FYI, I use natural=mountain_range and natural=peak nodes embedded in the way. See Santa Cruz Mountains, way/174808173 . I'm not saying this is more correct or yous is wrong (and a lot of people complain no matter what we do), simply informing you that there is a mountain_range tag being used, and around here. Taginfo also reports 39 usages of mountain_range=yes.

Again, it's still fluid, and I've actually been "voted down" for tagging the way I did. We'll see, though the topic has remained unresolved for years and years in OSM. A tip of the hat for your courageous edit for these.

Adam, I'd like to ask you to please take a look at our wiki pages about this (osm.wiki/United_States_admin_level is a start, where it is said that over 50,000 population is a city).

Many of the 30 changes you made seem OK, especially the small rocks, however, San Mateo (105,000), Richmond (104,000), Antioch (103,000), Concord (122,000), Hayward (150,000), Sunnyvale (140,000), Napa (80,000), Vallejo (116,000), Fairfield (115,000), Fremont (230,000), Alameda (80,000), Santa Clara (117,000), Tracy (83,000), Mountain View (74,000), Palo Alto (64,000) and even Petaluma (58,000) are all cities, not towns. Please change these to place=city as they are fully deserving of this key:value pair based on their populations. I suspect you may be tagging for the renderer (an OSM no-no) or how the cities names display. But it's all about the data and tagging accurately. Thank you!

When you say "above it," do you mean "northerly?"

And nope, these are legally and jurisdictionally part of Twin Lakes State Beach. I am not mismapping, I am mapping "what is." If you can specify what is wrong here, say what that is, please. I don't see how these are part of "someone's house," at least as I use DigitalGlobe Premium Imagery. On the more northerly "triangle park," I can see (and have mapped) a trapezoidal building, however, perhaps the State Parks Depatment uses this for storage, I don't know. But it is still "park."

I did not locate the Thirteenth Avenue node, Ian did ten years ago. However, in addition to performing the same three operations noted above I did to "Twelfth" (operator, no leisure tag, renaming properly based on ParkFinder) the node was also moved about ten meters southwesterly to be on the "beach lobe" from the house on 13th compared to where it was before. Done. (It may be more correct to break apart the almost-maybe-it-does crossing multipolygon boundary — that trapezoidal "lobe," but let's see if a cleanup by SCCGIS (v6?) and/or CPAD (v3?) does this first. We can if they don't.

Wow, a ten year old node from Ian Dees' GNIS node import which nine years ago was changed by me. OSM got a LOT of mileage out of that, and with minimal fuss!

But since Adamant1 is fussy here and now, I discovered (from here, http://www.scparks.com/Home/Parks/ParkFinder.aspx , you might want to take a look) that it has been renamed "12th Avenue Coastal Access."

Consequently, I have (somewhat cleverly?) migrated the tags from the node to the staircase (deleting the leisure=park tag) and deleting the node. I added operator=Santa Cruz County Parks Department to better denote that it is SCCPksDept which maintains these steps/staircase. Done.

I have no idea which park you refer to in this changeset. Please specify by ID # of the node, way or relation.

I've owned property for many years which includes nearly 200 feet of creek which are part of a "riparian corridor," also quite literally "my backyard" (private ownership residential real property). Only once in 17 years have I have heard hikers down there, they said "we thought this was part of the park." Cupping my hands, I yelled down (I couldn't see them, I could only hear them) "no, it's private property...". Who is correct?

This is similar to, but not exactly the same as beaches being BOTH said to be private property, yet also able to be legally (not always physically) accessed by the public. Who is correct. While you are at it, go look up the "Streisand Effect," the legal doctrine of which was won in court by a local friend of mine, active in OSM (we've collaborated on bike route mapping together).

Besides, with your lack of specificity as to a node, way or relation by identifying it by number (please get into the habit of this, as changesets contain many elements), I have no idea about which park or beach you might ask me to discern.

Relation ...331 remains, ...427 was deleted.

Now rendering, let's see if I got it right, though the renderer is only an aid, not the ultimate authority on whether or not the data are correct.

There are two relations, 9415427 and 9415331. This is likely incorrect and an oversight, I am examining both how best to conflate both relations into a single one and how to tag it with your concerns. It appears the northerly one is colloquially known as "Santa Maria's Beach" and while it isn't part of Rockview Drive County Park, the two polygons that make up Santa Maria's Beach (one seems to be correctly tagged beach, one is tagged leisure=park, yet is on a beach).

As my county parks department calls this a park, and I and hundreds of thousands of others make it their job to channel what people live and visit here want, I accede to their nomenclature by tagging this a park.

I understand you wish for there to be a wholesale conversion of potentially every park in California to not be tagged leisure=park, yet you have not proposed any plan to do this, an ad hoc approach must suffice unless and until you or somebody does.

