[Talk-ca] Beginner questions

[Richard Weait]

On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 2:26 AM, Frank Cox <theatre at melvilletheatre.com> wrote:
> Is this the right place to ask beginner questions?

[ ... ]

Sure!

> As some of you already know, I have decided to make an effort to get my town
> (Melville, Saskatchewan) on the map.  I have made a start, playing with JOSM
> this afternoon, outlining this and labelling that.  This is obviously something
> that can burn a lot of time, but I had quite a lot of fun fiddling around with
> this and intend to continue with this little project.

Yeah.  Most of us get caught be that.  It is fun.

> I currently have a couple of questions for folks who know a lot more about this
> than I do.
>
> First, with regard to street classification.  I see, among others,
> highway-tertiary, highway-unclassified and highway-residential.

unclassified and residential are the same thing, except residential is
for residential areas.  Anything less-important would be an alley or
driveway (highway =  service) or something-not-a-street.

> What
> classification should the streets in a town's commercial district be, i.e.
> something like "Main Street"?

There should be no harm in making Main Street more prominent, even if
it is not a strict match to the classification guidelines.  Try to
consider the town as a whole, and look at nearby or distant towns for
inspiration.

> These streets don't really go anywhere other
> than around the commercial district, so they're not exactly a route to anywhere
> else, but they're not residential because it's a commercial district, and
> they're not unclassified because they are the major streets in town.  So...
> what should I call them?
>
> On a related note, sometimes streets that are commercial on one end turn into
> residential as they go further along.  So how do I classify that?  Make two
> separate nodes, one for the north end of the street and one for the south end,
> and label one residential and the other whatever you tell me in answer to my
> first question above?  Or something else?

Make two separate 'ways', one residential and the other unclassified.
You might find it easier to make one way, add the name=, and the
highway=, then split the way where the classification changes, and
update the highway= tag on part you split?

> I seem to have somehow ended up with duplicate streets, side-by-side.  So the
> obvious fix would probably be to delete one of them, leave the other, and name
> and classify the one that's left.  Is this correct?

Somehow?  Might you and another mapper have been editing at the same
time?  What else might it be?  Normally, if you add an object once, it
only gets added to the database once.

> How accurate should I try to be with my building outlining?  I'm not much of an
> artist, so sometimes my rectangles aren't particularly rectangular.  Is this a
> problem or is the software smart enough to know that close enough is close
> enough?

You'll get a feel for it.  Also, editing software can help a little.
Try the 'orthogonalization' key.  Draw a rectangle, then
orthogonalize, the software will "square up" the corners for you.  Try
zooming in a little further when you want to work on a detail.

I see that you mapped the theatre and garage.  Looks like the garage
got a little messed up; instead of being rectangular, it is a thin
"L"-shape.  Perhaps you accidentally moved one corner beside it's
opposite?

> Also, how do you find the detailed information on the web page after entering
> it?  For example, if I add a website or contact information to a building node,
> how can I read that information if I go to the openstreetmap.org website and
> search for my town?

Use the search box on the left hand menu.  I just looked for, and
found the right answer:
"Melville Theatre"
"restorex, melville sk"
"Flamingo Restaurant"  - 2 answers returned

Is that what you had in mind?