Hi, while reviewing changes in my local area, I discovered that user Modest7 has been adding tracktype=* tags to lots of highway=track at various locations. I asked him what sources he used apart from the satellite imagery mentioned in the imagery_used=* tag of his changesets. See https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/87236896 for a discussion with him.
I do not believe that one can add reliable tracktype=* information from satellite imagery without having some ground truth knowledge in order to know how to interpret the imagery in that region. Adding estimated tracktype=* does not help OSM on the long term. People how rely on the information (e.g. some wanting to drive or cycle on that track) are disappointed about this low-quality OSM data. Mappers who decide where to map assume these roads to be mapped properly. IMHO, adding fixme=resurvey tracktype will not improve it. Data consumers usually do not use tags like fixme=* In the case of imports (another type of mass editing), we say that an import must not add fixme=* to cover shortcomings of the data to be imported because they usually do not get fixed in a reasonable time. Therefore, I plan to revert these changes. Modest7 does not seem to realise that estimating tracktype from satellite imagery is not doing a service to OSM. I am currently preparing a revert of all additions of surface=* and tracktype=* by him he uploaded since 1 January 2020 [1]. The revert will only edit tags, geometry will stay unchanged. I revert changes on surface as well because that's not very different to tracktype except that it applies to other types of roads as well. The countries which will be affected are: Germany Denmark Turkey United States Poland Ukraine Morocco Czech Republic Lithuania Sweden Norway eSwatini A changeset discussion with him can be found at https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/87236896 Best regards Michael [1] This date is not fixed yet.
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