Thanks!

I, and other local mappers, disagree with your reasoning just as you disagree with ours (regarding the highway= status. I fully support the retention of the ref= tag, by the way). If you want to make this change to highway=primary, then you need to establish substantial support for it from the OSM community - once again, I suggest the the talk-gb mailing list is probably the best place to do this. If you prefer, there are other lists too (the international “tagging” or “osm-talk” lists might do, for example) and other methods (such as directly approaching people who’ve edited locally using the messaging system and getting them to make a public statement in support here). I still think you have the best chance on the talk-gb list (even though I don’t support your view, I am happy to make this suggestion and do so in good faith). If you make a good case and have good support from the community, then you will be free to make this change without it being quickly reverted. Ultimately if you think that I and others are acting unfairly, or without the support of the community, then you can ask the Data Working Group for a ruling. The DWG’s contact address can be found on http://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Data_Working_Group

In the meantime, I think it would be uncontentious to add designation=primary tags to these highways which would, at least, make it easier for you to produce a render that suits your needs and those of your clients. The designation= key was established since the original conversations about The High and St Aldate’s, but I think it suits this situation well.

Please try to see that this comes across as very arrogant. It is not just about you and your client, there are many people using the data for all sorts of things and your edits will break some of them. The note asked you to discuss the change you wish to make with the OSM community but you went ahead anyway because it suited you. That the note was put on these highway ways should suggest that this is something that requires wider discussion, rather than being a simple case where there is one simple solution that was just waiting for someone to come along and implement it.

Picking up on a few of your points: nothing about the restrictions/etc on The High/St Aldates has changed since the note= tags were added. The note is not “out of date” unless changes are made, or the OSM community opinion changes, both of which could happen, but there is no evidence either has. Removing the note would be just as contentious as making the change to the highway= tags themselves.

The reason the note mentions “the mailing list” is because in 2007 (not 2011 as EdLoach suggested) when the community agreed this, that would be understood to have meant the main OSM-talk list where the conversation originally took place. The note needs to be updated, and I will do that shortly - I suggest talk-gb is the right forum for discussion before making further changes now.

These roads were originally changed because of map users’ complaints that a zoomed-out view of the area suggested that passing through Oxford City Centre was sensible way of travelling from points East of the city to destinations on the West and vice-versa. Just having a complaint off-list in the other direction is not grounds in-and-of-itself for changing the status-quo.

Finally, for now, you claim that The High carries traffic significant enough to be classified as a Primary Route. The Council traffic counts suggest that at 7,900 motor vehicles per day, this section is somewhat less busy than nearby Cowley Road (highway=secondary) and that nearby primary routes such as London Road have 2.5 times the traffic volume. There may be some argument that the St Aldates/High route could be classified as a secondary route, but again, this needs to be agreed with those currently part of the OSM community before any change is made.

Once again, let me repeat, there is not a high volume of traffic on High Street when compared to nearby Primary or Secondary routes.

If you do want to take this further, please start a conversation on the talk-gb list ( https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb ) before making any further changes.

With best wishes!

Stephen

For what it's worth, Oxpoints can store a reference to an OSM object - for example the "way/99933769" in http://data.ox.ac.uk/doc:oxpoints/40002001

However, this hasn't really been used, and due to the volatility of OSM objects (especially as stuff is being deleted and resurveyed for ODbL compatibility reasons) I guess there won't be much takeup of it anyway.

Chatting further with the OxPoints team, it seems there are only 2 points remaining that were derived from Google, and another 2 that were (probably) derived from OSM (they're marked internally as "update with GPS"). The data is shortly to be released as CC0, so then probably can be used in OSM.

It's derived (in part) from Google Maps aerial photos, and so not suitable for OSM.