I have been following this thread but have not commented on it because my feelings about the FB team’s work are not as strong as Russ’s. Agreed, their work isn’t perfect, there are many errors and missed connections, but overall I think having the new highways in OSM is more important than whether the ways are service, residential or otherwise. I was bicycling on a perfectly beautiful highway earlier today that was tagged residential. It is a wide, two-lane road, with smooth asphalt paving that, to my mind at least, should be tagged tertiary or at the very least unclassified. There are a few homes situated on it but in actuality, it is a high speed connector deserving of a higher classification.
These sorts of errors happen all the time, especially when new mappers are coming up to speed. I look back occasionally and am surprised to see the tagging I applied to certain objects I created years ago; I would never tag them that way now! But to go back and retag all of my older work using my current understanding would be way too much work for little real improvement. Keep in mind that the tagging is only one part, although an important part, of an OSM object’s value. Just knowing something is there is important as well.
To revert all changesets having an import=yes tag would be overkill, IMHO. I’m not sure how best to address the problems Russ mentions. These are serious issues that only the particular volunteer mapper can properly address either by taking more time to read and educate him- or herself, or by asking questions about every object they add to the database. But didn’t we all begin that way?
Respectfully submitted,
Dave (AlaskaDave)