Almost everything I have surveyed for OSM was collected while going to places I had to go to anyway. I do take different paths every time in order to collect more data, but I haven't yet done a “<dfn title="Going out for the specific purpose of surveying, and picking paths exclusively based on what is missing from the map.">purposeful survey</dfn>”. Among many other things, I have collected partial information about the surface of some streets (ie. whether certain segments are paved or not). However, I haven’t traveled through any of these streets from end to end. I’m wondering how to tag this partial information. I think my options are: 1. If I know the surface of part of a street, mark the whole street as such. Problem: It may turn out that elsewhere on the street the surface changes, so I’d be introducing bad data. I already know of streets that change surface, and more than once. 2. Split the way at the boundaries of my knowledge. Mark only the known segment(s) with a surface tag. Leave the rest untagged. Problem: It will probably turn out that the same surface continues past those boundaries, so I would be doing a lot of useless splitting and re-combining. In the very worst case, I might survey <var>n</var> non-&#x200B;adjacent segments, split the way into 2<var>n</var>+1 pieces, and weeks later find that the whole street had the same surface and combine it all back together. 3. Don’t upload anything yet. Keep the data locally, and only send it to OSM once I collect information for the entire length of a street. Problem: This could take a while. Maybe I’ll never get around to it. Partial information should be better than nothing. I’m gravitating towards option #2, but I’d like <span title="longer-timer than me!">long-timers</abbr> to comment on whether it’s acceptable or not to split ways for this reason. What are the practical consequences of split streets? Are newbies confused by them? Is it “common” for mappers to mistakenly set tags to only one of the segments without noticing it’s split, when it’s data that applies to the whole street? What about all the splitting and recombining, do we really care about too much or useless creation and deletion of elements? Sometimes I’m obsessive about that, and for example, when aligning ways, instead of deleting excess nodes and adding necessary ones, I try to move the nodes already there; even though I rationally know that nodes aren't a scarce resource :) :)

Almost everything I have surveyed for OSM was collected while going to places I had to go to anyway. I do take different paths every time in order to collect more data, but I haven't yet done a “<dfn title="Going out for the specific purpose of surveying, and picking paths exclusively based on what is missing from the map.">purposeful survey</dfn>”. Among many other things, I have collected partial information about the surface of some streets (ie. whether certain segments are paved or not). However, I haven’t traveled through any of these streets from end to end. I’m wondering how to tag this partial information. I think my options are: 1. If I know the surface of part of a street, mark the whole street as such. * Problem: It may turn out that elsewhere on the street the surface changes, so I’d be introducing bad data. I already know of streets that change surface, and more than once. 2. Split the way at the boundaries of my knowledge. Mark only the known segment(s) with a surface tag. Leave the rest untagged. * Problem: It will probably turn out that the same surface continues past those boundaries, so I would be doing a lot of useless splitting and re-combining. In the very worst case, I might survey <var>n</var> non-&#x200B;adjacent segments, split the way into 2<var>n</var>+1 pieces, and weeks later find that the whole street had the same surface and combine it all back together. 3. Don’t upload anything yet. Keep the data locally, and only send it to OSM once I collect information for the entire length of a street. * Problem: This could take a while. Maybe I’ll never get around to it. Partial information should be better than nothing. I’m gravitating towards option #2, but I’d like <span title="longer-timer than me!">long-timers</abbr> to comment on whether it’s acceptable or not to split ways for this reason. What are the practical consequences of split streets? Are newbies confused by them? Is it “common” for mappers to mistakenly set tags to only one of the segments without noticing it’s split, when it’s data that applies to the whole street? What about all the splitting and recombining, do we really care about too much or useless creation and deletion of elements? Sometimes I’m obsessive about that, and for example, when aligning ways, instead of deleting excess nodes and adding necessary ones, I try to move the nodes already there; even though I rationally know that nodes aren't a scarce resource :)

Almost everything I have surveyed for OSM was collected while going to places I had to go to anyway. I do take different paths every time in order to collect more data, but I haven't yet done a “<dfn title="Going out for the specific purpose of surveying, and picking paths exclusively based on what is missing from the map.">purposeful survey</dfn>”. Among many other things, I have collected partial information about the surface of some streets (ie. whether certain segments are paved or not). However, I haven’t traveled through any of these streets from end to end. I’m wondering how to tag this partial information. I think my options are: 1. If I know the surface of part of a street, mark the whole street as such. * Problem: It may turn out that elsewhere on the street the surface changes, so I’d be introducing bad data. I already know of streets that change surface, and more than once. 2. Split the way at the boundaries of my knowledge. Mark only the known segment(s) with a surface tag. Leave the rest untagged. * Problem: It will probably turn out that the same surface continues past those boundaries, so I would be doing a lot of useless splitting and re-combining. In the very worst case, I might survey <var>n</var> non-&#x200B;adjacent segments, split the way into 2<var>n</var>+1 pieces, and weeks later find that the whole street had the same surface and combine it all back together. 3. Don’t upload anything yet. Keep the data locally, and only send it to OSM once I collect information for the entire length of a street. * Problem: This could take a while. Maybe I’ll never get around to it. Partial information should be better than nothing. I’m gravitating towards option #2, but I’d like <span title="longer-timer than me!">long-timers</abbr> to comment on whether it’s acceptable or not to split ways for this reason. What are the practical consequences of split streets? Are newbies confused by them? Is it “common” for mappers to mistakenly set tags to only one of the segments without noticing it’s split, when it’s data that applies to the whole street? What about all the splitting and recombining, do we really care about too much or useless creation and deletion of elements? Sometimes I’m obsessive about that, and for example, when aligning ways, instead of deleting excess nodes and adding necessary ones, I try to move the nodes already there; even though I rationally know that nodes aren't a scarce resource :)

Almost everything I have surveyed for OSM was collected while going to places I had to go to anyway. I do take different paths every time in order to collect more data, but I haven't yet done a “<dfn title="Going out for the specific purpose of surveying, and picking paths exclusively based on what is missing from the map.">purposeful survey</dfn>”. Among many other things, I have collected partial information about the surface of some streets (ie. whether certain segments are paved or not). However, I haven’t traveled through any of these streets from end to end. I’m wondering how to tag this partial information. I think my options are: 1. If I know the surface of part of a street, mark the whole street as such. * Problem: It may turn out that elsewhere on the street the surface changes, so I’d be introducing bad data. I already know of streets that change surface, and more than once. 2. Split the way at the boundaries of my knowledge. Mark only the known segment(s) with a surface tag. Leave the rest untagged. * Problem: It will probably turn out that the same surface continues past those boundaries, so I would be doing a lot of useless splitting and re-combining. In the very worst case, I might survey <var>n</var> non-&#x200B;adjacent segments, split the way into 2<var>n</var>+1 pieces, and weeks later find that the whole street had the same surface and combine it all back together. 3. Don’t upload anything yet. Keep the data locally, and only send it to OSM once I collect information for the entire length of a street. * Problem: This could take a while. Maybe I’ll never get around to it. Partial information should be better than nothing. I’m gravitating towards option #2, but I’d like <span title="longer-timer than me!">long-timers</abbr> to comment on whether it’s acceptable or not to split ways for this reason. What are the practical consequences of split streets? Are newbies confused by them? Is it “common” for mappers to mistakenly set tags to only one of the segments without noticing it’s split, when it’s data that applies to the whole street? What about all the splitting and recombining, do we really care about too much or useless creation and deletion of elements? Sometimes I’m obsessive about that, and for example, when aligning ways, instead of deleting excess nodes and adding necessary ones, I try to move the nodes already there; even though I rationally know that nodes aren't a scarce resource :)