I wanted to verify the community guidelines regarding sidewalk tagging on roadways in Germany. In our work in other regions, we have used specific tags such as sidewalk:left=*, sidewalk:right=*, and sidewalk:both=* to indicate sidewalk presence. In cases where no sidewalks are present, we typically use tagging such as sidewalk:both=no, or sidewalk=no.
However, while reviewing relevant wiki documentation for mapping in Germany, we found that the use of sidewalk=no is discouraged, and the preferred tagging seems to be sidewalk=* without specifying left, right, or both in the tag key. We want to ensure our practices align with community standards, so I would appreciate any clarification or guidance on the proper tagging conventions for sidewalk tagging on roadways.
I would like to seek clarification regarding the appropriateness of using sidewalk tagging for living streets to indicate sidewalk presence. In this example, signage identifies the street as a play street, and according to the wiki, the speed limit for such streets is [walking speed](Tag:highway=living_street - OpenStreetMap Wiki. If that is correct, does this imply that play streets are inherently walkable and that additional sidewalk tags are unnecessary? Additionally, any guidance or preferences regarding sidewalk tagging on living streets in general would be highly appreciated by our team.
Ja. Gehweg-Tags sind nicht nötig - aber auch nicht verboten oder gar falsch. Es ist vergleichbar mit oneway=no an Hauptstraßen. Würde ich auch nicht nutzen, da aus meiner Sicht unnötig.
Here’s another exapmle, that highway=living_street can have a sidewalk:*=* of any kind. (And I would not be surprised, if there is a living street with a bikelane somewere)
Our team has a question regarding a tagging detail we observed in the Hamburg area. According to the OSM wiki, the recommended tags for shared bicycle and pedestrian ways are highway=path combined with foot=designated and bicycle=designated. However, we came across examples such as https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/475836759, where the way is tagged as highway=footway with bicycle=designated and oneway:bicycle=yes. We currently have been unable to find any signage for the way in available ground imagery to indicate the use for the path.
Could you please clarify whether this should be classified as a footway, or if it should be updated to highway=path to align with the wiki, given the shared use implied by the current tagging?
From my understanding, while not common at least in Germany, this tagging is an alternative to highway=path with foot and bicycle designated.
You write that you have not seen the traffic sign on imagery, so IMHO you should not touch (“update”) any tags.
Edit: By the way, if you want to visually see what a changeset does, you can use this website: https://overpass-api.de/achavi/?changeset= + ID. You may need to reload a couple of times until it works.
I don’t have enough spare time to review all of the changesets (there are a lot of them) and the high rate of errors is not acceptable IMO. Please stop the coordinated armchair mapping activity in Hamburg (and surrounding areas).
The problems with armchair mapping are summarized on this wiki page. Also keep in mind that armchair mapping can be done at much higher quality than what this team is doing – i.e. without being destructive.
I support this request that Meta immediately stops editing in Germany.
In their Maproulette challenge they write:
Mappers should aim to verify if the foot=no tag is correctly used, reserving it for cases where access on foot or by pedestrians is prohibited (private roads) or obviously dangerous for foot traffic (like when a residential road meets a divided highway)
The italic part of the instruction (highlighted by myself) is wrong. foot=* is an access tag, not a tag to record subjective feelings about danger.
User joxajof is also posing a significant problem in Hamburg. I don’t know if they work at Meta, but they are using the same editor and applying some of the same changes to crossing and signal nodes.
They use non-orthographic imagery with zero effort put in to align things correctly and draw rectangular buildings where they don’t exist. For example here they drew a building over a contruction site added only 12 months ago. After taking a look at a couple of their changesets, they seem to be so bad that I would like them to all be systematically reverted. How can I request that? Should I get in touch with the Data Working Group?
Edit: Yet another one of these new Rapid-using users with lots of changesets is krautjohk. Take a look at this changeset for example, it is utterly wrong.
