👍

There isn't any specific talk pages (or topic in our Discourse forum) that I know of for the contentious (less so now, it has calmed down in the last several years) topic of "mountain bike mapping in Santa Cruz County."

There are OSM Contributors in and around FNMSP (Ken Adelman, others) and OSM Contributors in and around UCSC and the very touchy areas in western Henry Cowell State Park (not Fall Creek Unit, the part that abuts UCSC). Over the years, the tagging on these trails has evolved to where it is now...but I always expect there to be friction about exact access tags on particular trails, as those have vacillated heavily between "this" or "that" Contributor. Sometimes "sparks fly" (disagreements erupt) but for the most part, people are earnestly trying to get everything right.

The "lesson" that seems to shake out at the end is "please listen closely to your fellow mappers, even to the point of changing YOUR tags to THEIR tags, as they are more 'provably' correct." I've actually telephoned the state police officers who enforce mtb trails west of Hwy 9 between UCSC and HCRSP to get both the law and the notice of posting of what the local rules are because that was the most definitive "verifiably legal" method that I knew how to establish what the "rules" are.

Simply stated: be aware this is a shared map, sometimes disagreements arise, and if/when they do, please listen.

Again, Happy Mapping.

Thanks for replying so quick. The misspelling and abbreviation were small things, almost not worth mentioning.

What I mean is that some people might disagree with you about your specific tagging (what is legal as to access), so "listening skills" as to what others say about those around here are important. I'm not saying your tagging is wrong, simply that others might have some dispute, and to be open to their views if disagreements about specific access tags here arise in the future. (They have in the past).

Happy mapping!

It's Forest of Nisene Marks State Park. Remember, we sign our names to everything here. It's OK, mistakes happen. I'm not sure everyone knows UC means under construction, I had to think about it for a minute.

Chunks like this often get managed / curated by a knowledge representative, perhaps this is you. It's a good size chunk of area for focus, and sparse (seem largely blank, but not really blank) as is.

I'm sparse here (hiking, exploring); it's rough, for sure. I'm only vaguely aware of edges of this area. I do know other mappers who hike and bike here.

"Accurately" tagged is best. Sometimes that gets difficult but our consensus eventually hammers it out.

Really, anywhere is ripe for some of-the-moment improvement. Do keep up with dialog from others who may disagree or tag otherwise. That very dialog itself is important.

With a tap-tap here and a tap-tap there....

Thank you!

Yeah, it's a rebuilt house now, so I've changed the (identical) footprint to building=house. Thanks for catching this!

No complaints, you do a lot of good work around here showing where roads can and can't be accessed — I / we / the map appreciates your detail!

Well, yeah; that's what the construction tag means.

Thanks for the fix here, Kerry, I had not noticed this.

Nice work, Mike! The bridge is already starting to render, and no changes to existing USBR 50 relation, as is correct.

The "sail the paper airplane to Caltrans" that this might be incorporated into USBR 50 routing in some future AASHTO USBRS Round has begun. Will wheels turn and heads nod? We hope they will!

Thank you for adding Davenport CDP!

Y'know, maybe my eyes are trained to see Carto rendering with these three SEPARATE things (leisure=nature_reserve as boundary, natural=wood where they are, leisure=park if/as such manicured areas / "human sculpted land") exist, and maybe other eyeballs of other OSM contributors, less so.

But, I'm beginning to see these things evolve as Carto is rendering them and as @ZLima12 makes the changes. While we are maybe in "later innings" of this "go team" effort, meaning we are not quite yet done, we certainly are now around TWO thumbs up at our shared progress.

Lookin' good, even if not (quite) yet done!

To @ZeLonewolf 's comments above: 👍

Please, be very careful with "usually" (especially "usually wooded"). It's a very slippery slope (semantically); it's very easy to make assumptions and slip / fall down.

The wider practice that seems to be working is to "break apart" a dual-tagged (or assumed to be "both" wooded BECAUSE it is a "natural state" thing — around here — single-tagged thing) to TWO polygons. One for the, say, leisure=nature_reserve, one for the natural=wood which may sort of and sort of not be landcover in the area. You do need two polygons because you can't assume that "one means the other." (Around here). It doesn't. That assumption must die, or we'll continue to have misunderstandings like this.

