternative to the mailing list.
I find it funny that you think I have “isolated myself with like-minded people”, because it shows your lack of familiarity with the Discord server. You’re very welcome to join it and participate in discussions and chatter.
I’m absolutely not bringing every tag change I make to the mailing lists. What’s the threshold for contacting them? Ten changes, a hundred, a thousand? Getting bogged down in bureaucracy would mean that none of us will have any time left to just map. I’m sure you wouldn’t mail them for a tag change from highway=Residental to highway=residential, I’m doing exactly the same except I’m doing it on a larger scale.
> My point that you do not know if there are OSM editors whom prefer to tag with color instead.
I don’t need to know that. What you, I and all other mappers need to know is that color and colour mean 100% exactly the same, that OSM has a guideline to choose British over American English, that colour is many times as popular as color and that data/map users find our data more useful if it is consistent. I contributed to that in this changeset and others and you're very welcome.

“...it shows your lack of familiarity with the Discord…”
“... join it and participate…”
My discord personal history with Discord in general and OSM discord servers in particular is irreverent. Though, it is clear that you don’t know who I am and have no idea if I’m already there or even how long ago I joined. I am aware of you though.

“Getting bogged down in bureaucracy would mean that none of us will have any time left to just map.”
The fact that you refer to the larger communities’ request to be included in significant changes to the date base as “bureaucracy” is why your behavior here is objectively grotesque. The whole of the community owns the data set not just you and your friends. To intentionally exclude the community because it inconveniences you is the definition of self-centered. This orientation is obnoxious in life but destructive when in a group setting (such as OSM).

“ highway=Residental to highway=residential”
Your “borrowed” example is not analogous to what you’ve done. It’s also irreverent. The complaints are about your actions and not the inclusion or exclusion of the letter “u”. Further complaints are in regard to your behavior to the communities’ complaints.

“I don’t need to know that.”
“ What you, I and all other mappers need to know…”
“ you're very welcome”
Honestly, I was going to defend you when another OSM editor called you arrogant. Was.

@Korgi1
(I understood your sarcasm)
Please don't gaslight anyone. It's not about the spelling.

“How (else) would you interpret it?”
I know that you are quite aware, the warning specifically and clearly puts a limit on what actions mappers can take. “interpret” color as “deprecated” all day long but “Under no circumstances should you (semi-)automatically change “deprecated” tags…”

You’re a very disingenuous person. You do not interact with the community in good faith. You constantly ask questions that you have no interest in the answers to. You dismiss people’s concerns like a horse swats flies. You and the few that are like you destroy the very foundation of this project. It may sound like hyperbole yet a group project, like OSM, requires that members of the group value and respect the opinions and concerns of the other project members. This whole thing is very disheartening.

"Can you point me toward the OSM wiki or other documentation citation showing that tags are indeed solely based in legality?"

Honestly, this request scared me a bit. I was sure, that after all this, my support was going to be a handful of mailing list posts from 2 or more years ago. I'd never find those.

OK, so here are two OSM wiki pages related to the access key, that explicitly state the intended usage.

1) osm.wiki/Key:access
"Access values describe legal permissions/restrictions and should follow ground truth e.g. signage or legal ruling and not introduce guesswork. It does not describe common or typical use, even if signage is generally ignored."

2) osm.wiki/OSM_tags_for_routing/Access_restrictions
"The access restrictions, or allowance if no restriction is implied, concern the legal access and not the practical access in terms of convenience. When legal access exists, but practical access is not, this can either be solved by adding surface, gradient and smoothness tags. This to advise e.g. wheelchairs, racing bikes etc. and routing algorithms not to use bad, unpaved, soft and steep paths."

The mailing list is the agreed upon final community discussion location. Just because you've isolated yourself with like-minded people, on discord, does not make it an appropriate alternative to the mailing list. You are welcome to bring this point up to the mailing list and state your logic for using discord instead. As of now, contrary to your wishes, Discord and other side channels are inappropriate.

