OpenStreetMap
Two weeks ago the rendering of landuse=conservation was dropped from the default rendering on openstreetmap.org. While the landuse=conservation has problems, it is used quite a lot in near my home. I was originally worried about what it would mean to how the map would look with this tag missing. However, when the landuse=conservation was dropped, other tags were used such as leisure=nature_reserve, and landuse=forest for rendering. To my surprise, the new rendering exposed tagging problems that were not apparent with the older rendering style. I have been fixing them over the past week.
Everybody knows that the default map is a force on how the data looks, and in theory designed for mappers, perhaps we should mix up the rendering style every once in a while to emphasize different kinds of data. For example, November/December can be addresses, January outdoor sports, February public transportation, March railroads, April hiking, May political boundaries, June land use, July coastline, August rivers and lakes, September highways classifications and routes, etc.
Discussion
Comment from RobJN on 5 October 2015 at 17:50
Cool idea. Perhaps we should have a map render of the month (like we have a featured image of the week on the wiki).
Comment from Alan Bragg on 6 October 2015 at 19:44
I’m wondering what kind of “tagging problems” you found; I could help you find and fix them.
Comment from jremillard on 6 October 2015 at 20:43
Hi Alan, The landuse=forest, leisure=recreation_ground, landuse=recreation_ground were missing, or on the wrong places, etc. I think they are correct now for Groton at least….
Comment from SomeoneElse on 9 October 2015 at 10:45
It’s a great idea, but I suspect that the biggest challenge would be a technical one - having the infrastructure available to display “tiles from cold” in a new style for the whole world. Maybe something that’d be esier to set up would be something on a local or regional basis?
For my own use I often use a different rendering to OSM’s standard one, and regularly see things that I’ve missed* by using it (as you would with any different rendering).