Opinions differ on how the Notes feature on osm.org should be used. This is something for people how care about the notes feature and are thinking about using it. As an individual mapper I have a clear view on what kind of notes are helpful. Here are some guidelines

Your note should

1. be hand made notes by a user, that means not done automatically in any way.
2. be verbose at least more than 3 words, probably more.
3. contain an specific mappable fact, for example a new name.
4. contain the app you are using when the error ocurred, preferrably

Things you should keep in mind:

• do not: use a template to write multiple notes. See rule 1
• do not: use notes as your own notepad while mapping, unless you expect someone else to fix it.
• do not use a script. See rule 1
• do not write: “this area should be mapped better”. See rule 3

Notes that are ok, but could be edge cases in the rules above

• “two unmapped roads here”
• “this area is in development, lots of new houses”

Notes that are really bad:

• “hjasgdkhagsd”
• “This area needs more details”
• “I was routed left here it should have been right”
• “the told me the speed limit was X but it was really Y”

Really all notes about routing apps are useless, they are too specific to the app to beable to verify.

Further more it would be nice if people were required to be contactable when leaving notes, but I guess I wouldn’t want that either as an anon. And I really want to thank everyone involved in the notes feature.

Taginfo show something I would really like, an easy access to documentation for a specific tag i.e. an editor can always look up "addr:country" and a short summary on what that tag is about.

So I made a short list of some tags that lacks the appropriate template in the wiki to get into taginfo, so adding this :{{KeyDescription|key=KEY_NAME|description=Describe KEY_NAME|lang=en}}" would make it show up in taginfo.

• addr:country


• wall


• 3dshapes:ggmodelk


• source_ref


• note:ja


• name:lb


• addr:city


• place_of_worship


• KSJ2:curve_id


• tiger:name_base


• tiger:name_type


• tiger:zip_left

I also was bothered by the lack of description on addr:* tags so I added the template to redirect pages. It works very well, but I don't like redirecting tags to a central key page, so for me the best idea would not to redirect them at all.

Of course I see the need to listing things in a big list like mapfeatures, but isn't that kind of "automatic" collection of facts done better on specialized pages like a layouted PDF, HTML or something else.

So this is a call for better and easier to access documentation.

UPDATE added template to attribution

I wonder if people use these tags, and how? I usually use them to tag landuse=construction to mark when the construction work started and when it is estimated that all work will be complete.

When end_date=* comes I usually check again and change the tag from landuse=construction area into a playground, a highway or something similar. I also change the start_date key.

So I've had this dream for three years to map coastlines with kayak, I've come up with many concepts but they are all very hard to implement. The biggest problem is that coast lines are very long if you are going to map every little detail, and you can't kayak that close to the coast all the time (it would make me crazy

So how do I do it?

It's time to meet up in Stockholm and talk about Openstreetmap. At the moment we will be about 5 people. It's a social gathering where we can talk about fun stuff such as parks, road surfaces or mapping war stories..

Place: Cafe Panorama, Kulturhuset, Sergels Torg, T-Centralen, Stockholm
Time: 1800
Date: Thursday, 5:th august
Map: http://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=59.332127&mlon=18.065395&zoom=18&layers=M
Attendees: 5+

More updates on:
http://forum.openstreetmap.org/viewtopic.php?id=8533

PS. Since there were about 5 people from Sweden at State of the Map but only three talked Swedish I need to write this in English. DS.

I don't think new users should have to care for what things are named, especially not in English. So How do I translate Openstreetmap?