That is just how it is implemented in one map project. You have to look at our OSM documentation, because that is what other map projects will use as a reference:
osmc:symbol=*

"waycolor - Name of the color in which the route path itself should be painted."

And yes there are maps that use it:
* https://osmapp.org/
* https://mapy.com
* OSMAnd app
* https://www.wanderreitkarte.de/
etc.

Thanks for the explanation. That first part of osmc:symbol tag is to indicate what color the route should be "painted" on a hiking map.

Since this tag is supposed to be machine readable and not interpreted directly by humans, can we stick to the underscore "_"? I introduced this character because it is already used as a value separator in the tag itself and hyphen adds another complexity.

Hi David,
just a question. What is the purpose of changing "white_black" to "white-black" in osmc:symbol?

Well the problem here is that you are "tagging for renderer". You are bending the established rules of mapping so that something appears on a particular map.
Route relations are used for marked trail, not just for any path in a forest.

route=hiking

osm.wiki/Tagging_for_the_renderer

Hi David,
I think this is not correct. Those trails are not marked as a route in the terrain. This just creates confusion for users.

Sorry, I haven't inspected the changeset properly.

That seems to be just grass growing differently due to different condition of nutrients.
For historical data we have https://www.openhistoricalmap.org/ though.

Hi,
there are no signs of any road on the street level imagery, just a regular lawn. It's better not to add the driveway, but you can mark that the sidewalk does not have a curb.

You are correct that we can add information about things we see around us.
The problem here is that you took the information from a database that does not allow this and you corrected the position using another restricted source (streetview).

Folks on Slack seem to agree that this will unfortunately have to be reverted. Sorry that your work will be affected, but we just have to be careful so that OSM will not be accused of stealing data.

The link is public, but the use of the data might not be. Can you please contact them and ask them is it is allowed to use their camera information in OSM?

On their website there are some restrictions stated:
https://ctroads.org/termsandconditions

"Copyright Notice – Copyright and other relevant intellectual property rights exist on all content relating to ctroads.org’s services and the full content of this website. ctroads.org, including all content, is protected by American and worldwide copyright laws and treaty provisions. You agree to comply with all copyright laws worldwide in your use of this website and to prevent any unauthorized use of the content."

"... however, that you may not, directly or indirectly:
....
Sell, reproduce, modify or attempt to modify the content in any way or reproduce or publicly display, perform, or distribute or otherwise use the content for any personal, public or commercial purpose, including without limitation use of the content on any other website;
....
Use any robot, spider or other similar kind of automatic program or device, or manual process to monitor, copy, summarize, or otherwise extract information from this website;"

"A link may be established to the following home page of this website: http://www.ctroads.org Links may not be established to any other pages on this website without ctroads.org’s prior written permission."

Thanks for replying.
Assuming it is under public license then it should be fine.
Could you them please add that public database name as a source before submitting your changesets.

Also google streetview is not allowed for adding data to OSM. You are free to use Bing streetside though.

Cheers

Hi,
your recent edits look like a data import. What is the source of your information and do you have a permission to use these data in OSM?

I submitted an issue long time ago, and it seems this came out as a response.
It would be good to come to a agreement if to use it as a symbol (though it will probably not work on other maps using osmc:symbol). And how to tag two-color routes.

Could be that I mixed up the colors, but according to picture in here, it should be correct:
https://www.globalsistersreport.org/spirituality/warning-gps-might-make-you-lose-your-way

I see what you are going for now, but we should be careful. Osmc:symbol should represent the real life blaze and not leave people guessing.

Also I am wondering what is the purpose of replacing e.g. blue_red:blue_stripe:red_lower with blue-red:blue_stripe:red_lower. The underscore was used to keep the value separator consistent. Does it cause troubles anywhere?

Hi David,
what is the reason behind this change?
New osmc:symbol does not follow to correct syntax.
Expected is color:backround_symbol:foreground_1:foreground_2

And also "white_round:green_triangle" does not describe "White tree in green circle".

Hi,
sorry but I don't see how removing natural=water tag and leaving only name on the node is an improvement.

It should be either expanded into a water area or deleted if we are sure the pond doesn't exist.

Hi,
I just noticed that your check_date tags have value "check_date=2025-10-16".
I went ahead and fixed those.
Cheers

Cool project. Thanks!

By poking around I found also this one, but its data hasn't been updated in a year.
https://osmcamera.dihe.de/

Just out of curiosity, which database is that? I've seen lot of new users adding cameras lately.

Thank you so much for the additional edit and the data share Tanya!