Thanks for the detailed explanation, Minh, though I believe you walk a very fine line here.

So, am I understanding you to say is that tagging what the signs say is "wrong" (or less right than"on the ground verifiable") and that what the name tag SHOULD say for corporate consumers of OSM data (like Mapbox and Foursquare...) is what corporate consumers of OSM data like Mapbox and Foursquare WANT it to say? Even when "lowly" users like me not in the know how OSM data "might" be used by its corporate consumers?

Gee, that seems odd.

Really, Minh? OK, if you think this is more correct. Are you sure you're not checking on many of or all my edits since 2009? I do live here and see the signs (I was just driving this stretch of highway TODAY), but if you want to "localize" this and call the whole stretch Cabrillo Highway The Cabrillo Highway, OK, you got it. And "official_name"? Is that something you coined?

OK, I loaded your link into JOSM as a WMS layer (thanks). I appreciate your clarification, as you have "realigned" my assumption that this is an import, rather it looks like you are simply using a WMS layer.

By the way, do you have any plans to trace more (or all) buildings in Santa Cruz or any particular subset? I ask because there was some recent talk-us chatter to use recent Bing data (over much of the West Coast) to do the same, but it is a HUGE import project.

I've been mapping in OSM locally (and elsewhere) since 2009, be welcome to look me up! Cheers, Steve

Your source tag is a bad link; please correct it. Also, this appears to be an import. Where are your Import Guidelines steps documented?

What a colossal flustercluck. I am reverting.

What a colossal flustercluck. I am reverting.

What a colossal flustercluck. I am reverting.

I have added geological=outcrop to these data, along with a FIXME tag which describes them as rough and needing additional refinement. Thank you for your help!

Now I believe that geological=outcrop might be about right, but it's still pretty rough.

Thank you, although these are much more geologically and biologically rich than a simple sand dune. They are a wholly unique feature on the landscape. Some of them actually are protected within boundary=protected_area, protect_class=1a, 6 or 7, however, when they fall upon private property (as they often do), they are not. However, I strongly believe they need to be identified on our map, so I put them into OSM.

I am considering adding the tag geological=sandhills, however, when I attempt to edit the wiki (and I have written thousands of lines and many pages of wiki in OSM) it will not let me enter a new table row.

Many times, but there are no values for that key which seem appropriate. It may be time to "coin" one (make one up). However, it is so local and unique, that I have been reluctant to do this.

You might do a Google search on "Santa Cruz sandhills" or look at http://www.santacruzsandhills.com if you wish to do some research to help me. These have always proven fairly easy to map (crudely, with a rough polygon) but I always get stuck when it is time to tag them. They have many unusual aspects to them like shark's teeth from millions of years ago to strange green beetles which are found nowhere else. It's like a strange weird island world in the middle of the forest. I actually live within site of one and it is a genuinely unusual feature upon this local part of the Earth.

These are a unique-to-the-area geological formation of rock/sand which give rise to the frequent quarries in the area (many largely "played out" and now closed). In the middle Miocene epoch (about 15 million years ago) this area was underwater/ocean and today these areas are often part of boundary=protected_area polygons because of the endemic unique plant and animal life that are there, some are found only on Earth right here and are endanged species.

As I am not sure what the proper "geological-oriented" tags are, and these ARE unique local geography, I have identified them (roughly, the polygons are rather crude) so that they may be tagged with better tags in the future as these evolve. Do you have any suggestions?

Hi maleo818: Welcome to OSM!

I saw your initial edit at Swan Lake Garden. This isn't really a park; the area you drew over has apartment buildings and is part of the larger residential area known as "swan lake garden" as a residential polygon.

If you like, you might try adding (as nodes, not lines) things like the bbqs you mention (tag the node with amenity=bbq) and you can also add amenity=bench for exactly where a bench node is. You can even do the same with a node tagged natural=tree for individual trees.

However, I'd like to delete this polygon you drew as it isn't a park (even a private one), it is a an area surrounded by building=apartments (you can draw those as polygons and tag them just like that) and they should display (render) on the web a few minutes later.

I'm happy to answer any questions, as OSM is a truly fun project and everybody wants you to have fun while mapping.

Regards,
SteveA
Santa Cruz

Thank you for your quick reply. I can certainly endeavor to reduce and/or conflate tags on future CPAD polygon entries, as I do agree that they do contain a large amount of metadata. Some is useful and some is not (to OSM) and as long as a polygon in OSM can be identified as mapping back to a unique polygon in CPAD data, we will have the two-way flow of data identity we need to keep a good process going. This makes the UNIT_ID the most critical metadata tag for us to continue to use going forward.

OSM is made up of many people with many good ideas. It improves not only as we do good things (like adding high-quality data) but also as we listen to each other. I appreciate your thoughtful comments.

SteveA
California

I wouldn't say "huge" as it is a few dozen edits over the course of a few hours in a single day (and I'm not done yet) against the over 12,000 edits I have entered over the last eight years.

Is your problem with "foreign tags?" I kept these in to distinguish these CPAD polygons from the major landuse polygons (from SCCGIS, see our Santa Cruz County wiki) that I have manually kept improved (over three revisions and six years) and for which our county has won a "Gold Star Award" at BestOfOSM.org for "nearly perfect landuse." In addition, I recently won "Mapper of the Month" award and certainly don't want to "rustle any feathers" in the project.

However, I don't see a problem with these polygons, their tags, the slow and careful method by which I enter these and conflate them against existing data, as the tags they contain allow these CPAD polygon data (which frequently update) to be continually updated into the future, which I intend to do, similar to the way I update SCCGIS landuse polygons.

OSM and CPAD (callands.org) are in an excellent position to continue collaboration which "feeds" both of our map data in an ever-upward and ever-better way, so both data sets improve over time as we complement and improve each others geo data. That is a lofty goal, with wide and large benefits for many and is now being achieved.

So, in short, what is it you propose, exactly?

SteveA
California

Yeah, I think this is nonsensical and suggest it be removed. Could be a Pokemon Go spoof.

Can you please explain the source of your knowledge for why you set a significant amount of Northwestern Pacific Railroad to disused? (Including sidings)? This railway is in a long period of rehabilitation for both industrial/freight and passenger usage and does not appear to be disused. I intend to change this back to active rail if I don't receive an answer from you.

Please don't tag a whole building as elevator=yes, place the location of the elevator exactly where it is and tag it with highway=elevator.

As an avid mapper at UCSC I agree that the names of specific "cardboard dumpsters" needs to be dialed back here. Let's tag these properly instead of overloading their name= tags.