As subject, there apears to be people registering and making a mess of the work done in my local area.
Is there a way to revert the changesets back to what they were to save re-editing everything?
e.g. https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/48337508 - This person has only made two edits since registering, they have removed a lot of important information such as cycle route relations, removal of cycle paths on a very popular cycle route.
Try this
http://revert.osmz.ru/
Web page of the program: https://github.com/Zverik/RevertUI
Or use JOSM editor with “reverter” plugin (for big or complicated data)
There is a revert pugin for JOSM.
However, I can see no obvious malicious intent in the changeset that you quoted, and it has left the cycle route intact.
Also, the first way in that changeset looks as though it might erroneously have been marked as cycle only before.
It seems unlikely that the path would be primarily a cycleway. It is either going to be pedestrian precedence, in which case footway is probably more correct, or it is going to be a parallel cycle and foot path.
I would suggest that one hour is too short a time to escalate after starting the changeset discussion and that, in this case, you need to improve the mapping, rather than revert (e.g. add segregated attributes), upgrade foot access to designated, if foot has at least equal status, etc.)
Er, it’s Derby - I don’t think we need to guess - there are enough local mappers nearby to tell! Previously it was footway / bicycle=yes and then cycleway - telling the difference between those two is usually an “on the ground” thing. If someone who lives there thinks it’s a cycleway then that’s good enough for me!
You’re right that it doesn’t look malicious though - it’s just a new user experimenting how to map stuff. Maybe they’re mapping them as footways because they want Pokemon to appear nearby (in which case a quick word saying “please don’t map for Pokemon Go” might help).
For reverts, I’d personally tend to use the JOSM reverter (on each changeset in reverse order) for things like this. If you’d like someone to help with that ask in #osm-gb on IRC (see https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/IRC - you can connect via the web if you want).
Finally you (and the new contributor, if they’re old enough to be allowed in a pub) would be welcome at the next Derby OSM meet-up (which https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Nottingham/Pub_Meetup§ion=10#2017_Outline_Calendar suggests is 23rd May).
Yes, I actually ride my bike in the area 
Many cycle computers use openstreet for navigation. Quite often the routing will bypass anything classed as ‘Foot path’.
Maybe ‘Path’ should be used instead but thats a huge amount of changes to make if was to cover a larger radius? There is actual paint on the path marking lanes for bikes. Also every other cycle freindly path in the area seems to be marked as a cycle path.
It is days after another user placed random info boards and artwork (with strange names) that don’t exist, https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/PbfootBully - so I was assuming as it’s a new user it was malicious and jumping to conclusions.
I didn’t realize Pokemon could be a reason, therefore I see it could be something to do with that. For example there is definetely no artwork by the name of “Old Ben” in the White Swan beer garden - https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/47950670#map=15/52.9016/-1.5017
I would note that the mapping that you also, partially, removed, by PbfootBully, does look more suspicious. At best that user needs some education. However, even then, artwork could be an inappropriate coding for graffiti, and the routing of paths could be the result of believing the results from GPS in favour of what is already mapped.
(Thinking about this, it could also be an attempt to misdirect pokemons! Maybe they do congregate around public artworks.)
For completeness, the “official” “I’ve seen a problem; what should I do?” advice is on http://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Data_Working_Group *. The first bit’s obviously happened (“please do contact the mapper concerned”) - according to http://resultmaps.neis-one.org/osm-discussion-comments?uid=5200728 , someone commented a couple of weeks ago. They haven’t edited for a while, so it’s probably just best to revert the “random artworks” since (a) they’re all unlikely and (b) several people have suggested that some definitely don’t exist and (c) the mapper hasn’t replied and hasn’t done anything in OSM for a fortnight. I’ll have a go at doing that as time permits, but if someone beats me to that, no problem!
On the path vs footway and cycleway there has been much discussion, most of it inconclusive, over the years about this. I’d personally try and map “what it most looks like”, but many other shades of opinion are available
I’ve reverted the remaining changes and tidied up afterwards. One outstanding question though is the shape of https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/206852990/history - I’m guessing that as it currently is it’s not quite right (and I’m also guessing that the imagery is not up to date and so it needs a proper survey).
I tend to find that using a path is better for cycling, rather than footpath.
Setting as a path allows many cycle specific options used by other maps (OpenMTB, OpenFiets, both of these can be downloaded and used on cycle navigation devices), when set as footpath many routing websites and cycle nav devices ignore these completely or result in extended diversions. I would usually use footpath where it is not shared use.
That is definetely not right. It’s been a while since I’ve been there, but thw SW wood is actually a boundry of trees. Updated the rest of the area as there is much more than shown on bing imagery (which is very very out of date!)
Oh, and many thanks for reverting the changes. Really appriciate the time you have spent looking at these.
That sounds like mapping for the renderer. If the router is not honouring cycling features correctly marked on the map, raise a bug report for the router, don’t change the map to work round the bug.
Oh no, I think this has gone into a debate that I did not itend 
I don’t see it as ‘mapping for the renderer’ - I mapped according to the OSM wiki pages when I was looking up how to map paths with shared use, that info is linked from within the editor.