Checking the source of a trail / road

General talk
1

Hello OSM community,

I’m new here, but I’ve used OSM a lot when traveling and hiking. A location that I’m interested in has several trails marked in OSM. Judging from topography, pictures and other information, these trails most likely do not exist. It’s possible that they were imported from a very inexact source, or maybe someone just walked there and uploaded their gps track. Is it possible to find out what’s the source, and if possible, contact the uploader? One example of such track is below:

http://osm.org/go/Jazm~39

Thanks a lot,
Michal

2

Yes: First you would check if the object has an source-Tag, so you directly now if it’s imported (at least if the creator added that tag). A more detailed way is to look at the object’s history: Some editors (i.e. JOSM) allow you to view it, or you could enable the datalayer on osm.org (click “Layers” on the right and then something like “Show Data” (the second of the two checkboxes on the bottom)), click the object and on the bottom of the left sidebar “Show History”. For the example given, you should end up with this site.

3

For contacting and history (which might already provide the source) see the info at https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/FAQ#Another_user_has_changed_something_I_edited._I_think_they.27re_wrong._How_do_I_contact_them.3F (nearly what rayquaza describes)