Stand by, I am now considering some edit choices which I hope will clarify and improve.

I disagree (that it needs to lose the park:type tag). Can you offer some (wiki?) documentation about the park:type tag that would support your assertion?

And exactly where is the boundary between Black's and Lincoln? Many (I've been there and asked people) conflate the two and also disagree with you that Black's and Lincoln are "separate." My sources are based on local knowledge. What are yours?

Multipolygons (and their complexity) are necessary to describe complexity. To simplify them into "unnecessary" relations (which is plainly wrong, as relations are the proper and supported data structure OSM uses to do this) would be vandalism, as it would destroy the richness now captuted in the data.

Offer constructive, specific criticism, and the community will consider your proposal(s). Simply crying "wrong" will get you nowhere.

What "whole thing"? I have tagged WHAT as a beach? Be specific (as to a way # or relation #) and this community will (better) know what you are talking about.

Where does it say we "can't use a park:type tag" on what hundreds of millions of speakers of American English mean when they utter the word park: "a large area of land kept in its natural state for public recreational use." THEN there is what OSM believes/asserts/states/tags/documents, yet I have no idea of what you speak.

Your sense of "nonsensical" does not seem to acknowledge that American English's definition of park includes these. How we tag these in OSM in the USA appears to be improving, (though with you it is about as enjoyable as having teeth pulled). Can you (I mean, literally: ARE YOU ABLE TO) make constructive, specific improvement recommendations here, or do you simply wish to bullyrag a decade of tagging parks in the USA with nothing to show for it instead of a pile of insults?

If you don't know ("relation or something") or can't articulate what is wrong, with specificity, I'm not sure you can complain about it, say it is nonsensical or assert what it "should" be.

Twin Lakes State Beach has (at least) three distinctly-named beaches: Seabright Beach (between San Lorenzo River's cliffs and west of the Harbor), Twin Lakes Beach (distinct from Harbor Beach, which is east of the harbor and not included in state jurisdiction, so OSM maps this exactly this way) and Black's Beach/Lincoln Beach (one or the other might become an alt_name or loc_name, there is endless discussion about this, often on this beach itself about what it is called).

Be careful that you don't smear together TLSB with Twelfth Avenue County Park (a beach which might appear to be part of Black's/Lincoln's, but it isn't) or Thirteenth Avenue County Park (ditto).

Please describe how you are doing "your search," as it might be Nominatim, an overpass-turbo query or a download of OSM data, all of which return what I (and others) consider correct-as-entered (and as of today) data: there ARE four beaches here, as I describe above, though it may be three, with one having two apparently unresolvable names.

Please further articulate why you believe "there should only be one," as I don't understand what about the current tagging doesn't reflect how the beaches are named, how their jurisdictions vary (there are also local and federal parks around here named "Twin Lakes") and that there is a group of them with operator "California Department of Parks and Recreation," quite sensibly.

No, what you call "the beach area" is the "southern polygon" of this STATE PARK (what I and locals call it, the Department of State Parks and Recreation names the whole a State Beach, though only a small fraction of it IS beach), a very carefully constructed polygon made of of no less than eight ways and even other multipolygons due to its complexity. It believed to be the legal delineation of the State Park jurisdiction/boundary, but it is absolutely NOT (as you assert) all beach. So no, it should not be "tagged as a beach," except where it is.

Again, I hear no constructive criticism about how this might be better tagged (and you get wrong many facts about it and its history, reality and the correct tagging that exists here today), instead you assert "unnamed park" (false, it is part of the state parks jurisdiction) and seem to assert that "grass makes" (the Lighthouse area) a "park." You are non-specific about exactly "what" should be a separate area; there are many "separate areas" tagged in this multipolygon, all believed correctly. Posit a legitimate, specific proposal for improvement and the community will consider it.

Another false assertion of yours: the area is not "made up," it (largely? recently? I haven't checked in a while) it derives from CPAD polygons (or should). Read our county wiki. And learn (by listening/reading what has existed for years).

You likely don't know the history of this, it was going to be converted into a giant resort hotel, but locals demanded it become a park, so it did.

You likely also don't know that there is a sliver of county beach, independent of the state beach (known as "Its Beach" with no apostrophe) where law enforcement by state park rangers about nudity (at Its, where nudity is legal) has tried to cite people for it (nudity is not allowed on state beaches but is widely practiced on Santa Cruz County beaches; OSM often tags this where the nudism tag is used). The existing tagging is accurate as to where the boundary is; in 2012 I used a GPS on this beach to determine that this OSM-entered boundary quite accurately follows the sometimes rope-delineated boundary that the county and State Parks sometimes erect to show this. Many beachgoers that day watched as I did this (as GPS was not common then) and later told me that rangers and sheriff deputies who were told of this accuracy wanted to know the source of the data. "OSM" is what my friends told them. Once again, OSM builds communities with accuracy and good tagging.

