[OSM-talk] Untagged Nodes and Ways

[Andy Townsend]

On 28/01/2017 22:55, Clifford Snow wrote:
>
> iD issue 3806 [2] requested that untagged ways would prevent the user 
> from uploading a changeset. Bryan thought it is fine for user to add 
> an untagged way for someone else to fix. I see his point that they may 
> get discouraged and not continue to contribute to OSM.

Turning that around, can you suggest a way of communicating the fact 
that this is a problem to the user using terms that they'd understand?  
I'd find it difficult to do that.

I fairly regularly talk to new mappers about untagged ways and 
"area=yes" ways (which are the more common example) and have the "if you 
want renderers and routers to know what something is, you need to do 
more than give it a name" conversation.  It'd be impossible to do that 
if they weren't allowed to upload in the first place.

Also, let's be honest - untagged ways aren't a "problem" in any other 
sense other than disk space.  They won't confuse renderers or routers.  
If there are too many in a given area they might confuse other mappers, 
but these other mappers are perfectly free to delete them if they can't 
figure out what they were supposed to be.

Best Regards,

Andy