Please, make clear that notes are produced by Mapbox

[matkoniecz]

Typical note: https://www.openstreetmap.org/note/2885624

Could anyone check access this road please for drivers

Please, make clear that this notes are created by Mapbox employees.

For example include "Note created based on an anonymous report send to Mapbox"

For comparison https://www.openstreetmap.org/note/2884433 :

Forwarding anonymous report from #Mapy.cz user, please verify: Right address of Bank nowy is 'Tysiąclecia 3'. https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/180106997

PS Would it be possible to include context making this notes actually useful? For example report actual problem - is road fully gone? oneway? under construction? gated? All this situations would be handled in different way by mappers and different methods can be used to confirm note or close it as invalid. Or even include also a link to a photo of situation - that could allow remote fixing in many cases.

Right now usefulness of this notes is low, and amount of them is really large.

PPS Feel free to close this issue once new notes start being marked as coming from Mapbox, problem of missing detail can be discussed in a new issue if needed.

[SomeoneElseOSM]

In addition, at least in England a lot of these notes were added by MapBox employees or agents where there was clearly no expectation of public vehicular access (e.g. private service roads). Where there's no public access a note is literally useless - there is no way that a local mapper can survey the area and act on the note.

I get the impression that whatever router MapBox (or their customer(s)?) are using is broken in expecting to be able to navigate through service roads in England.

[matkoniecz]

Additional info: you can see amont of them on https://resultmaps.neis-one.org/osm-notes-country?c=United%20Kingdom https://resultmaps.neis-one.org/osm-notes-country-custom?c=United%20Kingdom&query=open

See also https://www.openstreetmap.org/note/2885746 - it appears that Mapbox employees forward all notes instead of only ones providing detail what is going on.

@SomeoneElseOSM What is your impression of usefulnees of this notes in UK? Is note of https://www.openstreetmap.org/note/2885620 type typically correlated with something mappable? Or is it primarily discouraging people from using notes at all?

[vladaboitsik]

Hi @matkoniecz and @SomeoneElseOSM ! We agree that OSM Notes should have more detailed info to be more useful. Also we'll start to add our project hashtags (ex. #mbx_uk_editing) for notes to make it more obvious that a note was written by Mapbox workers. As for multiple feedback in UK which is not useful, we'll reconsider our workflow and not leave a note without any useful details which can help to local mapper resolve an issue.

Thanks for your feedback, we are always open for your comments.

[matkoniecz]

mbx_uk_editing

Can you use something less cryptic and actually connecting notes with company? mapbox_editing would be much better - uk is obvious from location.

An mbx is rather about motorcycle than about Mapbox ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MBX ).

Please, use recognizable name not some cryptic form not understendable by typical person encountering it.

[SomeoneElseOSM]

@matkoniecz Most of the MapBox notes in the UK don;t appear to be in any way useful. Typically they say that a "driver" (of what never seems to be said) experienced a problem at a location. The problem never seems to be described. Often the place corresponds to a service road, which is somewhere where you would not expect public access in the UK.

Looking at e.g. https://www.openstreetmap.org/note/2885620 , the Mapbox employee or contractor adding the note seems not to have done the most basic level of investigation about what the problem might be that might help a local mapper. In this case an unclassified road with a maxspeed of 15mph suggests that either (a) the maxspeed is wrong or (b) it's a service road. If I'd received a report from a driver about this I'd have asked them to desccribe in more detail what the actual problem was (if possible and legal, a photo would be great!), and what they actually saw when they were there. Failure to do that is basically just asking the OSM community to "crowd-serf" for MapBox.

We'll look forward to your more detailed notes in future (and please - no more notes saying that a driver could drive down a road where it is actually a service road, or actually tagged as private).

[vladaboitsik]

@matkoniecz I just suggest to use the same # which we're using according our Organised Editing Activities, it will help to divide notes according to different editing projects, moreover not all of them is done according to driver's feedback. Let me know if you're not agree with this approach by some reasons.

@SomeoneElseOSM could you please let us more reasons why we shouldn't left a note on roads which is tagged private when a driver report that it's routable? Are there any evidence that there's no chance on changing situation on the road or just a mistake?

[SomeoneElseOSM]

@SomeoneElseOSM could you please let us more reasons why we shouldn't left a note on roads which is tagged private when a driver report that it's routable

If a driver has reported that a a private road is routable, then either (a) your router is enabling routing on private roads in error, in which case you need to fix the router that you're using, or (b) you're deliberately treating private roads as "access=destination" (entirely possible, if you're trying to handle the "last mile" of deliveries), in which case adding an OSM note is inappropriate - it is likely that no OSM user will be able to go up the private road to investigate and resolve the note.

The notes left at https://www.openstreetmap.org/note/2885785#map=17/53.39560/-2.93665&layers=N suggest that the problem is actually (a) - no amount of OSM notes will fix bugs in whatever software these drivers are using!

[vladaboitsik]

@SomeoneElseOSM In this particular case, we agree with you. I was wondering just in general. Thanks for clarification now I see what you mean and will give more feedback and guidance to our team about leaving notes.

The notes left at https://www.openstreetmap.org/note/2885785#map=17/53.39560/-2.93665&layers=N suggest that the problem is actually (a) - no amount of OSM notes will fix bugs in whatever software these drivers are using!

[matkoniecz]

I just suggest to use the same # which we're using according our Organised Editing Activities

In such case I would suggest changing it everywhere. Though that is likely also out of scope of this specific issue, I will open a new one.