In the spirit of "pour calming oil over troubled waters," I offer that this dispute largely resulted from tangles among the complex issues of landuse and landcover. They are misunderstood, confusing and fraught with ambiguities. There are a plurality of tagging strategies and histories, not everybody is familiar with how fuzzy are the edges.

Landuse might be residential or farm or even both, as defined by how the property may be and is used (in a zone, in a legal sense). Landcover (like meadow, even though it is specified with a landuse tag) is different — or is it? Forest and wood tags make this even more complex. And rendering in mapnik/Standard and Carto are different still, with issues that help explain certain evolutions, allowing us better understanding of the complexities and histories.

There exist tagging strategies which are correct according to many, have evolved, yet still contain errors in the opinions of some and which others find confusing without some explanation or historical context: all at the same time. Our map is quite plural.

Landuse and landcover untangle slowly, it appears. Misunderstanding that what is seen in Bing as landcover doesn't automatically supersede existing correct landuse. It isn't one or the other and sometimes is both.

We do our best here, OSM evolves.

I wait no longer to do what I have known to be the right thing to do since this dispute began: I'm redacting bdiscoe's polygon removal edits.

Sadly, and I have never done this with any other OSM member with whom I have "friended," I also remove him as my friend in this project. His arrogance and hostility demonstrate themselves in his comments above, his User page boasts how he is more concerned with what are his "ratings" in OSM's "rank spreadsheet." These are not my values in this project, nor are they tenets of OSM.

Perfect data cannot be the enemy of the good, and good data cannot be the enemy of none whatsoever.

Adios, amigo!

The answer to who "foolishly" imported the SHAPE... attributes is nmixter. He has been hugely admonished for a very sloppy import here, and I have literally spent YEARS cleaning it up. EVERY SINGLE ONE of the >3000 polygons he imported was visually and personally redacted in JOSM by me in the "version 3 update" in 2014. If you are signing up to improving ALL 3000 polygons in our county, I'd like to see your plan to do so. But to randomly "nip at edges" that this one or that one is wrong, without fully understanding the history of the data that are here, you do yourself, OSM and our data in this county a huge disservice.

Regarding "fix the road topology," you will see (if you look, try http://product.itoworld.com/map/162?lon=-121.91947&lat=37.02996&zoom=12&fullscreen=true) that NOBODY has fixed more TIGER misalignments in this county besides me. By that Ito map, it is one of the most "blue" (corrected) counties in the entire state of California.

Our wiki even explicitly states that road are up to 100 meters off! Why are you so shocked that they are! This is not my fault, it was a messy TIGER import and we all know that. Yet, in eight years there are still some roads which are so remote and/or closed with gates and/or on private property and/or invisible from Bing or other imagery that they are nearly impossible to correct using those methods. Does that stop me from intending to do so? No. Does that mean that they should be wholesale deleted? Well, no again, yet I agree with you that these data should be corrected. But correct them with WHAT? You do not appear to have better data which superseded our already "OK" or "fair" data. So, keep your crayons in their box.

bdiscoe: Your hostile and hyperbolic comments that "there appear to be no actual data here, ONLY IMPORTS" and "largely fictional" are unwelcome, untrue and show you to be a histrionic exaggerator. I have been mapping this county (lovingly, carefully, with my GPS, notebook and tens of thousands of edits) for over eight years. PLENTY of people have looked! Santa Cruz actually won a BestOfOSM.org award for having "nearly perfect landuse!" Earlier this year, I was awarded OSM's Mapper of the Month award. I have spoken a number of times at SOTM-US national conferences. The university (my alma mater, where I work with many) uses OSM as its basemap. I constantly hike and bike yet more and more remote areas of this county and then generously contribute the highly accurate data to OSM.

What you propose is fantasy wishful thinking: you say "fix the road topology" like a magical super-edit is going to come along and suck the knowledge/data out of the ether and plunk it into our map. Nonsense! We have county landuse and we have on-the-ground data (over many years, refined with many versions) and both together are pretty good (we win awards, speak at our national conferences and are named mapper of the month) and they CONTINUE to improve as I and others around here hike and bike yet more.

You haven't answered my questions: what is the source of your better data? Do you live here? Is this your backyard? Have you ever even set foot in Santa Cruz County? I have lived here most of my life, have hiked and biked most of this county and mapped much of it, with the help of many others.

I'd like to invite you to stay out of editing in this county: your hostility and attitude are unwelcome, your data is NO better that what we have here (you continue to fail that you can't prove that) and I'd like this comment thread to come to an end with your declaration that you might not like our data, but you haven't any BETTER data to contribute, so you won't edit here.

Kindly, SteveA

However, if you "expand the wood" (e.g. as it appears you have from the east side of Happy Valley Road to its west side), you truly break many landuse semantics as published by our County GIS: landuse=forest really is timberland, natural=wood originated from "special_use" polygons which have a specific purpose but which are largely wooded. Do you really believe that you can use Bing (and a guess and a prayer) to better define landuse than does our County GIS department?

Well, thanks for that; I'm watching. It's possible we posted Comments so temporally close together that we crossed each other, but I do await answers to my questions. Thank you in advance. SteveA

I don't think there is anything terribly wrong with meadow overlapping with other landuse, and nobody has said so in Santa Cruz County, where we have been doing this for at least 8 years. Look at Wilder Ranch State Park, what many have called "visually pleasing" (meadow overlapping with landuse=forest, landuse=wood and leisure=park). The history is complicated, the rendering is complex, it has evolved to be this way over quite a long period of time and with a great deal of discussion and consensus.

Have you READ our County page, as I have recommended? There is quite a bit of history here, by locals, using local data, over many years — for most of the history of OSM as a matter of fact. I don't edit San Ramon (though I know Danville, Pleasanton and Livermore fairly well and have mapped there), but to simply redact official landuse data and berate local convention doesn't sit well with many here.