My point that you do not know if there are OSM editors whom prefer to tag with color instead. If it is not a "typo" then it's a valid tag...even if heavily discouraged. I wish to emphasise that you have not done due diligence with the larger community and may have just blindly robed another OSM editor of their right to make reasonable tagging choices, especially if those choices differ from the community as a whole.

This whole thing smells a lot like "it's better to ask for forgiveness than approval". I don't think you've made these large changes out of ignorance of the community standards. I get a strong feeling that you are very aware of your actions.
If I am correct, then I find your destain for the larger OSM community to be reprehensible.

“...the hill you're going to die on?”
Do not get this twisted. You are the one refusing to tag in a way that conforms to the OSM community wishes.

“But as pedantry must be met with pedantry...” I don’t care for you to like me. I don’t care that you don’t agree with me. I don’t care that you argue passive-aggressively. Counter to your assertion, I care about following the spirit of the project and the agreed upon tag definitions. I do not care about being pedantic (unless you mean acting like a male schoolteacher.) I do care and insist that you grant other members of this project a minimum level of respect. I insist that when you are confronted with an edit that running foul of the communities wishes, that you have the humility to accept your mistake or the patience to take the conflict to the OSM mailing list and attempt to come to a new community consensus. So then we can move forward with a mutual understanding and even better a mutually agreed upon standard. This, I feel, is core to OSM being and continuing to be a successful project.

“you argue that this is UW property, and their rules and not the city's rules apply”
I don’t argue that. The University argues that.

This riding down stairs is a side point that I didn’t even argue. I mentioned that there does not seem to be a legal restriction to riding down stairs and the access tags are related to legal rights. Therefore, bike=yes should be left alone until you (or someone else) can demonstrate that it is illegal.

“we do not have an OSM tag for "bicycle=spotters required".”
Propose it. My first and only post to the mailing list will be in support of this tag.

“In summary, please do not label any further stairs with a bicycle=yes tag”
That tag was added 14 years ago by someone else. I do not recall tagging “bicycle=yes” on any stairs but I will do so if I feel it is the correct tag. I will not tag incorrectly just because you demand it of others.

“bicycle=yes tag unless there is bike-specific infrastructure on the stairs”
This, right here, is the entire reason this “conversation” has occurred. Access tags, such as “bicycle=yes” is for legal access and is independent of the features of the stairs. Bike infrastructure does not speak to legal access and legal access does not speak to bike infrastructure. You are tagging in a way that is not congruent with the way the OSM community requests editors to tag in.

“Riding bicycles on stairs, except in rare situations, is likely illegal...”
If you do not know the legal restrictions then do not change the access tag. We are not the arbiter of legal rights and this project isn’t the place to have that conversation. If you wish to see riding bikes on stairs ruled as illegal then petition the University, the City, the County, and/or the State.

"Yeah, that's an opinion, for sure."
Don't be an asshole.

highway=unclassified clearly states it is for public road ways. UW (like all public schools) is semi-public land. The roads, including this one, are not technically public. The University is well within it's rights to bar all non-university traffic.
Unclassified is intended for roads that are below tertiary yet above residential and survice roads. They often linking road ways such as city centers. In a urban setting they are sometimes used for linking roads in industrial or commercial areas. This road is very much an end of destination road.

"And of course...has nothing to do.."
I agree with your words. I disagree with your passive aggressive intent. I'm dumbfounded by your incredibly incorrect interpenetration of what I was saying. I assumed you could deduce on your own, that my observation has been, more road traffic is for the sports complex then the light rail station. (not just the stadium, during game day...what do you think all those other facilities are for? gyms / pools / tracks / courts / rowing house / and many others.)

Thank you for changing it back to a service road. Please, leave the disrespect, arrogance, and dismissive attitude out of this project.

I respect you and anyone that enjoys the community side channels. With all due respect, those are not official OSM channels and the final discussion needed to occur on the mailing list and OSM wiki. It gets very frustrating when folks conflate the many OSM community side channel with appropriate, community agreed upon OSM discussion methods/sites.
For those interested, here is the first mailing list conversation, I have found, related to this user's changesets.
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/2021-July/086817.html