Proposal for guidelines for the management of reporting errors or missing elements

It appears that others have contributed to Clarification on note handling and resolution guidelines but maybe you were unhappy with the discussion there and are now starting a new one?

My opinion is:

  • Notes that point out “missing” things are generally not recommended. They may be used, sparingly, by people who for some reason are unable to add the feature to OSM but who still have valuable info. If the fact that something is missing can be easily spotted on aerial imagery and the note does not add more info than “something is missing”, don’t add a note.
  • Notes that point out problems with an individual object are ok if the creator of the note is unable to edit OSM directly. If the creator is able to edit OSM then they should resolve the problem through mapping. Only use fixme tags on objects if you are mapping the thing and want to convey an incompleteness or uncertainty - don’t edit an object just to add a fixme tag. Notes are better for that.
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