I am currently investigating the case and preparing a revert. joxajof had their first changeset with RapiD which is a strange choice for newbies. Their changes are interleaved with krautjohk (first changeset with RapiD). By going through some changesets I see:
“aligning” of streets: adding additional nodes into streets where nobody would add them except if they have way too much spare time left
adding building polygons of low quality (rotated, too few details), source Microsoft Buildings
usage of Overture as source (this alone justifies a revert)
Because Hamburg has a high mapper density, I am preparing the much larger revert of all Meta edits in Hamburg. A couple of their users have received user blocks in the past and if I dug deep enough in the forum, I am sure I would find some complaints about their editing.
Unfortunately, this will revert some good changesets by @kadiwa which would create dozens of conflicts otherwise.
While investigating, I found a user called MayDayPiolet. They don’t use the #walkaboutgermany hashtag but their editing pattern looks paid because they have a weekend, use meaningless but long changeset comments in difficult English (LLM?) and edit mainly in/around a few cities all over the world. In order to keep my revert easy, I will include those remote mapping because in case it was reverted by kadiwa. (In addition, using RapiD is a sign of a lack of care on user side)
Here are is another cases of Meta’s poor editing quality (for the record and future reference):
Aktueller Arbeitsstand beim Revert (noch nicht hochgeladen!):
Der Revert ist selbst für meine Fälle außergewöhnlich. Er ist recht groß. Das liegt nicht an den 48 Usern, deren Änderungssätze revertiert werden, sondern an der Menge der Änderungen. Momentan ist es eine mittlere fünfstellige Zahl an Objekten. Da die Gegend (Hamburg halt) viele aktive Mapper hat und es sich nicht um einen Gebäude-Import handelt, habe ich unzählige Konflikte. Ein erster Proberevert offline mit JOSM hat 467 Konflikte gehabt. Nachdem ich noch zwei vergessene Meta-User und diverse legitime Änderungssätze anderer Mapper hinzugenommen habe (siehe unten), sind 151 geworden. Dazu kommen reihenweise StreetComplete-Änderungen, die meist auf mehrere Änderungssätze hintereinander verteilt sind (einer pro Tag) .
Ich habe die Wahl zwischen einem Revert, dessen Konflikte ich in JOSM ob der schieren Menge nicht händisch lösen kann/will, und einem Revert der bei Konflikten entweder gnadenlos den alten Stand wiederherstellt oder die Objekte unbearbeitet lässt. Beides würde zu Zuständen in den Daten führen, bei denen ich nicht weiß, was am Ende stehen bleibt. Das wäre ein Revert, der mehr ein Wisch mit dem feuchten Tuch als eine ordentlichen Reinigung ist. Ich habe mich dafür entschieden, dass ich ausnahmsweise schmerzliche Kollateralschäden an erhaltenswürdigen Beiträgen in Kauf nehme.
Das heißt:
Wenn der Konflikt beim Testrevert mir aufgefallen ist, habe ich mich i.d.R. dafür entschieden, den ursächlichen, legitimen Änderungssatz ebenfalls zu revertieren. Dankenswerterweise haben die Betroffenen Straßen-Edits nicht gleichzeitig mit POI- und Landuse gemacht.
Wenn der Konflikt mir nicht aufgefallen ist, erfolgt am jeweiligen OSM-Objekt kein Revert.
Einige der untergegangenen Änderungen betreffen StreetComplete-Änderungssätze, bei denen Tags an highway=crossing (z.B. kerb=*, tactile_paving=*) ergänzt wurden. Da die zugrunde liegenden Gehwege (von Meta angelegt) oder Kreuzungs-Nodes aber beim Revert gelöscht worden sind, gibt es manchmal auch nichts wiederherzustellen.
Die Änderungen an der Sternbrücken-Baustelle habe ich soeben selber wiederhergestellt.
I will reapply some of the good stuff afterwards.
.