I don't know what "same for this one means," it is an incomplete sentence about an apparently incomplete action. WHAT "one"?

BTW, please don't use Google (maps or StreetView) as a source for data which enter OSM: that is a violation of our Open Database License (ODbL), which you agreed to in the Contributor Terms when you joined OSM.

I'll say it again as the "front page" of our wiki does: two (official?) rules of OSM are 1): Don't copy from other maps, and 2): Have fun!

You are welcome; thanks for the positive experience and making our map better.

Nope, you assume wrong. This is tagged boundary=national_park because it is a state park, and as states are sovereign in the USA. This is a well-established practice on state parks (and other state lands), especially as they have "equivalent or better protection to national parks," as it has stated in our national_park wiki for years. Please read it (listen).

Thank you for sharing your opinion, but there is nothing "crappy" about this edit. You appear to not be able to offer constructive criticism, instead insulting, berating and assuming. Perhaps you will learn "you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar."

There is no documentation anywhere that says your "instead of" premise is the correct way to tag it, in fact it would fly in the face of many years of documented tradition in OSM. Do recall that boundary=protected_area is a relatively recent tag and its established use on state parks in the USA (or anywhere) is poorly established and a long way from wide consensus. However, as I listen to you to make a case or argue for that stance, while instead you don't — you insult, berate and assume.

I frequently hike here, I've lovingly mapped this park (which is what EVERYBODY here calls it) for a decade and you are the only person who has ever said anything about is is "crappy." Why is that?

It was published by the Santa Cruz County GIS department circa 2009. Please read our county wiki for further history and the reasoning behind this, where Quaker Center is mentioned by name. After a 2009 hike consisting of user:nmixter, userApo42 and me, nmixter's import of SCCGIS's landuse polygons and userApo42's import of state parks, I began to improve both (as did they and other OSM volunteers) and our wiki was born to document what was going on in the county.

In 2012, Santa Cruz County won a BestOfOSM.org Gold Star award, one of the few places in North America to enjoy this accolade, where the site notes Santa Cruz has "near perfect landuse!" This wasn't just me (or Apo or Nate), many Santa Cruz area OSM editors stand on many people's shoulders as we enjoy this recognition.

I'm curious from where you obtained the address of this house (way/35263575). The address is actually 2-3920, not 23920, following a long-standing post office convention in the area when Cliff Drive was split into E Cliff (mostly) in the unincorporated county and W Cliff in the city of Santa Cruz. (Of prefixing addresses on E Cliff with 2- before a further number, which was the old address).

I ask as it is possible your source is incorrect and it may be possible to correct.

Yes, LMCNR being tagged natural=wood does make this polygon redundant, especially as our County wiki makes this clear. However, not everybody reads our local wiki when editing locally (especially Helmchen42, who I believe is in Germany). Ideally, there shouldn't be "local conventions" but rather "everything in OSM is the same all over Earth." That's a lofty goal, though, and Local Conventions inject opportunity to dribble a bit of oil into this sort of squeaky friction. It's not perfect, but it sort of works. BTW, Susan Willats (now retired) was the Assistant Director of TAPS (essentially the campus transportation dept.) and I've had many discussions with her about what we might do on an "amenity=university, but it is heavily wooded: how do we tag?" What we have is what has emerged (and is documented in Local Conventions) yet it still strikes some as odd or in need of fixing, editing or re-tagging. (Especially if they are an armchair-mapper from Germany who simply "flies in" and doesn't read wiki).

Part of this is the (seemingly endless) "landUSE vs. landCOVER" discussion. Landuse (sort of like zoning, how land is both intended to be used and actually used) is not the same as landcover (there are landcover tags, but most people mean natural= (wood, water, grassland... when they say landcover). It's complicated, though it gets better with practice (tagging, seeing rendering, thinking about how tags might or do or don't conflict, seeing what others do...).

You're doing things correctly: send a changeset comment, send a private missive. That's a top-shelf Step 1. SOMEtimes, and yes, it is considered more rude and forceful, I believe it's OK to skip the communication step, assert "I know what's right here, and this ain't it" and edit away, usually by deleting someone's work. However, I caution you this is bold and assertive and people will likely "come after you" if you do this repeatedly with little practice or decent social/writing skills to "talk your way out of it." (The project really does recommend communication first, not all do, especially the grizzled long-timers, like me. That's dangerous on my part as it looks like I think I'm better than others, and I'm not). Be aware of those dangers and do your best to communicate first.

All that said, I deleted that polygon, withOUT talking to Helmchen42 (I've seen his work before, and done this before, but best not say I do that very often out loud).

Keep up the good communication and good work, OSM needs all the GOOD volunteers it can get!

Steve