How do we become more effective in solving notes in Belgium?

Communities België / Belgique / Belgien (Belgium)
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Hello everybody,

According to the official OSM BE members meeting that took place in March 2024 a consensus was reached that it’s still important to focus on resolving the notes in Belgium.
At the end of 2023 there were still 3000 notes open.
Today (23/11/2024) there are only 1067 open notes, thanks to the work of some very active note solvers.

Despite this hard work, there are some (older) notes (sometimes older than 2 years) that don’t get solved. It happens that notes are being reopened and commented without being clear what exactly needs to be mapped.
According to the wiki a note needs to be ‘clear in its message, for example consider that “path wrong” says very little of use, but “The east-west path on the map does not exist on the ground” is very clear.’
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Notes

On top of that in my eyes a note should only treat 1 topic that needs to be mapped.

There are sometimes notes with the message “this street or this square has been refurbished, map everything what you can see on these street redesign plans or on the pictures I uploaded to Mapillary”.

What’s your opinion about this issue?

At the end we all want the same: data and a map that are up to date. How can we improve our way of communicating with each other?

Here are some notes as an example:

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For me, primarily a cyclist and walker, those notes are useful, but in a different way : they provide ‘inspiration’ for locations to include in the itinerary going somewhere. Tend to copy ones where documenting can help to map to Garmin’s Basecamp desktop app, when setting out journey plan along notes, avoiding ways that were recently covered with the two helmet-mounted cameras.

Upon return home first geotag the hand-held single pics and upload, either amending minor points as I go along, or adding to a note, or if larger job place note. Next review the helmet-cam-pics, remove ones looking down or standing still, will add to note that location was visited, and list main points to alter - unless small fry which can be added quickly. Pics are uploaded the night after, and eventually appear in the public view by which time - especially in the fair time of year - pics from several more trips are somewhere in the pipeline.

In addition to the OSM notes maintain a uMap - currently with some of Joost’s NCCN queries, but also items from local news, or seen from the corner of the eye and in need of follow up - which is easy in uMap, as one can edit the description, add Mapillary references . .

A closing note : Antwerpen, where I live, is unbelievably busy digging up roads, replacing utilities : can just about keep up with what goes on, document, find plans to help map, but there is a limit to also doing the mapping - there are other things in life, my aim, then, is to provide the info which can only be gathered on the spot, enabling others to map according to their speciality…

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I would answer the question asked in the post title from the perspective “Why do we focus on resolving notes?”

It shouldn’t be a goal in itself. Yes, going below 1,000, then below 500, then below 250 etc. shows that we worked on something and improved the map, but that’s about it. In my opinion, a note shouldn’t be closed unless the issue pointed out as been fully resolved. Notes inherently aren’t some pollution to the database we need to get rid of ASAP, they’re a way of less experienced mappers to point out issues. So there’s no inherent reason to try to get to as few open notes as possible, as long as they’re being kept open for some purpose.

From my experience, the vast majority of notes can be categorised as follows.

  • Manually added notes (e.g. through the OSM website) which are anonymous. I would treat them as follows: if the information is sufficient (after checking Mapillary, aerial imagery etc.), update OSM; if the information is insufficient, close the note.
  • Manually added notes which aren’t anonymous. I’d treat as follows: if the information is sufficient, update OSM; if the information is insufficient, reply to the note; if the author does not reply further, close.
  • Notes created by applications that do not allow interaction with the author. I’d suggest treating those as anonymous notes.
  • Notes created by applications that do allow interaction with the author (e.g. Geovelo): treat them as non-anonymous notes.
  • Import notes (e.g. from the Toerisme Vlaanderen import): I would not close them until checked by aerial imagery, survey, whatever.
  • Follow-up notes (e.g. for roadworks, traffic management in towns etc.): I would not close them until the plans have been fully executed or cancelled.
  • Notes that require surveying. I would not close these until the location has been surveyed (or e.g. new street-level imagery becomes available, which means someone surveyed the location), but tag them with the proper hashtags.

This boils down to the following guidelines I would suggest:

  • Notes should be kept open for as short as possible. Why? Because the older the note, the higher the chance the information is outdated. Most notes should either be resolved by updating OSM with any source available, or closed if that is not possible. This is the reason I strongly support the initiative to resolve notes. It’s not about the number of open notes, it’s about updating OSM before the information becomes redundant.
  • The exception to the above would be notes that are being used to follow up on specific situations. Notes can be a good platform for doing this, as they’re linked to a specific location and do not require additional accounts apart from the OSM one. They also allow sharing links (e.g. to plans) and images (e.g. via MapComplete).

I am referring to Hans’s notes here, but not solely; various other mappers have created notes that require follow-up. I would not close these without updating OSM, but I do agree with @Thierry1030 that whoever creates the note should clearly state what needs to be mapped.

If you share a Mapillary link to a street in, let’s say, Herentals, I could follow the entire track and map everything from those pictures. Then I could move to a different track, maybe from a different user, and map based on that. And half a day later I’m mapping in Antwerp and have a changeset with 500-1,000 objects. Now, everything I’d have added has its use, but the reality is that no one has time for that. So one should specify what needs to be mapped now; everything else could be added based on Mapillary later.

Finally, regarding the import notes, these sometimes stay open for long as they often require physical surveying. I wouldn’t close them for the sake of closing the note. Things like benches, bicycle repair points and public toilets are generally relatively static and don’t move around every few years.

Again, this is just my opinion about things. I think, if we would all follow the above guidelines, we’d end up with around 100 open notes at any point at most, and those would be notes that require surveying or follow-up.

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I largely agree with @queerthoughts here. A common objection I hear is that “notes are useful and should never be deleted”. However:

  • Not all notes have the same relevance. Announcing a new hospital is not the same as requests to micromap the curve of a footpath in the forest. (Yes, we have that too.)
  • Not all notes can be trusted. People do mistakes, and we occasionally get fantasy notes (example)
  • I personally find it rude when people request surveys which they are not willing to do themselves. More generally, the “survey needed”-thing is a trap: unless someone quickly volunteers to survey or investigate, we should assume that the note will haunt the pile of untreated notes for ages.