As many of you know, over the last 6 months or so, we have been reimagining what the future of the Tasking Manager could look like for HOT and the wider Humanitairan and OSM communities.

We have taken the time to reflect and consult in an effort to create a new model for Tasking Manager that aspires to get the Tasking Manager back to its community software roots. You can read about the ‘TM Tomorrow’ here to get up to speed and find (or contribute) questions and answers you may also have.

As the next step in the TM Tomorrow journey, we are now looking for an individual who would like to volunteer as a community caretaker for the Tasking Manager and are open to anyone who would like to express their interest in this position. You can read the full position description here >

Position description tldr;
* Expected time commitment is about 5 hours a week.
* Responsibilities include, project direction, roadmaps and issue prioritisation.
* Will be supported by TM Maintainers, hot_tech collective facilitator, and hot_tech in general.

A few questions that have arisen since we first started talking about this idea that may be helpful to those considering expressing their interest (or feedback).

Q: Why are you doing this?
The short answer to this is to reduce our control and reignite the collective. HOT recognises its role in taking primary control for the project in recent years and the effects of this (and recognise those effects haven’t always been positive). While this did allow us to move things forward, we also recognise our control has reduced engagement of our collective of contributors, stakeholders and users. Moving forward, we want to reduce HOT’s control of the project and shift power back into the collective, where HOT serves and supports the collective, rather than substituting it.

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“Cartographic generalization, or map generalization, <…> is a core part of cartographic design.”

Yet it is quite often unknown or understood incorrectly/partly. This article has a pretty good description of generalisation, it’s purpose, history and main operators with some examples of where OSM-Carto is missing generalisation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartographic_generalization

GPS tracks versus image aligned to a surveyed position (cm level RTK) 7 km away - displacement of 20+ meters North South axis.

Surveyed position might have image provider problem, that is, improper stitching and alignment of photo imageries during processing.

GPS tracks has the problems of inherently inaccurate receiver, placement of phone during recording, and possible Kalman filter in the gps app.

Mappers have the problem of not knowing that only JOSM has the imagery alignment database.

Hi all,

Just a quick heads up that MapComplete 0.14 is deployed!

Apart from lots of fixed bugs and performance improvements, a new theme showing OpenStreetMap notes has landed! Especially the filter functionality should come in handy

And of course, there are plenty of (new) themes, such as the street lighting theme (thanks Robin!) or the postboxes and -offices map (by nicolelaine).

And -by now- over 1000 individual contributors have used MapComplete.

Inspired by Yousuke Ozawa’s SatelliteFonts, I wanted to create something similar with OpenStreetMap.

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Ulovka in Planina nad Vrhniko

What’s there

Based on ONOSM

We need an easy way that people can add their business to the map without necessarily having to create an account and having to learn how to edit. One such way would be to add a note to the map but even then for those who don’t know very well how OpenStreetMap works they can make some mistakes by adding a note with no information other than the name (I’ve encountered many notes opened like this), so how could we improve it so that more people can have their business on the OSM? One easy way would be to create a form that would generate a note in OSM for editors to use.

By bringing a simpler design and illustrations I want it to be easy to use and ready for use in mapping campaigns and can be used by experienced mappers or even those who have never had contact with OpenStreetMap but want their business on the map

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There is a Chinese account that has normalized the KFC tag that its changeset boundary is so big recently, which included Taiwan in it. The changeset boundary is so big that makes QA tools like OSMCha not function as expected, probably Overpass API limitation. The reviewer has to manully review the changeset if there is anything wrong. As a Taiwanese mapper I check if he change something inside the Taiwan boundary, and foundout he does what he said. The mapper stated in his changeset comment said he did not touch KFC in the “Taiwan area”, which in my humble option is not quite necessary.

I will recommend that even though the cause is QA tools problems, that can not check edit in a country if it is problem changeset, might be a good idea to avoid such a big changeset boundary. Split the big changeset into a much smaller, much checkable changeset that lets QA tools like OSMCha to function normally. This could avoid potiental disruption. Heavy mappeers could focus on mapping, not changeset comment discussion.

Even though Taiwan is a small place, there are many hard-working mappers that contribute to OpenStreetMap, following the truth to map stuff that exists in front of them, that can be observed by their own eyes. But sometimes we have to deal with people who do not follow the on-the-ground truth, forcing Taiwanese to accept things not observabe on the ground.

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OSM in many areas has a complete street network and has for quite some time. What it is lacking compared to many map sources is a comprehensive POI index. Stores could be there but the data likely is outdated, even then you could have a major chain business that isn’t even shown on the map. So what do we do?

