Why are my changes not showing?

General talk
1

I wanted to add my home street Parkvägen in Luleå, Sweden. http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=65.5743&lon=22.0908&zoom=16, but I only managed to get fragments of the street to appear in the maps.

Using the Beginner’s Guide, I was able to record a GPS track, edit using JOSM (unfortunately the start documentation directs new users to this editor) and also in the Flash-editor at www.openstreetmaps.org . I added nodes and connected them (confirmed it, they seem properly connected) and set attributes highway=residential, name=Parkvägen Still it did not result in a connected street, only fragments (or maybe the fragments were already put there by some other user).

I got a response via the Wiki, that “this behaviour could be because the map tile hasn’t fully re-rendered yet their is a way to force render update using information freeway web page, go on zoom level 12 and press ctrl+click on the tiles to be updated”. I tried this about 24 hours ago, but still I see no change of the map.

What is wrong?

P.S.
Perhaps there should be a link to forum.openstreetmap.org from www.openstreetmap.org . I could not find it, so ended up posing my question in the Wiki - and feeling stupid about it.
D.S.

2

I looked at your street and found that many of the ways do not have highway:residential. Edit again and make sure that each way is tagged.

3

Buadhai is right, you’ve not tagged it correctly.

The tags for linear features, like roads, are added to the way in question, not the individual nodes that comprise the way.

Hope this helps.

4

Thanks for helping out; I finally managed to put in all the little attributes required, after figuring out how to do it in the Flash-editor.

IMHO the learning curve of OpenStreetMaps is a little steep…
I cannot really do this (too time-consuming), and I think I will be lost also the next time (in some months) when I realise something is missing.

I can only contribute a few thoughts how OSM could be less daunting for new users and seldom-users:

  • the getting started guide should not mention JOSM, instead direct to the Flash-editor as the first place to go (sorry I lost track of the inroads that I followed, so do not know exactly where I was mis-directed). The point that the ways must have proper attributes could be emphasised more, since the nodes are the obvious entities for a new user to interact with.
  • www.openstreetmaps.org should have a direct link to forum.openstreetmaps.org, so that new users can get help
  • a wizard interface would be so much easier to understand for new or seldom users, like this:
    Task: Add a Way
    Way type: (drop-down list)
    Name of way: (text)
    GPX file: (browse)
    [upload] → open map in Edit mode, ask user to draw the nodes
    → auto-fill whatever attributes are needed for the ways (and maybe also nodes?)

Greetings to Isan (Buadhai)!

5

You’ve still left the tags on the nodes, which is superfluous. :slight_smile:

OpenStreetMap can be a time consuming activity this is true. However the creation of free geodata is rewarding in many ways. I’d suggest you stick with it, slowly at first. I started in 2007 with a few small edits here and there.

6

Yes, stick with it, you’re over the steepest part of the learning curve. A whole new world will open up for you.

7

Definitely agree with Treadly.