So, really, there are THREE things here that might be tagged separately: the leisure=nature_reserve (which draws a boundary) the landcover (maybe wooded here, swampy there, grassland in patches here and there...) AND maybe there is a "front of park" area which could be subsetted with a small polygon tagged leisure=park.

Is everybody happy now?! We can do this!

Mmmm, it isn't "wooded" preserves that make for a correctly-tagged leisure=nature_preserve. The "landcover" could be woods, swampy or even desert (say certain kinds of sagebrush and a species of roadrunner is part of what is being "preserved").

It is the function of both "protecting natural biology" AND that humans are allowed (usually to do very low-impact activities, like read signs, observe with binoculars, hike only if strictly staying upon trails...) which makes the unique "dual-use" aspects of a leisure=nature_reserve. Yes, the natural biology is "preserved" here, yet humans might also recreate (leisure), but only if low-impact.

Semantics like "wood" are best left to natural=* tags. We express TWO DIFFERENT semantics with tagging both leisure=nature_reserve AND natural=wood, for example. The former does NOT imply the latter...that's why it's appropriate to use two tags to tag the two meanings.

And let's not forget: some areas might have a dirt parking space and maybe a bbq grill and a picnic table, that doesn't always really rise to the level of a park. It's a grill in a boundary=protected_area.

It's a big world.

Yes, it was Kevin Kenny (ke9tv), another Mapper of the Month, who helped to both coin the "front of park / back of park" concept (using leisure=park ONLY on the "manicured" segments of larger boundary=protected_area polygons) but also the word "manicured" and the phrase "human sculpted landscape."

A natural preserve (leisure=nature_preserve or boundary=protected_area) simply is not a "park" (even as that word is blurred in US English with the OSM tagging of leisure=park). ALTHOUGH, it may contain small (front-of-park) subset areas within it which could be rightly tagged with leisure=park.

The US has been chewing on these topics for many, many years, and Brian, Kevin, I and many others have contributed to the understanding that the "front-of park / back-of-park" concept is quite workable. It may not be perfect, but I'll take "workable" any day of the week. It has truly improved things to the point where these "tempests in a teapot" are only on a low simmer, rather than boiling over.

Good luck on the specifics of where the leisure=park SUBset(s) are in this (correctly tagged) leisure=nature_reserve. Sometimes they include sinuous access road squiggly polygons, sometimes not and sometimes include "islands" that are not obvious how you get to them, but these are geographic data describing "where" (not always "how"). And as leisure=nature_reserve does render the boundary edge, "you get that, too."

If you really wanted a more complete more "pretty looking" map (in Carto, say), you could carefully add natural tags (like wood or grassland) where appropriate. All together, to seasoned visual parsers of these rendered taggings, you'll "see what's really there," not as the fill colors you seem to want to see with an (incorrect) leisure=park tag on the whole polygon.

I've been wrangling these semantics in OSM for literally decades.

There is a possible solution to address most (or perhaps even everybody's) concerns in this case. The entirety of the property, as a "protected area" (in each of the 50 states, federal law and even OSM semantics there is such a thing, replete with databases, law and much geo data) is correctly tagged leisure=nature_reserve. That's simply a legal fact.

That some wish to see leisure=park tagging on at least some of the areas / facilities of this area CAN be accommodated with what is often called the "front of park / back of park" concept: those areas which are "front of park" that contain things like parking lots, amenities such as restrooms, picnic tables, sport fields / facilities, etc. CAN be tagged as a (subset of the area) leisure=park. The "back of park" areas are NOT so tagged, and remain tagged "simply" as a leisure=nature_reserve.

This isn't always perfect, but it is a compromise solution that often works.

Thanks, Mashin, for fixing up my tagging. I was a bit hasty entering this, looks nice now.

Toby, I do not consider you to be anywhere near a "pain in the butt," quite the contrary.: we have had an educational, reasonable, adult dialog.

You are welcome for my diligence; I have found that it frequently pays to be diligent, here we are.

Keep on mapping and mapping well and I'll do the same. Meanwhile, the data in OSM get better and better — and that's what it's all about.