[OSM-newbies] Starting with JOSM and OpenStreetMap in general

[graham]

Rick Collins wrote:
>  I tested
> it and uploaded a short section of a track as OSM data, however I 
> have not see it appear in the data on the site and I don't see a way 
> to determine the status of my uploads.
> 

I found this confusing when I started. The information is there on the 
wiki, but you have to hunt for it a little.

There are two ways for your data to appear on the maps, once it has been 
uploaded to the database:

1. The entire database is rendered weekly to produce the mapnik rendered 
map (the default). So, just wait (for a maximum of a week)

2. You can request a particular tile to be rendered immediately by 
osmarender by going to informationfreeway.org, zooming in to level 12 
and doing control/click on the tile you want. Requested tiles are 
parcelled out to distributed processors by a system called 'tiles at 
home'. Once a processor has rendered your tile it is uploaded to the 
main system, and is then visible if you select 'osmarender' on the right 
of the map. When things are working well I generally find it takes a 
couple of hours for a tile to be rendered and displayed.

However, there have been some problems with tiles at home since the big 
changeover - some clients seem to be using old versions of the software, 
taking the tiles to render, and returning nothing - and it is a bit hit 
and miss right now; you will also get no warning if it hasn't worked. It 
should be back to normal in the next few days.

If you are just concerned whether your upload has gone into the database 
correctly, a simple way to check is to open josm, load in the raw gps 
file for the area so you establish a bounding box, and hit 'download 
from osm' in the 'connection' menu. You should get a copy  of your 
uploaded ways back from the database.

Regards
Graham