Comment by lapetitejort | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lapetitejort | Hacker News Reader

I got into OSM and StreetComplete to flesh out intersections, stop signs, and sidewalks in my area. I always felt like I was doing something wrong though. I created crosswalks, then OSM would prompt me to connect the crosswalk to the road via a crossing. In StreetComplete, it felt like I was filling in duplicate data. I had to add whether the crossing had crossing lights not only at the middle crossing, but on the sides as well. This probably doesn't make any sense.

Basically, I am never confident I am editing OSM correctly. Am I supposed to manually draw out sidewalks, or tag the road as having a sidewalk? After adding sidewalks in my area, StreetComplete is now asking me if roads have sidewalks, which I clearly see on the map. Reminds me of editing the various Wiki pages. There's several ways of documenting something, only one way is correct, and it's undocumented.

edit: after playing with StreetComplete more, I noticed you can mark sidewalks as displayed separately. This is tagged as "sidewalk:both=separate" on the road. Whether this is the right way to do things I do not know

Usually in OSM there are several different ways to map things, to varying levels of detail. (E.g. As you discovered, you can just tag a road as having sidewalks, or trace out the actual sidewalks themselves.) Generally, as long as the information you're adding is accurate, you're helping. Changing tagging schemes later is a lot easier than re-discovering that information from scratch. If you're really concerned, usually the wiki has good information on what is currently considered best practice.

Incidentally, I think for crossings StreetComplete now only asks about the actual crossing nodes, so no more duplicate quests.

> think for crossings StreetComplete now only asks about the actual crossing nodes, so no more duplicate quests.

It can be confusing for roads where both sides are separated or where there is a traffic island in the middle. There you have two crossing nodes (and sometimes even the footway leading over the road). But in general, I think it is very hard to actually cause trouble with StreetComplete. Furthermore, not every single quest has to be answered, although they typically only exist if there is an obvious correct answer the vast majority of the time (to not annoy users).

When in doubt, look for adjacent localities and do what the others are already doing. OSM is chaotic and (usually) driven by consensus that can be slightly different in specific communities.

The first time I tried using OSM's web UI to add stuff, my head was spinning. Bless you folks who do the intersections, speed limits, and whatnot.

I've mostly stuck to using Organic Maps to add individual businesses, that's a very easy thing to do. Drop a pin, name, phone number/website/hours/whatever, submit.

> Basically, I am never confident I am editing OSM correctly.

This is the case for the majority of users. The rules are complex and not always obvious or clearly defined. The world is complex, unfortunately, and so is describing it accurately.

One of OSM killer features for me is finding drinking water along the route when I'm hiking/biking/exploring. Unfortunately, there isn't a single, consistent label used for all sources of drinking water. So I have to check amenity=drinking_water, man_made=water_tap, amenity=fountain, one after the other.

I think StreetComplete has missions to add the label drinking_water=yes to all of those, so the situation might improve in the future.

When I'm unsure I make a note with a photo and someone who knows more looks into it.

The seemingly duplicate data on crossing is because there are different "parts" of the crossing, intended for different users.

There is the path across the road, usually from one sidewalk to the opposite, which is meant for pedestrians, and there is the node where this path touches the road, which is meant for car drivers.

Yes, the system could be improved by grouping these somehow, maybe using relations (https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Relation ), but that would add complexity to any navigation or rendering application using OSM data that wants to process information about crossings.

In regards to your edit: Yes, this is exactly correct.

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