Well, I have to eat humble pie on this one. I drove out and spoke to the land owner and had an excellent time. We talked at length, I walked along this very way and spread the OSM gospel.

Currently OSM indicates that the driveway to the north of the cotton field connects to “Pikachu Pass”; which then continues through the field. Which is not the case. The driveway ends at a garage visible in the images and a fence surrounds the property.

The owner told me this: At one time the entire property was owned by one family but then later divided. Earlier in the history there was a “turn row” that ran through there. A turn row is a strip of land adjacent to row crops to facilitate maneuvering a tractor. In other regions they are called headlands or endrows. We have been mapping them as service roads.

However, given the new property lines and the farmer’s methodology, this turn row longer exists. The cotton rows butt up right against the fence line. There is not a navigable route there anymore. Even though the land is currently being used for ag purposes, there is some legacy soil compaction that is visible in the images. This may have been why the student mapped it as a road. We still do not know why it was labeled Pikachu Pass and we have contacted the student.

Shortly, I am deleting the way. Is this the appropriate action?

Lastly, I’d like to apologize. My first priority is to our students and our volunteers. I have to give them the benefit of the doubt. He has otherwise been an excellent student. I also apologize that this happened during our mapathon. We will do a better job instructing in the future and be sure to emphasize data quality. Thanks.

I’d also like to point out that Pikachu is a Brazilian last name and you might be erasing someone’s legacy. I do not think example 3 is vandalism. I think this is a tagging mistake of a new mapper. I also think this is indicative of a larger policy/procedure problem. What if a developer names all the roads in a subdivision after pokemon?

This screenshot is taken out of context, there are several other odd names around this area. The road runs along a rodeo arena and I’ve heard some pretty weird names from cowboys.

Fortunately, this edit is in my hometown and I’ve determined who owns that property using the tax database. This is a small town, so everyone knows someone, and I’ll contact the property owner. This afternoon I’m also driving over there to verify and document. Surely I will find someone there to ask about it. I’ll find out if this road is colloquially known as Pikachu Pass and will correct it with informal_name=

Would it be appropriate to keep it name=pikachu pass if there are signs indicating this?

Why are Pokemon words automatically removed? What if in example three, the road is - actually - colloquially named pikachu pass? Why does this automatically constitute vandalism?