We don’t need some complex editor, just a stripped down editor that can leave a poi and has a search for presets and chains that makes adding one as simple as possible. From there you can add more information but by default it should just show the basics. No distractions and dead simple so anyone with a phone or on the web can easily add a tone of POIs for even a simple quick walk.

Secondly, POIs need to expire and autodeleted; to keep the information from getting stale POIs need to be checked into or deleted automatically after a year if there is no new activity. Mappers should be able to subscribe to an area and get emails warning of pending expiration. The checking API could be open to app developers.

Thirdly, we need a TEMP layer for maps a temp data layer that can be deleted daily that basically is the dumping ground for temporary data such as road obstructions, traffic and events. Basically a meta database that allows apps to share and make use of more realtime data. This can allow for more uses of the OSM map and by contributing to this could reveal closed bridges and other obstructions and improved the map. The more data that is shared between apps the more that can be improved.

Hi folks, for everyone interested in OpenStreetMap’s fantastic road data… I’ve just posted a series of blogs about unsealed roads in Victoria. I’ve pitched it at cyclists rather than mappers to widen the audience, but you should still find lots of interest I hope.

https://little-maps.com/2022/01/12/the-great-vic-gravel-route-exploring-victoria-on-unsealed-roads/

It starts with the question, how far can you ride across Victoria without hitting a paved road? Then displays Victoria’s major ‘gravel zones’, and plots the route that crosses Victoria from west to east which contains the shortest possible distance of paved roads. It’s very circuitous.

A series of supplementary posts expand on the main theme and describe how the maps and routes were made. I hope you find it interesting. Best wishes Ian

Im new to this but find it very interesting…

I often see Nordic pistes on top of already existing way. This is not appreciated. I found a very good tutorial here: https://www.opensnowmap.org/iframes/how-to-eng.html

It adds examples to the “official” docu from here: osm.wiki/Tag:piste:type%3Dnordic

making minor changes to boundary adjustment

To to

A recent id-tagging-schema pull request introduces presets specific to Germany that would make it easier for mappers there to tag schools by type based on locally understood terminology. It’s a great idea, one that hopefully will be extended to other countries like the United States in due time. Some Americans will see a “Kindergarten” preset and intuitively expect a complementary “Elementary School” preset too.

School type presets wouldn’t just be a matter of convenience to mappers. Local maps of the U.S. conventionally distinguish between different types of schools, namely between elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, and colleges and universities. I’d like to eventually see OpenStreetMap-based maps that make the same distinctions.

School classification has long been a tricky subject in OSM. There are at least three documented, machine-readable schemes for classifying schools:

• school=primary/elementary/etc.
• grades=*
• isced:level=*

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As every quarter I’ve updated the contributor statistics in the OSM wiki. The most notable effect is the drop off in new contributors in the 2nd half of 2021, which can at least partly be attributed to the demise of maps.me as a source of new mappers.

This is more obvious when you consider just the new users from this source

Note that the numbers include new users using organic maps, but even that doesn’t change the trend.

See my diary posts from 2020, 2018 and 2017 for more on the topic.

I’m really enjoying contributing to OSM so far.
I’m learning JOSM and adding a lot of data in Alexandria VA. Mainly creating row homes and now adding streets, city and zipcode to houses.
I add house numbers via Street Complete.

I also started a next door group. Hopefully others join! There’s a lot to do.

osm.wiki/Editor_usage_stats has some interesting parts for 2021

• iD use continues to increase by percent (both edited objects and distinct users)
• iD by number of distinct users dropped from all-time-height in 2021
  • end of lockdowns? OSM slowing down? 2018 to 2019 also dropped, this year JOSM edit volume went from 996 million to 905 million edits
• JOSM still used for over 50% of all contributed edits by objects
• StreetComplete is the second most popular editor (by number of distinct users), usage almost doubled
• StreetComplete is still almost not noticeable by edited object volume - 0.8%
  • but last year it was 0.3%, it tripled to 12 million edits
• failed import and its revert is the second most popular editor, by count of edited objects
  • 1.5% of all edits in 2021
  • https://forum.openstreetmap.org/viewtopic.php?pid=760818#p760818 is an example of what was imported
• new editors: Organic Maps
  • ok, “new” as it is MAPS.ME fork
  • and that failed Finland forest import
• MAPS.ME continues to die, also as an OSM editor

Removing private trail from map I am attempting to update the map to remove an area listed as a trail that is not a trail and on private property. My hope is that no one will use that non-trail. I made the changes but not sure how to save them to the actual map..