Regarding removing a wrong "D" well, I'm OK with it if you can justify doing so (and you haven't, except to say "it is a total mess.") So that doesn't fly right from the start. But you didn't replace "wrong D" with A, B and C which are correct. If you do so, I'm OK with that. But you haven't. Since you use the word "re-created," I await your re-creations. Do you intend to recreate A, B and C or will you just redact without any improvement? If the latter, I will restore the polygons, perhaps this time as landuse=residential instead of landuse=farmland, as our local wiki suggests. (It predicts that they may oscillate between these, they have and they do, as contributors indeed "improve" them).

Why you would say that larger landuse polygons are "inaccurate to the point of being completely useless and inaccurate?" Our wiki states "consensus (has) emerged of capturing zoning with landuse=* is a good first step to avoid large blank areas, but when actual on-the-ground data are also known, they are preferred to simple zoning (landuse)=*." DO YOU have any actual on-the-ground data to contribute to IMPROVE what you have redacted? If so, do so. Otherwise, please leave our perfectly valid "good first steps" in place. The notion that these discourage better data is nonsense: rather, you (and/or other OSM contributors) appear to be lacking in better data with which to do so.

SteveA

You are welcome. Although I don't quite understand what it is that you are either missing or that you require to further complete whatever it is that you are trying to do.

bdiscoe: Please redact this farmland removal polygon, or at least redact your changeset and update the polygon so it is landuse=residential.

If you read osm.wiki/Santa_Cruz_County,_California#Landuse (paragraph six) you'll see that the County does zone every single hectare in this zone to be "Residential-Agricultural" and exhorts OSM contributors to "improve these!"

I don't have a problem with you changing this polygon to landuse=residential if you believe that to be more correct: they are a mix of residential properties which are allowed by county zoning to also allow commercial agricultural use.

But I do have a problem with you simply removing it without replacing it with anything better.

SteveA
Santa Cruz

Hi Bill: Yes, again, it is rather subtle and a bit complicated. There is a state of California route called PCBR, which is what OSM is trying to channel with this route. That is different than the ACA route by essentially the same name, which should NOT be entered into OSM, as it is commercial / proprietary to ACA.

Please read our wikis such as osm.wiki/United_States/Bicycle_Networks , osm.wiki/California/Cycling_Relations and osm.wiki/Santa_Cruz_County,_California#Cycle_Routes . These will give you perspective, history, and hopefully instructions on how to properly tag approved routes, and how to VERY CAREFULLY tag proposed routes, but there are some high bars to reach before OSM consensus allows those to be entered.

(I got a good chewing out by folks in the Data Working Group about putting proposed USBRs into OSM after my talk in DC, but the waters seem to have smoothed over since then. However, only if we respect the emerged consensus).

Happy to guide, send me an OSM missive any time and I'll answer with my very best.

Thanks, SteveA

Or, maybe better, the wiki's Discussion section (tab at top).

Hi Bill, thanks for your reply.

Please see our wiki page on this: osm.wiki/WikiProject_U.S._Bicycle_Route_System

ACA routes are proprietary and copyrighted and not compatible with OSM's ODbL (license). It's a long, long story. I have largely written that wiki, work with ACA (including its "super volunteer" in these endeavors, Kerry Irons, as well as its Board of Directors), got AASHTO to give OSM permission to use its ballot data to map routes, and spoke on the topic at SOTM-US in Washington, DC in 2014.

It may be that various cities have "endorsed" their jurisdiction's segments of the route, but really, only an AASHTO approval is going to allow this route to be entered (without the state=proposed tag).

Again, it's been a six- or seven- year long story, rife with OSM politics, and I appreciate that you are helping to channel the consensus that has emerged by allowing the USBR 66 route in California to emerge as it has and now is. Please don't add "proposed" route to the map, but rather communicate what intentions you might have in the wiki page's Proposed Section, USBR 66 in California row of the table.

Thanks, SteveA

BTW, there is a wiki page for the whole USBRS (system), where each route is listed. There are no links to the "originating documentation" for (AASHTO) approved routes, but there are links for the ballots for the routes that are proposed at any given time.

See osm.wiki/WikiProject_U.S._Bicycle_Route_System

By "double" I think you mean "doubt" and by "change" do you mean "chance?"

I might suggest you download the doc which I generously point you to and do whatever you need to do with it.

I believe my part of helping you is complete.

Try here:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/idtfhretq0urelu/AADNm6RwNePgBHKkKZphkYMja?dl=0

and click the USBR 37 IL link.

Cheers, SteveA.

Yes, I used the Illinois Department of Transportation's application to AASHTO. It is a nine page document with maps and route descriptors (turns and lengths). I can send it to you if as an attachment if you give me an email address. -SteveA

Hello Bill. Please source the data you use to enter USBR 66 in California. I'm quite familiar with tagging this and I don't think you can tag a route as you have here: it is only an early sketch of a route, proposed, and not signed on the ground. Please explain your intentions. Thanks, SteveA.

Bill, I do here and now ask what are your sources for putting in USBR 95 into California. This route isn't even proposed, and/or you may be conflating the ACA's route of a similar name to be a USBR 95 which is not even a Caltrans ballot before AASHTO.

Awaiting your reply, and these data (specifically inclusion of these segments in the route relation) implies you have seen some signage on the ground to mark the route. I don't mind that, but it would be what Caltrans calls PCBR and you could put tag name=PCB in the route relation. But inclusion of these segments in a route relation for USBR 95 as you have with ref=95, nope, nah-ahh, until you source these route data. Thanks, SteveA.

OSM does not name "private property" the way you have. Please remove these tags.