[talk-au] How to tag a non-existent road

[John Smith]

2009/10/25 Graeme Wilson <wanderer55 at live.com.au>:
> I would rather that we don't have non existant roads on OSM.

I'm sure we all have things we dislike about OSM.

> Twenty plus years ago, I heard a comment that maps had deliberate errors in
> them so that the mapmakers could find if others were copying their work.

This has nothing to do with copyright, it has everything to do with
seeing roads blanks on OSM and non-blanks on other maps and wasting
time trying to constantly re-map non-existent features time and time
again.

In this instance we are trying to determine if something is blank
because it hasn't been surveyed or because it's truly blank.

<snip>

> Two of the greatest, most hair tearing and frustrating things that can
> scuttle my driving plan are non existant roads and no through roads that are
> not marked as such.

This is exactly what we're trying to address, showing others the
difference between non-existent and non-mapped.

<snip, snip, snippity snip>

> So, my bottom line is: Don't have non existant roads. OSM is a street map
> displaying roads that do exist!

OSM is a lot more than what is only rendered, just because the data
exists doesn't mean it should always be rendered or will be useful to
everyone all the time, and this is one very good example of where OSM
becomes very useful to a diverse group of people.