I’m just adding my personal thoughts and methodology for tackling notes since with the high number of notes I think it’s fair to be aggressive.
If a note to add a business is older than 2 years old (especially if anonymous) then I will close it. I imagine a local mapper will only truly know the average turnover rates for shops in their area but I think it’s a good benchmark where I start to doubt the shop would still be there.
Notes that say a shop is closed, I remove the name and change to shop=yes so that StreetComplete (SC) can make it appear as a quest or another mapper will be aware that current data is missing.
Notes that ask for a shop name. I close. We know the name is missing. Not note worthy unless the name is wrong or mistaken noname.
There’s a lot of nodes that have been open for 3+ years for missing data that just hope someone will eventually survey. I’m dubious about their value unless it mentions something not obvious or adds detailed notes surrounding the note context.
I try to do a search for a website or social media page in such cases, and obviously tag any that I find as that helps with future verifiability.
I’ve been going with disused:shop=* for these, and generally leaving the name. If they don’t specify that there’s a new shop then it may just as likely be vacant, and SC prompts for quests in such cases anyway, with an old enough check_date or edit date.
I completely agree with you on this. Either we just close these (especially in the case of anons or inactive users) or put in the time to research what’s there now.
If we know the street name, sometimes I look that up. For the oldest notes (some of which are 5 figures!!!), I think hoping that people survey for a note that’s already been open for half my life is the most wishful of wishful thinking.
Mostly not, but in cases of cafes, restaurants and pubs we have the FSA and if something is missing from there then it is a good indication that the information is correct. It also depends exactly what the note says, e.g. “This pub closed in September 2024” is more precise and believable than “Not here”
As someone who has opened a few of these, I see no harm in them staying open, if the information and question is clear enough. But maybe it depends what the “missing data” in question is. We’re not trying to close all of the notes, we’re trying to improve the map and respond to feedback.
that process sounds 100% fine (maybe I misread the initial description or it was really implying edits based solely on notes?)
depends on a note I guess, I have surveyed for some really old ones. Closing ones pointing important things would be case of metric-chasing making things worse.
On the other hand I closed myself some cases of notes that were pointing missing things of low importance (cluster of 100 notes “landuse=grass here” etc)
In the case of pubs, FHRS can sometimes be taken with a large pinch of NaCl for proper pubs. Only food led pubs are subject to FHRS inspections. A few wet led pubs may still appear due to the ‘substantial meal’ rule during lockdown.
Germany is totally spammed with notes, so consider yourself fortunate in UK.
Was it discussed once to remind users of their own open notes?
Reason is, there are only few notes worth to be open for longer. Most notes are just reminders taken in the field or questions if someone can check something. So gently reminding users of their notes, together with a hint on how to resolve issues (at the desktop, in apps, etc.) might be useful.
My interpretation is that they couldn’t step onto the track because it was behind the gate. It doesn’t give us any information about the track, only that there’s a locked gate to be mapped somewhere (which obviously can’t always be picked out from imagery)
I’m assuming this is a StreetComplete response to explain why the user couldn’t determine the firmness of the track. Obviously there’s nothing about the firmness to be actioned there, but there is some other useful information.
If possible from aerial imagery or other sources, I’d map the locked gate and probably add some sort of access tags to part of the “track” beyond it. Then all the useful information in the note has been used and it can be safely closed.
Otherwise, if it’s been left by a registered user, it would probably be polite to add a comment to the note (which would cause a message to be sent to them) asking if there’s anything they want to map there. If there’s no response after a couple of weeks, I’d say it can be closed.
hopefully I have not made horrific mistakes (usually I am not solving such notes in areas unfamiliar to me but in this case if I did anything wrong review is very likely to reveal it)
It looks like it’s the access road to the electricity substation already mapped at the end of it. I would consider it a plain ole service road. No one should be going down there except people connected to whoever runs the electricity network locally.
