OpenStreetMap
As you can see in this area (https://www.openstreetmap.org/edit#map=17/33.64045/-112.09096), it appears that every possible feature that can be rendered onto the map has been placed on it… houses, driveways, swimming pools, speed bumps, etc. You cannot barely see anything other than a mass of white dots representing the end of the driveways as they terminate at the houses they belong to (you can’t even see the outline of the houses through all of this unless you zoom in).
Maybe I am wrong, but it just seems like this is WAY TOO MUCH being shown, and it takes away from the true purpose of having a map for people to see the world around them.
Does anyone feel the same way I do about this?
Discussion
Comment from Richard on 20 October 2018 at 17:07
Nah, it’s great. Any halfway competent cartography will only choose a subset of features to show anyway. The joy of OSM is that you can record everything and then a million different maps can be made by choosing which features to depict.
Comment from RMapR on 20 October 2018 at 17:48
I agree with Richard, especially since, it is nowhere near as cluttered when not in editing mode.
Comment from Cambroulet on 22 October 2018 at 00:23
One thing’s for sure it grinds my browser to a halt when opened in iD at that zoom level. I question how many people will find useful the mapping of every single fence, pool and driveway of a mundane suburban development like that. Even if someone needed to know such details pertaining to one particular property, the same information could be gotten glancing at an satellite map. But at least they didn’t map every tree as well ;^)
Comment from GinaroZ on 22 October 2018 at 00:47
I was expecting something really busy but that area is far from being too much, it’s mainly just walls and driveways along with the buildings. :)
Have a look at somewhere like Edinburgh, with walls/fences, gardens, trees, buildings, addresses: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=17/55.95668/-3.20493 or Kelso where someone has added areas covering every piece of tarmac: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=17/55.59851/-2.43446
Although, my only concern about really detailed places is that other nearby places may get neglected (especially if it’s just one mapper) - more people would benefit from two decently mapped places than having one poor and one well mapped.
Comment from omgitsgela on 22 October 2018 at 03:12
I respectfully disagree. While the editor shows a rather complex area, when you go into the rendered map tile, it is quite beautiful and well documented. I believe we should have more data than less, because it can always be filtered out or processed differently, and it adds to the integrity of the map. Micromapping even further than this is possible, but I’m only an advocate of micromapping things like college campuses or public parks, where the features matter to the public at large.
Comment from Piskvor on 22 October 2018 at 11:48
I would say that you’re reaching the limits of iD, the in-browser editor. Mind you, the editor is great (also thanks to recent improvements), but is better suited for smaller edits (zooming in could help?). Try JOSM: it has feature filtering, amongst other things (and can cope with a large number of objects more efficiently than going through the extra abstractions inherent in a webpage). Requires Java though, and has a steeper learning curve.
Comment from LeifRasmussen on 22 October 2018 at 12:34
Is this too much for you? https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=18/55.93698/12.30348
Comment from robbieonsea on 23 October 2018 at 21:23
Probably would be better if all the swimming pools were tagged as private though.