This one too? May I ask what your rationale was for changing these rivers to streams?

What's your rationale for changing part of Steel Creek river to a stream? Looks way too big to jump across, to me.

Whoops, meant to say that you changed it to NON-intermittent (`intermittent=no`), from its previous value `intermittent=yes`.

You changed the tag on this waterway to intermittent, but from aerial imagery it is pretty clearly intermittent in fact. What was your reasoning?

Ahh! This was actually more of a mistake than that, as I didn't see the leisure=nature_reserve tag there at all when glancing over all the tags, and thought I was simply adding the leisure=park tag, rather than replacing leisure=nature_reserve. But I also didn't realize that nature_reserve was more appropriate in this case anyway, so I've learned on both fronts. Thank you!

Hm. I think this is similar to the "names vs refs" debate for roads, where it seems to be generally accepted that refs are not names; see https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/names-are-not-refs-vs-some-names-are-based-on-refs/109995 for example.

One of the principles of OSM is that names should be *human-readable*, which is why refs exist for number-based ID schemas. Things like "Tributary H-2.2" are not human-readable, which is why I suggest they are closer to refs.

If you are in the US Slack, you could raise this question on the #water channel, or you could post it to https://community.openstreetmap.org/ to gauge consensus.

I’m not sure that’s right either. I think they just don’t have names. “Squabble Creek Tributary” is a description, but not really a name.

I think this waterway is more accurate as a "river" - it is pretty wide, and certainly wider than could be jumped across by a regular human (the OSM definition of "stream").

I don't think things like "Tributary H-2.2" are names - they're internal identifiers (possibly refs), but definitely not commonly known or used by the average person to refer to these waterways, as the `name` tag would suggest. For now, I'm changing name to note, but open to a better way to store this information.

Take care with the flow direction of waterways - I've had to reverse the direction of many of these. You can also view either the National Map Topographic layer or the USGS Topographic Maps layer to find out what they are named. (For example, the one in this changeset is an extension of the existing Deer Creek to the east.) If you are drawing two waterways on either side of a road, they almost certainly connect with a tunnel, so you can add those tunnels as well so that the waterway network is fully connected.

Be careful with the `tributary` role in a waterway relation - it is not supposed to be used, per osm.wiki/Relation:waterway as it mixes up data about different waterways. I've been trying to re-organize these as I find them.

For what it's worth, here is some of the existing (global) discussion:

https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/river-or-stream/92512/10
https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/rivers-streams-and-water-area/100895
https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/stream-to-river-transition/97832
https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/stream-vs-river/71035
https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/stream-of-river/102823
https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/nomenclature-tagging-differentiation-between-a-stream-and-a-river/63967

If you search "river stream" in the OSM-US Slack, there's lots of discussion there already, as well.

From waterway=stream the wiki guidance is:

"Use waterway=stream for a naturally-forming waterway that is too narrow to be classed as waterway=river (the commonly accepted rule for OpenStreetMap is that a stream can be jumped across by an active, able-bodied person)."

This seems clear to me. The waterway is significantly wide, therefore it should be a river. Am I missing something? Where is the confusion exactly?

The discussion has been done plenty before - a quick search on the community forums yields quite a few results, in multiple languages. I'd recommend reviewing the existing discussion and, if you feel more is needed, opening a new topic with your thoughts/concerns.

Once again, Mud Creek is a wide waterway, and the river tag was correct. You may want to continue to refresh the distinction between river and stream: you can jump over a stream, but not a river. osm.wiki/Rivers

You are adding addresses across many different and far apart counties in Texas, so I have to ask - where are you getting your address information from?

waterway=river vs waterway=stream - You really changed a lot of tags!

These are pretty significant waterways - certainly not ones that an able-bodied adult could jump over. As such, they're "rivers" in OSM definitions, not streams.

You can use the USGS 3D Elevation Program to see a LIDAR map, which helps in drawing accurate waterways (for example this one is actually quite wind-y way/1452119196/history#map=18/30.540231/-97.258800)

I do believe Alligator Creek is actually a river in OSM definitions - it is wider than 3m. Refer to the wiki for river and stream: waterway=river vs waterway=stream