OpenStreetMap
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Quantity vs Quality Assurance
I wanted to know how well I was performing as an armchair mapper, internally I was concerned that I was creating more issues than I was helping so I learned about a website that answers the question “How did I contribute?”.
On my name I looked at the quality assurance section and the quantity of errors was too very high, almost over a 4000 issues ignored. I have attempted to improve the quality of my mapping change sets using Osmose and OSMI.
Osmose
Initially I had 26 level 1(major) issues, 50 level 2(intermediate) issues and 800(minor). I quickly adjusted the level 1 issues and over half of my level 2 issues. I have a single level 1, 19 level 2 and over 700 level 3 issues. Systematically I hope to solve; *amenity=parking issues *building=construction issues *building overlap issues *waterway issues.
OSMI
Routing issues have been harder for me to pin down, I have many sidewalk issues since I reworked the pedestrian walkways through the Bulawayo CBD. I am not sure how to resolve the issues involving sidewalks that terminate without connecting with other ways, but I will have to keep investigating the issue after I have resolved other issues I can understand.
Goals
In the estimated 3 months I will focus on these types of problems I hope I can resolve around 20 to 40 Osmose issues a day, it will take me at least a month and a half to resolve the list. I suspect I will need an additional 3 weeks of learning and research as I try to standardise mapping across areas and then maybe another 3 weeks of rest breaks in between efforts.
Routing issues are over 100 an increase after my initial attempts to fix them, if I can resolve 20 per day, it should take me only 5 days to have completed. Realistically if I am mapping 13 days a month I should be done by April.
I hope to update by next month with a progress report
Discussion
Comment from Negreheb on 12 January 2026 at 11:00
Its great to see you are aware of the fact that errors can happen and that you are trying to solve them. I should probably do the same as well and take a look at it again :)
Comment from Adrian Shobrooke on 18 January 2026 at 18:56
It’s worth considering that some of the errors could be interpreted as warnings. Potential, not actual issues. So you may find that you will always have a number of unfixable issues.
I recently mapped a break in a secondary road that now generates two errors, one for each side of the break. The break is correct, the road was washed away. So the mapping shows the road as it may be found.
It may also be tempting to tag in a manner to clear the issues from the list, but the tagging adds no value to the database, such as noexit=yes at the unconnected end node of highway=service.
Comment from Negreheb on 19 January 2026 at 06:58
Although the street-part in question could be tagged with osm.wiki/Lifecycle_prefix - ~~~ destroyed:= ~~~ destroyed:*=*
But, you are correct, there is no need to solve all issues so they don’t appear. This could potentially lead to more errors or wrong tagging.
Comment from Adrian Shobrooke on 19 January 2026 at 08:52
That’s a good point @Negreheb and I have implemented that tag on a re-added short section of highway. There is some evidence of a local bypass to the west, but I’m not completely sure I’m not imagining it under trees and I’m in no position to verify it. Note to that effect added.