[Talk-GB] Problems with "armchair" edits of major road junctions in England

[SomeoneElse]

There has been a large series of recent edits to major road junctions 
across England such as:

http://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/21125717

There have been about half a dozen by the same mapper near me (I'm in 
North Derbyshire) which are problematical for a number of reasons:

a) Bus routes are broken (ways are deleted and new ones added, and route 
relations not updated)

b) non-highway tags such as "sidewalk" and "lanes" are missed when 
replacement ways are added

c) roundabouts are inevitably drawn so that the entry node of one road 
is shared with the exit node of the next.  These may be correct in some 
cases, but in all of the places it's been done near me it isn't.

http://www.openstreetmap.org/edit?editor=potlatch2#map=19/53.79430/-1.62130

shows the effect, actually after another mapper has done some tidying up 
there.  It doesn't look to me that you can get from the southeast to the 
southwest there without going on the roundabout (and that picture also 
shows broken bus route relations and a random unjoined untagged way 
http://www.openstreetmap.org/way/266435029 as well).

d) The roundabouts are often drawn to look "artistic" rather than to 
actually reflect the layout suggested by the underlying GPS traces.

e) Roads have flares added where in reality the carriageway is not divided.

I'm mentioning this here because my attempts to contact the mapper 
concerned over the last 5 weeks or so have failed.  I've messaged them a 
couple of times and had no reply, so I'd suggest that people keep an eye 
out for well-meaning but damaging edits such as these. Lobbying for a 
block may be one option, but it would surely make sense to try and talk 
to them first.

Cheers,

Andy