Hi edops,

This and other changesets have broadly reclassified settlement place names across Vermont in a manner that is inconsistent with previous place classification discussions among Vermont mappers and generally does not align with the accepted meanings of these tags. As such, I've reverted these changes and invite you to discuss with other local mappers on the forum before making further place name classification changes.

Forum topic: https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/111201

Revert changeset: changeset/149395884

Forum discussion about this here: https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/trails-use-name-and-or-hiking-route/110106

I've gone ahead and reverted the address based name removals for now:
changeset/147432472
changeset/147432411

I think the question of whether these addresses are truly building names is an interesting one, and I may start a forum topic seeking other viewpoints. It seems to me that for the most notable and well known of these buildings it probably does make sense that the name is the address. For less notable ones I'm not so sure.

I've also just realized that the building at 479 Main Street has two addresses: 475 and 479.
https://www.uvm.edu/~hp206/2011/sites/17.html
The sign reads "475-479 Main Street". Would people refer to the building using both numbers like that?

Thanks for the feedback. I wasn't sure about doing this edit, thinking something like that might be the case. The reason I ultimately did go ahead with it is because I noticed a signage difference while driving by these buildings. Named building signs have the name in all caps and the address in proper case on the line below like this:

POMEROY HALL
489 Main Street

Signs for address only buildings use the same proper case as other addresses, and they don't duplicate the address in the all caps name style. For example like this:

481 Main Street

Not like this:

481 MAIN STREET
481 Main Street

These two examples can both be seen here on Google street view: https://maps.app.goo.gl/mRSiDEra4z3zQTAJA

To me, this seems to indicate that some signs show a name and an address, while others showed just an address. So OSM tagging could match that. However, your experience contradicts that with these addresses seeming to be treated as names among the UVM community. I wonder if this really makes the address the name of such a building, or if people just use the address in lieu of a name? On the other hand I am aware of cases where an address is definitively used as a name. For example this restaurant in Jeffersonville: https://158main.com/

If you're confident that these buildings really are named by their address (and not just referred to as such for lack of a name), I'm happy to restore the name tags.

Oh, I see. This must be the gas turbine Burlington Electric uses "as a peaking unit and for emergencies". It generated 0.1% of Burlington's electricity in 2022
https://www.burlingtonelectric.com/our-energy/
https://www.burlingtonelectric.com/our-energy-portfolio/

I've passed by this building many times and never would have known it was a generating station. I guess that's because it isn't running most of the time. I'm not sure this really qualifies as a power plant to be honest, but I don't see a more fitting tag. Regardless, the building tag should certainly get re-added since it is still a building.

Hello. Why did you change this building to an oil power plant? I'm quite sure it's never been one in the nearly 20 years I've lived in the area. Is there some news I'm unaware of?

Hey Cabot's. This is a common misunderstanding because the tag access=private is supposed to have a more specific meaning than common meaning of the word "private" (what you describe above). More details here: access=private#Clarification_of_the_term_%E2%80%9Cprivate%E2%80%9D

This is indeed a private road as indicated by the PVT on the sign. However all this means legally is that the road is maintained by the property owners rather than the town. It doesn't carry the same weight as a sign reading "no trespassing", "residents only", or similar would. Such a sign means that access is preemptively restricted and definitely indicates `access=private`. This road lacks an access restricting sign, but we still call it a "private road" and people generally do not go down private roads like this out of respect for the privacy of others. If someone with no business there go down this road, the property owners have the right to tell them to leave (trespass them) and now they legally must leave. The tag for this situation in OSM is access=permissive. This is confusing because it sounds like property owners are happy to allow you access to their land. What it really means is any normal private property situation. There is not preemptive indication of restricted access, but if the owner tells you to leave then you are legally required to do so.

For reference: access=*#List_of_possible_values

Hello and thank you for mapping in Vermont! You appear to be mapping quite a few driveways as highway=residential here and in other change sets. These should be highway=service + service=driveway instead.

Thanks! 😄 Hopefully I actually improved the situation here. I'm not very familiar with public transit route relations, but JOSM was complaining about ordering problems so I did my best to fix them.

Thanks for checking in! I hadn't noticed, but seems fine to me. These are some very large areas of forest and the tree branches often reach over the narrow rivers, streams, and roads making them feel more a part of the forest than a break in it. I'm fairly adept at working with large multi-polygon relations, so it seemed reasonable to make the areas large. If you see value in splitting them up along waterways and roads, that also seems fine though.

No worries. It's easy to accidentally drag things.

Hi, welcome to OpenStreetMap, and thanks for the improvements you've been adding! Just a heads up, it looks like in this edit natural=sand was accidentally applied to the whole Cranberry Lake Wild Forest area. I went ahead and fixed it here: changeset/131246249

Yeah that would be fine. The opening hours syntax offers several different options for closing after midnight. I chose the first.
opening_hours=*#Closing_after_midnight

I thought about adding fee:conditional, but that would seem to imply that there is no fee some of the time. Although a permit holder doesn't have to pay a fee each time they park, they do have to pay a monthly or yearly fee for the permit. So there is always a fee of some kind.

Thanks! In the future, rather than deleting a demolished building, you might consider changing the tag from building=* to demolished:building=* and putting a note= tag on it. Here's an example: way/984365737
When the building is simply deleted but still visible on aerial imagery, another mapper can easily just think it's missing and add it back later. Leaving the object in the database with a lifecycle prefix makes this less likely while still removing it from map rendering.
osm.wiki/Lifecycle_prefix
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Published using OSMCha: https://osmcha.org/changesets/129210356

Hey Necessarycoot72, I've reverted this because you added information that applies to the Town of Colchester and this node only represents the smaller village of Colchester: relation/8897022

The two objects do not represent exactly the same thing. I explained this in a note on the village node. Please read notes left by other mappers before making changes.

Hey Nigel, Thanks for updating the AT/LT here with the new alignment. It looks like another mapper made some changes after you and now there are two parallel paths labeled as the AT. changeset/126845646
I'd like to get this cleaned up if you can share your on the ground knowledge.

Looks like this section is the new alignment?
way/1088536733

And what is the state of the old alignment? Closed, but tread still visible on the ground, or restored to natural looking state?

I've reverted the forest that was deleted and not replaced in this changeset: changeset/127906781
Please replace anything you delete, and ideally modify the existing objects instead.

wrong link above. Here is the correct restoration changeset: changeset/127906615

Thank you for the detailed work you are doing here! However, it's not ok to delete the work of previous mappers with a promise to replace it later. I have restored the trails deleted in this changeset here:
changeset/127794755

Moving forward, please modify existing objects instead of deleting and replacing. Thank you.
osm.wiki/Keep_the_history